Sylvia had married a man responsible for forced pregnancies between Luxen and humans, nonconsensual mutations, kidnappings, murders, and the subjugation of her own people. Which was roughly around the same time I’d gotten smacked upside the head with the knowledge mother dearest was also a Luxen. The same woman I’d believed to be my mother up until I’d learned I wasn’t really Evelyn Dasher but a girl named Nadia Holliday. Nothing more than a ghost I couldn’t remember, because his wife had shot him. Dasher was an evil man responsible for horrific experiments on both humans and aliens, all in the name of the “greater good.” I’d once been a part of those masses, but I’d since learned the truth. The masses knew him as the fallen war hero, a patriotic icon lost in the war protecting mankind against the invading Luxen. It was like my brain shorted out at the mention of his name. Why was I even thinking about any of that? Someone’s mail wasn’t the most pressing concern. Had the owners evacuated, or were they lost in the chaos that followed the EMPs like so many hundreds of thousands? All were evidence of a life left behind by whoever had once called this building home before the electromagnetic pulse bombs were dropped, rendering the city habitable only by those desperate enough to remain hidden in a dead zone. White envelopes with the word urgent in red written on them. A brightly colored advertisement for a new furniture store opening downtown. Some looked like junk mail from when Houston was a bustling city. I stood there, stuck in absolute disbelief, watching the amber liquid seep over papers littering the floor. The name thundered through the room as I stared at the broken shards of glass from the bottle General Eaton had thrown.

Jennifer armentrout the brightest night