Frozen Body, Broken Heart

An Alpha mother decides at the birth of her twin daughters that feeling anything is a defect, and fastens emotion-suppressing collars on both girls. The collar reads the wearer's state and shows blue when calm. Any spike turns it red, and the mother presses a button that pushes a diluted silver solution into the child's blood. Cassia's collar stays blue through everything, even the night she smashes their mother's moonstone, when it only pulses. Her sister's flares red at nothing at all. It is enough to say "Mom, the thunder scares me" to bring the burn. When the girl argues she is told the data does not lie, that pain teaches, that this is for her own good. Years of it pass. Then the collar malfunctions and delivers a dose a thousand times the normal amount in one go. Her mother watches, decides the girl is performing for attention, and leaves her where she is.