The air in the Sector 7 drainage pipe didn’t just smell like the Grey Zone; it smelled like a grave. Astra adjusted the high-tech compression sleeve over her right arm, the fabric straining against the angry silver-nitrate burns she’d earned saving Leo. Every rhythmic throb of the injury was a reminder of the lengths the High-Rise would go to, to snuff out a scavenger like her.
She wasn't the girl in the purple silk dress anymore. Dressed in tactical black leather and a hooded cloak that smelled of the slums, she felt the familiar weight of the "Grey." That toxic, monochromatic fog acted as a death sentence for humans and a sensory deprivation chamber for Alphas. But for a scavenger who had spent a decade pulling copper from these veins, the smog was a home.
Closing her eyes, she let her
