The rec yard was quiet in a way that felt wrong. It wasn't peaceful. It was hollow. They all were. Kristen sat against the concrete wall that surrounded the yard, knees pulled to her chest, the cold seeping through the thin fabric of her prison-issued clothes. Two days had passed since the Lunar Surge ended, but the weight of it still clung to her skin like a second scent: fear, heat, blood, and grief.
After what happened in the observation room, none of them was the same. Across the yard, Ronald stood at the far wall, staring at nothing. His posture was rigid, pain locked into every line of his body. He hadn’t spoken more than a few clipped words since the Surge. He trained until exhaustion, ate in silence, and slept in fragments. The protector she had relied on was still there, but frac
