After Helen drifted into a fitful sleep, Aria sat by the bedside. The silence of the small house pressed in on her. The anger she felt toward the Sinclairs sat like a cold, hard knot in her stomach, but it was overshadowed by a gnawing helplessness.

She watched the gentle rise and fall of her grandmother’s chest. Then she noticed it. The breaths were too shallow, too quick. A faint, unnatural flush was creeping up Helen’s neck. This wasn’t the familiar symptom of her chronic heart condition. This was something else.

Aria’s medical knowledge—a remnant of a past life far more advanced than this one—kicked in. She pressed two fingers to Helen’s wrist and felt the thready, rapid pulse. She gently lifted an eyelid. The pupil was too small.

It was withdrawal.

Cold dread washed over her. She turned to the nightstand, reaching for the small brown bottle of pills Helen was supposed to take every evening.

It was gone.

Her heart didn’t just sink; it dropped. She forced herself to stay calm, her mind racing. She began a methodical search of the room—drawers, closet, under the bed. Nothing. The bottle had vanished.

She gently shook Helen’s shoulder. “Grandma. Wake up. Where’s your medicine?”

Helen’s eyes fluttered open, clouded with confusion and guilt. She avoided Aria’s gaze. “I… I don’t know, sweetheart.”

“Grandma, look at me.” Aria’s voice was firm, cutting through the fog. “Where is the bottle?”

Under that steady stare, Helen’s resolve crumbled. “Jim and Brenda were here this afternoon,” she whispered, the names tasting like ash in her mouth. Jim Tucker was Helen’s son, Aria’s uncle by adoption, though she never called him that.

“They said they’d keep it safe for me,” Helen continued, her voice trembling. “They heard… someone told them the pills were valuable.”

The cold dread in Aria’s stomach ignited into icy fury. The medicine wasn’t just valuable; it was priceless. It was a compound she had painstakingly made using the limited resources of this town, a formula that existed nowhere else on Earth. It didn’t cure Helen’s condition, but it managed it so well that it had given her years of relative comfort.

She knew Jim and Brenda. Greedy, selfish, always broke. They had spent years bleeding Helen dry of her small pension.

“It was my fault,” Helen sobbed softly. “I shouldn’t have let them take it.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Aria said, her voice dangerously calm. She stood up. “You rest. I’ll get it back.”

She didn’t change out of her T-shirt and jeans. She didn’t grab a jacket. She walked out of the room, her movements precise and silent, and left the house, closing the front door softly behind her.

The night air was cool, but she didn’t feel it. The quiet, tree-lined streets of the neighborhood felt alien. The peaceful facade hid the ugliness she was about to confront. Her footsteps were quick and purposeful, eating up the blocks to the Tuckers’ small, rundown house.

She didn’t hesitate at the door. She raised her fist and pounded on it. The sound echoed in the silent street.

A light flicked on inside. “Who is it?” Brenda Tucker’s voice whined through the door. “It’s the middle of the night!”

The door creaked open a few inches, a security chain still in place. Brenda’s face, puffy from sleep, appeared in the gap. Her expression soured instantly. “What do you want?”

“Give me the medicine,” Aria said. No greeting. No preamble.

Brenda feigned ignorance. “What medicine? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Jim appeared behind her, a large man with shifty eyes. He flinched when he saw Aria’s face.

Aria’s patience—a finite resource she saved for Helen and her friend Molly—evaporated completely. She took a step back. Then, with a force that seemed impossible for her slim frame, she kicked the door.

There was a splintering crack as the wood around the lock and chain exploded inward. The door flew open, slamming against the interior wall with a deafening bang.

Brenda and Jim stared, mouths open, as Aria stepped over the threshold. The ruined door hung crookedly on one hinge. Her eyes were chips of ice.

Two children, a boy and a girl, ran out from a back room. Their faces were pale with shock at the violent intrusion.

Aria’s gaze locked onto Brenda. She took a slow step forward, her presence sucking the warmth from the room.

“The. Medicine. Where. Is. It?”