The sound of waves crashing outside the seaside school stood in stark contrast to the storm raging within its modest walls. Luna Nozzawa stood trembling, the cold weight of the gun heavy in her hand. Her eyes flickered between the decorative window frame and the resolute figure of Steffy Forrester—whose unwavering posture showed no trace of fear or submission in the face of Luna’s tear-streaked desperation.

The last rays of sunlight filtered through the dusty panes, casting a warm glow that clashed with the rising tension in the room. The silence was suffocating, like a spark away from catastrophe. Luna’s voice, shaky at first, escalated into a fevered rage as she screamed the name of Hayes Finnegan—the child who, in her broken mind, had come to symbolize everything that had been taken from her. A family. A sense of belonging. The love of a father she had only just discovered, only to lose again.

“Say his name!” Luna demanded, the gun quivering in her grasp. Steffy, spine straight as steel, growled through clenched teeth, warning her not to utter her son’s name. But Luna, unraveling, repeated it again and again—pleading, desperate, as though invoking that name might somehow restore the shattered fragments of her identity. The broken bond between mother and daughter, between cousins, between bloodlines and rejection—now surged to the surface, raw and unrelenting, under the weight of too many lies buried for too long.