One year after the verdict, Marcus stood at the same kitchen counter, pouring cereal into a bowl while Elena finished getting ready for school, though this morning carried a different kind of significance than any ordinary Tuesday.
"You nervous?" Marcus asked, watching Elena adjust her backpack near the door.
"A little," Elena admitted. "It's not every day you give a speech at school about surviving something like this."
The anniversary of Day Zero had arrived, and Elena's school had asked her to speak briefly during their annual safety assembly, part of the new educational protocols implemented nationwide since everything Marcus's group had exposed. She'd agreed without hesitation, something that still occasionally surprised Marcus about how naturally she'd grown into speaking honestly
