When Mara awoke, everything was surprisingly calm. No frosted walls, no frozen bed, and no rubber balls bouncing around her room at what seemed like 60 miles per hour. Today, she was permitted to rest. They were "worried" about her. Mara remembered yesterday. It started like any other normal day, and she never expected anything but normal. Yesterday, her parents were finally satisfied with the consistency and strength of her shield.
Like the little girl she was, she thought that maybe they would let her free like they did Ace. That night, she was strongly reminded why exactly she hated her parents.
They... poisoned her. She didn't need Ace to know that was bad. Just like before, they hurt her with smiles on their faces. It was creepy. Mara was perfectly fine though, much to their delight. Her shield working on the inside the same way it worked on the outside. The only thing was that it gave her night terrors. It felt like how it did when she first felt like when she felt betrayed.
They were her parents, loving her in their own way. She thought they loved her enough, maybe like those fictional parents on her computer. Six years of complacency seemed to have made her too lax. Her body didn't even let the poison into her system, but the little trust she had in her parents broke. Akira and Abel could be murdered in front of her. Mara didn't think she could bring herself to care.