Chapter 30
Inside again, underground.
Charity lay curled at the foot of her stone chair, close to her torch, though it gave no heat. The cavern was neither cold nor warm. There was an absence of sensation, a sensory nothing that slowly pervaded the skin and worked its way to the heart and mind. She felt it working, and almost didn’t care that it was changing her, making her more like them.
Her dad had not answered her call, maybe couldn’t. She wondered if he was dead, or if he had maybe, finally, given up.
Shannon too?
The others lay scattered about the cavern, next to torches propped against walls or stones. Some had left the main cavern for the privacy of the tunnel and its regularly spaced cells, but most seemed to prefer the comfort of company. There were snores, and the occ
