The rain fell harder. The street was empty except for the two of them and the ghosts of a thousand other desperate souls.
"Who's paying?" she asked.
"I know what it is." He tilted his head. "You were a lab baby, Olivia. ARC Industries. Before they went under. Before they scrubbed the records. That file contains the genetic donor list. Your biological parents. Why they made you. What they wanted you to become." debt4k olivia sparkle
She thought of her brother. Of his smile when he wasn't sick. Of her mother's cracked hands. Of the number on her wristband that had become a second heartbeat. The rain fell harder
The rain over Verance City wasn't the cleansing kind. It was the sticky, electric kind—the kind that made neon signs bleed into puddles and turned every back alley into a mirror of regret. Olivia Sparkle knew regret better than most. "I know what it is
He turned and walked into the steam, and within three steps, he was gone.