i'll tend to the flames (you can worship the ashes)
Summary:
Lauren had been brought up to care about others, and she did. She cared when someone fell and skinned their knee. She cared when she someone was pushed down. She cared when the 7/15 massacre blared across their TV screen and marked the beginning of the end. She cared even when her parents ushered her and her brother away from the ugly results for the next four years.
She cared, she cared, she cared.
Pity the weak, her mind would whisper. (And you'll never be strong.) Andreas would answer. After enough devastation and death, Lauren relented. She tried to be ruthless, and Andreas approved, and she grew strong, strong enough to protect Andy and the family she had built for them with the Underground.
But she still cared. And now, it might be the death of her.
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The careful grip that Lauren has had on her mind is slipping amidst the onslaught of violence and fear as a full-scale war hovers on the horizon, endangering everything she cares about. Revelations of revivals, hidden safe havens, and the discovery of a weapon so powerful, it could undo reality itself all threaten to crush her as she struggles to keep her family alive.
Her entire family.
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