The girl didn’t sleep.
Amira sat curled on the edge of the mattress, her knees drawn tightly to her chest, eyes wide and unblinking, as if the darkness itself whispered to her.
Orla watched her from across the room, heart twisting with a pain no bullet had ever caused. She didn’t know what they had done to her daughter in that place, how deeply they had carved fear into her bones—but the signs were everywhere.
The way Amira flinched at sudden movement. The way she didn’t speak. The bruises fading under her collarbone. And worst of all—how she never blinked when someone touched her.
It wasn’t silence.
It was survival.
Orla closed the door quietly and stepped into the hallway, where Stanley leaned against the wall, arms crossed, expression carved in steel.
“She’s been programmed,” he
