Sagas & Sass began covering the Red Rising Saga by Pierce Brown in September 2022; this is our summary of Lyria and Ephraim’s chapters in book 4 – Iron Gold – as they were written to introduce the Sagas & Sass Lyria episodes (63B, 64B, and 65C) and Ephraim episodes (63C, 64C, and 65B) .
AHOY! SPOILERS AHEAD!
Our first new POV chapter in Iron Gold features Lyria, who is a Red andpart of the much-hated Gamma clan. She hails from the mines of Lagalos on Mars…and until she was 16, she thought the sky was the roof of stone and metal that stretched over their mine.
But then finally – eight whole years after Octavia au Lune’s death – the mines she called home were freed by none other than Dancer himself. Unfortunately, things didn’t just work out after that – Lyria and most of her family have now spent two years sludging through life in a so-called “Assimilation Camp”. And WOW it is truly SLUDGING – the camp is muddy, full of mosquitos…just yucky overall, really.
Oh, and the fact that they’re Gammas only makes things worse for them, because of course the favored clan isn’t so favored anymore…which in and of itself makes sense, but as we’ll see soon enough, the Lambdas not allowing them to use the washers in the camp is the least of their worries. SIGH.
While two of Lyria’s brothers and her brother-in-law are off fighting with the Free Legions (and, ya know, hopefully still alive but very possibly/probably not, as last anyone knew they were headed to Mercury), she helps her sister and remaining brother take care of their wheelchair-bound father and her passel of nieces and nephews. So they at least have each other…
Buuuut not for long, because sadly things come to a head for Lyria very soon after we meet her, as the Red Hand descends on their camp with the aim of ridding it of the Gammas once and for all. We even get a brief glimpse of Harmony, who’s still apparently leading these charges. UGH.
When Lyria and her brother go to investigate the situation, he’s gunned down right in front of her, and she races back home to warn the rest of her family. Her sister Ava takes three of her children off to hide, but her fourth child, a boy named Liam who has been blind since birth and is apparently very sickly in other ways as well, is at the infirmary. Lyria promises to go get him, but when it comes to their father, there’s nothing to be done – he can’t move on his own, and the wheelchair will only slow them down.
Lyria understands that she is almost certainly leaving her Da to his fate, and even knowing that he himself is accepting of it of course doesn’t really make the choice any easier. But getting Liam to safety is paramount, so after a quick and tearful goodbye, Lyria rushes to the infirmary, where the Yellows in charge try to insist that the attackers will surely respect the fact that it’s a hospital. Umm, that’s a big ol’ nope, so Lyria tells them they’re ‘bent in the head’ and need to clear out before carrying Liam off.
They’re forced to hide in the camp’s dump, and for a short time Lyria believes they might be okay…until the attackers start a fire to flush out anyone hiding amongst the heaps of trash and then begin to mow them down on the riverbank. Lyria pushes Liam down to protect him and is shot in the shoulder, but as she falls to the ground she sees ships approaching – and from those ships come armored people, one of whom flies straight toward her…
Who is this hero of the ages with orange armor and a helmet shaped like the face of a snarling canine? Well, we only get part of his name, but c’mon now, we’re pretty sure the roar of “-ELEMANUS!” is enough to know – it’s freakin’ KAVAX, y’all!
But then Lyria, who does NOT know who this knight with the canine helmet is, sees him plummet from the sky trailing smoke, only to land in the river nearby and not reemerge. She knows that he’s going to drown unless someone helps him, and when no one else responds to her insistence that he needs help, she dives into the water to do it herself.
Hail Lyria, savior of one of our ultimate faves, amiright?!
Sadly, despite her heroics and the fact that the Red Hand retreats, the Republic forces didn’t arrive fast enough to save Ava, her other children, or Lyria’s Da. When Lyria finds her sister and niblings amongst the dead, she falls into hysterics – rightfully so, let’s be real – and has to be tranquilized.
Some time later, she wakes in a hospital bed and is told that she and Liam will be moved to a regional medical center, but first she receives a visit from Kavax himself!
He’s there to thank her, of course, and to tell her that he owes her a great debt. And despite his bluster, Lyria notes that when Kavax realizes that Liam is blind, he kneels so that he is on the boy’s level, his voice softening as he speaks to her nephew, because again, Kavax is BAE.
But while Kavax gives Lyria a silver fox pin and tells her that if she wants for anything, he and his family will do whatever is in their power to help her, in the end it seems that all he can give her right now are words. Good ones, kind ones, but only words nonetheless…
Until, that is, Lyria takes things into her own hands. She chases after Kavax to beg him to take her and Liam with him – something that he claims is impossible cuz ya know, rules and such.
BUT WORRY NOT BECAUSE NOW IT’S SOPHOCLES TO THE RESCUE! The fox is fixated on Lyria and refuses to follow Kavax onto the ship, and then he suddenly lunges at her and rummages two jellybeans from her pants pocket. Gosh, wonder how THOSE got there? Either way, Kavax insists that it’s a sign, and that Lyria must come with them because she is now a valet of House Telemanus.
And so Lyria and Liam do in fact get to leave Mars behind…and she might be small and the worlds very large, but she insists she’s ready for whatever comes her way…
After being spirited away from Mars by Kavax, Lyria ends up ensconced in the Telemanus household. It appears her main job is caring for Sophocles, while her nephew Liam is in school at the Citadel twenty kilometers away.
And sure, caring for Sophocles doesn’t SOUND like it should be all that hard…but it turns out he’s being kind of a brat lately – he keeps killing the pachelbel birds that flit around the gardens, and when Lyria has him out for a constitutional he slips his leash on her.
Oddly, as she’s running around calling for him, she sees a Gray Warden and a somewhat familiar-looking Copper apparently arguing…and knows she wasn’t supposed to witness whatever she just saw, so the moment she has hold of the fox again she rushes off, intent on delivering Sophocles’s poo to the Telemanus doctor, a Yellow named Liago who is running tests on these samples in hopes of finding out what, exactly, is (in his words) “mangling the fox’s wits”.
(Really, though, the phrase “fox in a henhouse” is a thing for a reason…you’d think Sophocles going after these little birds was actually a normal thing, heh.)
Now, despite being friendly with Liago and even spending time with her fellow Reds who also work for the Telemanuses, Lyria is alone when she heads into Hyperion for her day off, and feels even more alone when she sees all the people in the city who went to school and have skills and can work “real jobs” and afford things, while all she knows is being a servant.
She does try to enjoy herself, even visiting the museum – one that recently suffered a break in, which we’ll get into in a bit – but she soon feels overwhelmed. This is in no small part thanks to the museum’s “Hall of Screams”, an exhibit that’s supposed to honor the Reds who died when the Jackal was liquidating mines on Mars.
Lyria decides to head for a nearby park to clear her head, but along the way she brushes past a Gold woman who suddenly grabs hold of Lyria and accuses her of stealing her bracelet…a situation that escalates SUPER fast, with Watchmen arriving and immediately agreeing to take Lyria into custody – ya know, despite the fact that she doesn’t have any bracelet on her person and DOES have second-class clearance as Telemanus personnel.
A crowd begins to gather as the Gold woman shouts about the streets being full of savage offworlders and how Lyria should lose her job – a crowd that soon grows violent, shouting and even throwing things over what they rightfully perceive as a wrongful arrest.
Lyria, for her part, is full of animal fear as she is shoved into the back of a jail wagon with a drugged-out Pink and a drunk Obsidian…but she’s soon rescued thanks to the arrival of a Gray man who claims that this is all a mistake, because she’s a friend of his. The Gray, who says he used to be a Watchman himself before joining the Sons of Ares, talks them into letting Lyria go.
Once she’s free of the wagon, the Watchmen leave and the crowd disperses, and finally the Gray introduces himself to Lyria. His name is Philippe, and when she tries to pay him for helping her, he says that if she’s going to insist on that nonsense, he would rather she pay him with her company.
They spend the rest of the day eating and drinking and talking, and when Lyria is safe back on the Telemanus estate that night, despite the shitty things that happened that day she’s happy to have finally made a friend. ::HEART EYES::
Not that everything is all peachy from then on out. (Like, lol of COURSE not.) She might be part of the traveling staff of House Telemanus that gets to go with them to Quicksilver’s estate for his birthday party, but Lyria resents so many of the other people who are there…including the Sovereign and her son – even as she feels guilty for that resentment, because of everything Kavax has done for her.
Speaking of Kavax, he pings Lyria to collect Sophocles from the birthday banquet, but when Lyria shows up to do so, she witnesses quite a bit of Important Conversation between the people who have gathered ‘round Quicksilver’s table.
For instance, Victra is there, complaining about socialists, while Daxo is having to remind Quicksilver that monopolies are bad and Virginia is musing over what the twist is in Dancer’s attempt to ratify the peace accord with the Ash Lord.
Before Lyria can hear any more than that, they finally take notice of her and Kavax hands over Sophocles. Once outside, she frees the fox in the garden and sits down to wait for him, thinking she’s alone…only she’s not, and it’s not just ANYONE in the garden with her – it’s Pax! (Ya know, son of the Sovereign and the Reaper.) He recognizes Lyria as “the foxwalker” and asks her to watch a ship race with him, and soon she actually finds herself warming to him…
But that feeling doesn’t last, as Pax begins questioning her about the mines. OOF. He admits that he read her dossier and claims that he wants to understand what things were like…an understanding that Lyria doesn’t think he has a right to, because in her mind, how could a Gold child – and the FIRST Child, at that – ever really “understand” in the first place? So she snaps at him and stomps off, only to have to board the same shuttle as him later.
While the Sovereign and Lady Barca (aka Mustang and Victra) are apparently off to more meetings elsewhere, Lyria sees Pax bid his mother goodbye and is certain he must have told her what happened, which surely means she will be sacked…but as it turns out, this is the least of her worries! Because as their shuttle is on route to Silene Manor, the pendant that Lyria has around her neck – a pendant given to her by her friend Philippe – begins blinking.
And then it opens, emitting a gas that paralyzes everyone in the shuttle before apparently becoming an EMP, because IT’S ALWAYS AN EMP, Y’ALL!
The shuttle plummets from the sky, then suddenly stops for a moment as gravity apparently reverses, before finally crashing into the ground…
Which seems like a good point to travel back in time a bit to when we first met Ephraim, at which point he was stuffed inside a stone box that we soon learn is located in the Hyperion Museum of Antiquities – the very museum Lyria visited on her Hyperion sojourn!
But it’s probably also important to note that Ephraim is connected to the original trilogy by way of his former fiance, Trigg, who gave his life to rescue Darrow from the Jackal at the beginning of Morning Star!
Oh, and Ephraim has a thing for a designer drug called zoladone that jacks up your dopamine and suppresses that pesky empathy trait. Surely that won’t come into play at all later, right? Hashtag sarcasm.
So WHY is Ephraim chillin’ in a sarcophagus in this museum? Welp, turns out that he’s the leader of a group of thieves and was hired to steal a V.I.I. – Very Important Item – from this museum. So he and his crew got themselves snuck in via sarcophagus delivery. Fun times!
Speaking of Ephraim’s crew, let’s go ahead and introduce them!
First up – THE MUSCLE:
Meet Volga, an Obsidian who was apparently born in a lab courtesy of a Society breeding program and loves colorful cocktails and going to the zoo!
Then there’s THE CAT:
Dano is a Red and a former pickpocket. He’s something of a gymnast and likes fliers and Pinks too much to save up for a real future.
Finally, THE LOCKSMITH:
Cyra is one of the few talented hackers still freelancing these days; she’s a Green who likes to live large in her pricey new condo that boasts a server farm in its spare room.
Okay, so! Now that we know the players, let’s get back to the game! Ephraim and his crew move through the museum room by room, with limited time to get through each one cuz SECURITY! And despite some issues with said security – issues that are beyond Cyra’s abilities – they do in fact make it to their goal: the Conqueror’s Exhibit, which houses (among many other things) the razor of Silenius au Lune, also known as the Lightbringer.
And yes, they DO abscond with this treasure – plus, just for funsies, they let the alarm go off on their way out. Shortly thereafter Ephraim hands the razor over to his contact, a White named Oslo, who then tells Ephraim that there will be no more jobs coming his way. And while Ephraim might not need the money, knowing there isn’t another assignment on the horizon leaves him feeling ‘the dark creep of despair’…and then he takes out his sad boi mood on his crew when he meets with them to pay out their cuts of the take. SIGH.
Ephraim continues in sad boi mode, next visiting the bar where he met Trigg…only there are two men in his usual booth, and he’s on the verge of ending up in a fight with them when who should appear but HOLIDAY! The Pegasus Legion symbols on her jacket and the ratty wolfcloak that’s hanging off her shoulder are all that’s needed to chase off the two thugs, but before she and Ephraim can get down to business he has to take care of the fact that for some reason Volga is also there, watching him.
And seriously, poor Volga. She’s been following him because she’s worried about him, but all it takes is Ephraim being a big ol’ asshole and reminding her that they aren’t actually friends to get her to leave. Which, what the hell Ephraim, leave Volga aloonnneee >:(
Anyway, turns out it’s Trigg’s birthday and Ephraim and Holiday celebrate it together – for lack of a better word – every year that they can. But this time things are different, because Holiday is tired of his attitude, knows the sort of illegal shit he gets up to, and doesn’t care for the fact that he turns down her offer of working together to unwind this shadowy Syndicate that’s been mentioned in passing a few times. So Holiday announces that she won’t be coming back next year and leaves him to his vices.
Of course Ephraim pretends that he doesn’t care, but later, as he’s about to make his way home, he finds himself thinking about leaving life as quietly as he left his Society job when he found out that Trigg died…only someone stops him…with a fist to the FACE!
When Ephraim comes to, he’s in the presence of an Obsidian and a Pink who are accusing him of being a THIEF! *gasp* Of course Ephraim denies this…uuuntil the Pink – who, it turns out, is a Syndicate leader named the Duke of Hands – says that he wants his sword back.
So ya know, BIG OOPSIE that the razor Ephraim stole belongs to THIS person of ALL people…but thankfully (we…guess?) it turns out that the whole thing was a ruse to get Ephraim to prove both his thieving ability AND that he’s not a snitch, because they’ve got a MUCH bigger job that they have in mind for him! Granted, he doesn’t actually want to work with or for the Syndicate, buuuut the Duke isn’t giving Ephraim – or his crew – a choice in the matter.
Speaking of his crew, obviously they don’t want to do the job either, and Cyra even suggests that they cut and run…not that any of them but Volga have the money to even attempt such a thing. Plus, ya know, they’d then be on the run from the Syndicate for the rest of their [probably very truncated] lives.
And hey, at least if they pull off the job and survive, they’ll earn 80! million! credits! So even though their actual success is VERY much in question, the game is afoot…
Soon Ephraim and crew are deep into their plans for this big job – plans which include a visit to an old friend of sorts, a Green named Kobachi who runs an emporium that at first glance is legal, but of course has a back room full of the things that thieves need for heists!
Kobachi is both afraid of Ephraim’s proof that he’s working with the Syndicate, and worried for his…well, ‘friend’ might not be the right word, but still. Ephraim insists it’s not a permanent alliance, but Kobachi – even as he promises to give Ephraim what he needs – also reminds him that these types of things are always permanent.
While we technically don’t hear directly from Ephraim for a while, when next we do, it includes the reveal that he is in fact Philippe (or if you’re looking at it from Lyria’s perspective, Philippe is Ephraim)! This reveal comes about in a pretty roundabout/vague way, when Ephraim merely mentions his “first encounter with the rabbit” – “rabbit” being the nickname that Philippe gave Lyria.
Obviously nothing good is going to come of this, especially as Ephraim is waiting for Kobachi to provide him with what he needs before meeting with Lyria again…and in the meantime, Ephraim’s thoughts about her aren’t exactly kind. Her communications with him were, he notes, those of “a child realizing she could mock the world”…but instead of continued vitriol, as Lyria grows more comfortable with him she also grows kinder, reminding him more and more of Trigg.
So what is Ephraim to do but pop a bunch of zoladone and be kinda super rude the next time they meet up? Or at least as rude as he can be without raising any flags; on the one hand he is telling her stories about how children on Mercury fly kites with glass string so they can cut each other’s kites out of the sky, but on the other hand letting the subject drop when it starts hitting too close to home (aka reminding him of Volga, whose name he reveals to her in the midst of this conversation…oopsie?).
At the end of their visit, Ephraim insists that she take his Bacchus pendant – supposedly given to him by his former fiancé – as a token of their friendship…a pendant that we know know is A TRAP within itself. Ugh, ugh, ugh, what the FUCK, Ephraim?
So when that pendant opens, the gas within paralyzing everyone in the shuttle that Lyria is on, and then turns into an EMP that causes said shuttle to plummet into the depths of Hyperion…welp, that was allll Ephraim’s doing.
He, Volga, and Dano cut into the downed ship, where everyone is immobile…everyone but Sophocles, that is! The fox pops up and latches onto Dano’s leg and Dano threatens to kill Sophocles (how dare!). Thankfully Volga steps in and pulls the fox away, throwing him into the cockpit and locking him in there. So like YAY Sophocles lives to see another day!
In order to convince those aboard that it’s the Red Hand who is perpetuating this whole thing, Ephraim orders his crew around in a thick Red Martian accent. And while his accomplices gather up their prizes – Pax and Electra, of course – Ephraim has to find Lyria, because he knows that he can’t leave her alive.
Except when he is finally standing over her, gun in hand, he hesitates, and even when he forces himself to pull the trigger, it turns out that the safety is still on! Knowing that he can’t pull that trigger again, and also knowing that he can’t leave her behind, he picks Lyria up and carries her out of the ship, intent on bringing her with him.
Dano offers to kill Lyria for him, but just then someone emerges from the ship – and IT’S! FUCKING! KAVAX! Y’ALL! While the gas has clearly hindered him, he’s such a giant of a man that he’s not completely incapacitated. And Kavax straight up knocks Dano’s head off (literally, the kid’s SPINE is poking out of his neck! YUCK) before Volga puts him down with a plasma shot.
And yet Kavax is STILL trying to stand, roaring “PAXXX” as Ephraim and Volga board their car and race away.
Before they can truly escape, though, they need to make one stop – a mobile station where Syndicate technicians quickly remove all tracking devices from the two children.
Once they know that Pax and Electra can no longer be tracked, back in the car they go to be delivered to the final drop-off point. Volga lingers for a moment, until Ephraim says her name, calling her back to their totally shitty reality. She glares at him, and he just says, “Fuck you too,” noting that tears are streaming from her eyes as they drive away.
They hand the kiddos over to the Duke of Hands straightaway, but despite the relative success of the job, things go downhill quickly…
Because (a) the Duke immediately starts being gross, smacking Pax around until the kid starts crying, which (b) gets Volga all worked up *and for good freakin’ reason*, with her reaction only being eclipsed when (c ) it turns out that Lyria doesn’t stay put as she was told and instead tries to spy on things, makes a noise, and gets a passel of Obsidians sent after her. And as if ::gestures:: alllll of that wasn’t enough, the Duke has taken Cyra captive and had her brutally beaten, because apparently she offered to spy on Ephraim!
Gotta give Ephraim props, though – Cyra might have tried to betray them, but he still implores the Duke to let her go. Which the Duke does…in the sense that he lets her go right off the balcony of the highrise. Sigh.
The Duke does try to offer Ephraim some sort of future employment, but Ephraim is ready to take Volga and get away from Luna. He’s chartered a private shuttle to Earth, where he hopes they can disappear…but when Volga once again gets emotional over what might happen to the children, of COURSE Ephraim picks a fight with her because that’s what sad bois do.
And this time, he finally goes too far. Volga leaves him – though not before tossing his zoladone dispenser off their hotel room balcony – and later, she doesn’t show up for their trip to Earth…
Okay okay okay, mayyyybe she might have actually shown despite their argument, but it turns out there’s more at play here. In fact, we find out that Volga has actually been taken into custody when some other people show up instead: Holiday…and…Lyria?
Soooo yeah, remember when we mentioned that Lyria was kinda caught spying on Ephraim handing Pax and Electra over to the Duke and had a bunch of Obsidians sent chasing after her?
Well, she dived into a ventilation duct to escape them and made her way out into the streets of the reconstruction zone far below. And she’s, well, not feeling too great about herself, because all she can do is think about the fact that Kavax was killed, worry that they’ll kill the children too, and believe that she is poison…and that she was stupid to trust a Gray.
She does have Philippe’s pistol, but she also has no idea where she is, and when she tries to ask directions from some vagrants they attack her. Thankfully that pistol comes in handy and Lyria is able to get away, but the Obsidians are still on her tail, so she finally decides to climb a very, VERY long stairwell up to the more populated part of the city.
Lyria knows that she could try to run, try to disappear, but she also knows that if she does, she’s no better than Philippe – and she is also worried about what might happen to her nephew Liam. So she does the BRAVE thing – the RIGHT thing – and turns herself in to some Watchmen.
Once in custody, Lyria languishes for a while until Holiday shows up to transport her to the Citadel. Along the way, though, Victra pays a visit – clad in FUCKING PREGNANCY ARMOR and ready to FUCK SHIT UP because damn right, SHE WANTS HER DAUGHTER BACK!
For a minute it seems as if Victra will in fact get her hands on Lyria – but then their transport is surrounded by Augustus vessels and dozens of armored people – and at their head, a huge woman in pale blue fox armor.
NIOBE! AU! TELEMANUS! HAS COME! TO! WAR! Y’ALL!
Lyria is escorted to a room deep within the Citadel, where Niobe, Daxo, and Theodora are waiting to question her. Of course she immediately tries to offer up any and all information she has, but they’re not about to just believe her, even accusing her of being a Society plant – possibly without her even knowing that she is one!
Despite Lyria’s attempts to tell them what she knows, they are about to use Oracles on her when MUSTANG finally busts in! And y’all, she is PIIIIISSSED – not only did she not authorize them to torture Lyria, but she had previously ordered that Octavia’s nasty little Oracles be destroyed, so the fact that Theodora saved some anyway is, well, NOT a good look, ya know?
Mustang straight up kicks everyone but Holiday out of the room, because it’s time she has a one-on-one chat with Lyria…and even though Lyria has reaaalllyyy wanted to hate on the Sovereign, Mustang OBVIOUSLY wins her over because she’s, well, her lovely self even in this time of crisis!
Unfortunately the security footage from the times Lyria was out in public with Philippe is useless, but hey! Remember that gun of his that Lyria absconded with? Once they recover it from the Watchman who tried to pocket it to sell, they run forensics on it and BAM! Turns out Ephraim messed up because he used a gun legally registered to his ACTUAL name, and, welp, OBVIOUSLY Holiday knows EXACTLY who he is!
So when they show up to confront Ephraim, he knows he’s pretty much fucked…but gotta give him at least SOME kudos again, because he IS worried about Volga and ends up agreeing to help them get the kids back – but only if they agree to pardon both him AND Volga. In fact, he even tries to get them to release Volga immediately…not that they agree to THAT, but hey, at least he tries? We guess?
Anyway, Ephraim’s big plan is to return to the Duke of Hands under the pretense that he wants to truly join up with the Syndicate…and then he comes on to the Duke in order to get him alone…aaaand then he shatters the Duke’s nose!
Oh, and when the Duke isn’t exactly forthcoming with info on where the children are, Ephraim cuts off one of his hands. Talk about getting a taste of his own medicine…
Anyway, the Duke does finally lead Ephraim to Pax and Electra, and they use the Duke as their human shield as they make their way back up to the his suite, where his fancy ship is chilling on the patio, ripe for the taking.
Not that things could really be THAT easy, though! C’mon now, have you forgotten what series we’re reading? Because while Ephraim and the kiddos DO make it onto the Duke’s ship, it’s only after Ephraim has been shot. Oh, and the other problem is that they’re on the entire opposite side of the moon from the Citadel…a.k.a. a looooong way from any help from the Sovereign’s forces.
Also, they might have absconded with the Duke’s ship, but uhhh that ship was a gift from the Syndicate Queen, who OBVIOUSLY installed something that allows her to control it from afar. So what’s a gravely injured sad boi to do when the Big Bad forces their ship to turn around? Why, set off a bunch of grenades and send it plummeting down into the city, of course!!!
As for Lyria, because her intel helped them track down Ephraim and she was part of the meeting that led to our resident sad boi agreeing to at least try to help them get the kiddos back, she is invited to meet with the Sovereign again! This time, Mustang literally gets down on her knees and APOLOGIZES to Lyria for the loss of her family and for the Republic breaking the trust they placed in it. At this point Lyria will obviously do any and everything Mustang requests, so when she is asked to stand witness before the Senate, Lyria immediately agrees.
Weeellll, almost immediately – first, she wants to make sure that Liam will be looked after, and that they will give him his eyesight…which they agree to.
Needless to say, Lyria is feeling pretty dang great about things, especially as she believes that Ephraim, Pax, and Electra are alive and safe (though we of course know the rescue mission was attempted but maybe/probably not actually completed). She even finally gets to take a shower and wash the nastiness of the past however many hours (or is it days?) from her skin…
Except when she’s done and steps out of the shower, she’s greeted with a giant hypodermic needle of something that knocks her TF out, and the last thing she hears before she loses consciousness is, “House Barca sends their regards.”
DUN DUN DUNNNNNNN….!!!
