The bones are solid. You have restraint, you have real stakes, and you haven't let it tip into anything melodramatic. The next stretch Drake's "we still need to talk," the burned pharmacy, and the semifinal pressure is where the story needs to start tightening the screws harder than it has so far, since chapters 4-8 were largely setup and earned wins. Worth making sure chapter 9 onward escalates rather than repeats.