Zeph never knew her real parents. The system raised her, or at least claimed it did. By the time she was old enough to understand the game, she had already learned that being shuffled from house to house was less about care and more about convenience. That was when she met [[Roxie]], a wide-eyed six-year-old dropped into the same foster system, drowning in the same bureaucratic neglect. Zeph was twelve, already hardened, already skeptical. She decided then and there that Roxie wouldn’t go through what she had. For a few years, that bond was all that mattered. But the system doesn’t care about bonds. By the time Zeph was fifteen, both sisters were back on the street. Dumpster dinners, cold pavement nights, and endless close calls with predators who circled the weak were all too frequent. Eventually, reputation reached the ears of a **fixer**, who saw more than a back-alley doctor who saw potential. Now Zeph works jobs in the underworld, her scalpel just as dangerous as any gun, her drugs as valuable as bullets. But beneath every gig, every patch-job, every deal, there’s a constant hum of rage. A promise unfulfilled.