Ronan Crowe stopped listening to explanations.
That was how Lyra knew the next move would be dangerous.
Explanations belonged to men who still believed systems could be reasoned back into place. Ronan had crossed into a quieter, colder space where reason gave way to testing. Where you stopped asking why something was happening and started asking who flinched when it did.
Lyra felt it in the compound before anyone named it.
The first sign was order.
Not the easy, invisible kind. The deliberate kind. Guards repositioned. Rotations changed without warning. Approval chains rerouted through unfamiliar hands. Nothing announced. Nothing justified.
Control tightening always arrived dressed as efficiency.
Tyler found her just after dawn, expression grim. “He’s restructuring.”
Lyra nodded. “
