I tightened my grip.
Armandra's small neck felt fragile beneath my fingers, the skin soft but unnaturally cold. Her once proud, commanding voice had turned into nothing more than a raspy breath, each inhale strained as if her body itself resisted the inevitable end. Her eyes, however, held everything. At first, there was the familiar hatred, those sharp glimmers of malice she had always shown me, even when she was the professor—intelligent, calculating, and dangerous. But then, as the pressure increased, that hatred faltered. The gleam turned into something else.
Fear.