"I am one of them," she said quietly. "I'm Starakian."
I blinked my eyes in disbelief before they widened further in profound shock, my mind struggling to process what she had just revealed.
I looked again at her face and hands. Her whole presence seemed different now that she'd dropped whatever disguise or suppression had been concealing her true nature. The red marks around her eyes glowed with alien energy, and the crimson sparks dancing above her palm pulsed with rhythms that matched no human heartbeat.
I had always sensed that something was off about Wanda—her unnatural calmness in dangerous situations, her strange mannerisms, the way she seemed to observe rather than participate in human interactions. But not even in my wildest dreams would I have imagined she was actually from the alien race that had invaded our world and spread the virus that created the infected.
