The journey to the Nevada desert was a slow, deliberate exodus. We moved in the quiet spaces between the world’s major arteries, driving an old, wood-paneled station wagon that smelled of Julian’s oil paints and Florence’s lavender soap.
The high-speed transit lines and the neon-lit hubs of the Wolfe era were ghosts on the horizon, flickering relics of a life that felt like a fever dream we had all finally woken up from.
The textile mill Marcus had mentioned wasn't a sleek, glass-and-steel cathedral. It was a low-slung building of sun-baked adobe and corrugated tin, nestled in a valley of red rock and sagebrush. It sat at the end of a long, unpaved road where the only surveillance was the steady, unblinking gaze of a hawk circling in the thermal updrafts.
When Ethan pushed open the hea
