(Cassandra’s POV)
“The Silence Before Screaming”
There’s something about the quiet after a storm that feels more dangerous than the storm itself.
No sirens. No shouts. Just the silence of breath held in a city that used to be alive.
Auditorium Zero smells like blood and burnt wires. Ezekiel and I stand in the darkness we made. Lucien Voss is gone. Slipped through a side corridor like a wraith. The man is made of shadows and contingency plans.
But I don’t follow. Not yet.
Because something is happening.
The voice of Arven—what’s left of it—still echoes from the speakers, leaking through every pirated comm link, every hidden frequency, every scratched-up radio in the Free Wards.
“They took my mind. They took me.”
I hear weeping through static. A child whispering, “That’s my brother.
