Volume 4. Prologue: Missing in Action
86 - Eighty-Six

Rita...

This was what one boy called her—a childhood friend of Henrietta Penrose. Annette couldn’t quite recall when it started. It felt like he’d always called her that, like he’d always been by her side. That’s how close they were.

Perhaps it all stemmed from the fact that he struggled to pronounce her full name, Henrietta, back when they were just learning to speak. Annette herself had trouble with his name—Shinei, foreign to the Republic—and had shortened it to Shin.

He had known her since childhood. A bright boy with …