The days at Cooper's cabin had started to feel almost normal.Julie woke each morning to the smell of woodsmoke and something cooking. Cooper was always up before dawn, tending the fire, checking the traps. He'd make breakfast—oatmeal, usually, sometimes with dried fruit or a bit of salted meat. He'd ask how they slept. He'd tell them stories about the woods, about hunting, about all sort of things.He was kind to Julie.She'd told him about Cameron. About Arnold. She hadn't meant to. It had just come out one night, when the fire was low and the wind was howling outside. She'd said she'd lost her son and her father. Cooper had listened without interrupting. When she'd finished, he'd put a hand on her shoulder and said, "I'm sorry."That was it. No questions. No prying. No look of pity.Julie liked that.He didn't know about the trial. About the videos. About the public turning on her. About Jacob. About Nathan. About any of it. To Cooper, she was just a woman who'd lost everything. An

The cold was terrible.Julie felt them in her fingers first, then her toes. A slow, gnawing ache that spread upward through her hands and feet until everything below her knees and elbows felt like it belonged to someone else.Beside her, Celeste trudged through the snow in silence. She'd stopped complaining. Now she just walked, her head down, her breath misting in short, ragged bursts. With the bag of supplies slung over her shoulder.Julie carried the rifle. It was heavy, but she didn't mind. The weight had a sort of peace to it. It reminded her that she wasn't helpless anymore.They'd been walking for what felt like years.The cabin was far behind them now. So was Cooper's body. Julie tried not to think about it. The way his head had snapped to the side. The way his eyes had gone wide. The dark pool spreading across the floor.She’d believed Cooper to be kind.Turns out he wasn't."Julie."She turned. Celeste had stopped walking. Her face was pale, her lips cracked."We need to res

Nathan didn't sleep.He lay on the bed in the white room, staring at the ceiling, listening to the wind. The compound was quiet. The evening prayer had ended hours ago. The halls were empty. The candles had burned down to stubs.Caleb was waiting.Nathan had told him to come after midnight. When the guards changed shifts. When the compound was at its quietest.He sat up slowly.No aches. No pain. He was much better now. He pulled on his boots. His coat. His gloves. He didn't have much to take. A knife. A small bag of food he'd been saving for days. The clothes on his back.That was all.He waited.The minutes crawled by. He counted them in his head. One hundred. Two hundred. Three hundred.Then a soft knock.Nathan opened the door.Caleb stood in the hallway. He was wearing a white coat that was too big for him. His face was pale. His eyes were wide. He looked scared."You ready?" Nathan asked.Caleb nodded.They moved through the compound in silence.Nathan had memorized the guard rot

The helicopters had stopped coming three days ago.A while before that, Jacob had watched them through the security feeds. They came at night, mostly. Small, dark shapes cutting through the red sky. They landed at the old airfield on the other side of the city. They picked up people. Important people, Jacob assumed. The ones with connections. The ones who knew someone who knew someone. The ones who had somewhere else to go.He didn't know where they were taken. He didn't care.And even if he had known, it wouldn't have mattered. Nowhere was entirely safe anymore. The helicopters, the airfield, whatever destination they were flying toward, none of it was a guarantee. The cold didn't care about connections. The snow didn't care about money. Whatever was happening out there, wherever those people were being taken, it was only a matter of time before it caught up with them too.He'd stopped watching after the third night.Cameron was gone. The boy was buried in the snow. Jacob had mourned

Julie woke to the sound of wind.For a long moment, she didn't move. She was stiff. Cold. Her back ached from sleeping against the metal bed of the truck. Her fingers were numb.Celeste was still beside her. Awake."Did you get any sleep?" Julie asked."No."Julie sat up slowly. The snow had stopped falling. The world was still. The road stretched ahead. The thing was gone.She checked the rifle. Still there. Still loaded. She laid it across her knees and scanned the treeline.Nothing moved."We need to keep moving," she said.Celeste nodded. She climbed out of the truck and stood in the snow, waiting.Julie followed.They walked for hours.The snow was deep. Every step was a struggle. But they kept moving. Away from the thing. Away from the city.Around midday, they found the fence.It was electric. Julie could hear the low hum before she saw it. A wire fence, waist-high, strung between wooden posts. Beyond it, a farmhouse. Small. Old. The roof sagged. But smoke rose from the chimney