*Luca*
The barn walls sweat in the torchlight as we crowd inside, breathless and shaking, but alive. The chains are broken. The doors were forced open. Our people, dragged from homes and workshops in the dead of night, are free.
Ava stands beside me, her cheeks flushed, with curls clinging to her forehead. Her eyes scan the room, counting survivors before I do.
Matías bolts the door behind us. “No one followed,” he says.
“You did well,” I tell him, my voice low. “You both did. Quick thinking.”
“I thought we were going to die,” he says with a shaky laugh. “But then it worked.”
I move through the huddled group, checking injuries. A boy holds a hand to his ribs. An older woman won’t stop coughing. I kneel beside her, pressing a cold cloth to her forehead. Ava is already crouched beside
