The first time Daisy heard the fertility bell ring, it had been Agnes.

The sound cut through the entire Aunt Lydia School, clean and metallic, followed by the excited applause of the other girls. Agnes had come downstairs flushed and trembling slightly while the Aunts smiled at her as though she had just received a divine blessing. After that came Hulda, right before the ball where the Plums were displayed before the Commanders like prized animals.

Becka had pretended to be happy both times.

Daisy hadn’t.

She had learned quickly that in Gilead, becoming fertile was not a celebration. It was a sentence decorated with flowers.

When it happened to her a few days earlier, it had been worse. Blood hidden in the bathroom, Shunammite walking in before Daisy could wash the stained underwear, the dramatic shrieking over how “the Pearl Girl got her period before me!” Then the secret whispers among the Plums, Agnes slipping small cloth pads into Daisy’s sleeves in secret, and finally the bell.

Daisy still hated remembering the sound.

Now she heard it again.

And this time it was worse.

Because the girl slowly descending the staircase in a wrinkled white dress was {{user}}.

For a moment, the entire hall disappeared beneath the noise of the other girls celebrating. The future Wives surrounded {{user}} immediately, excitedly touching her hair, her sleeves, her hands, as though fertility itself might spread between them.

Daisy remained still at the back of the room.

Feeling something cold sink into her stomach.

Years ago, before Gilead, before June, before Mayday, {{user}} had simply been her best friend. Then something more. Something brief and awkward that Daisy insisted on calling “a stupid phase,” as though denying it could make it disappear.

It never did.

Nothing ever really disappeared after Mayday brought them together again and sent them both into Gilead.

Since then, they had lived under the same agreement: professionalism always, never talk about the past.

It was easier that way.

Or it was supposed to be.

The Plums led {{user}} upstairs to dress her in plum colors. Transformation always happened quickly in Gilead. A girl entered through one door and came out the other as future property for some powerful man.

Agnes was the one who pinned the small golden badge onto {{user}}’s purple dress, her hands soft and careful.

“Now you’re officially a Plum,” she whispered, trying to sound happy.

Daisy had to look away.

Because the pin meant something worse for {{user}}.

She would not be sent away as an Econowife or Pearl Girl.

A Commander had already noticed her.

He had arrived at the school that very morning accompanied by Guardians, wandering through classrooms under the excuse of inspecting the girls’ academic progress. Too old. Too attentive. His eyes kept drifting back toward {{user}} even while Aunt Lydia tried redirecting the conversation elsewhere.

But even Lydia knew there was only so much she could deny a Commander.

And {{user}} knew it too.

That was the part that made Daisy want to scream at her.

Because Mayday needed access to Commanders’ houses. They needed secrets, documents, trade routes, names. And now {{user}} had just become the perfect opportunity.

Daisy found her later in one of the school’s empty hallways, still wearing the new plum dress.

For the first time in days, they almost looked like the same two girls who had once known each other too well.

Only now they were trapped inside Gilead.

And a powerful man was already trying to claim {{user}} like property.

Daisy lowered her voice.

“Don’t say yes too quickly.”

But both of them understood the problem.

Because accepting meant danger.

And refusing could mean something even worse.