[POV: Sofia Lanka]

"Eat your soup, girl. Staring at the damp on the walls won’t turn them into a doorway, and it certainly won't bring that cold-eyed man of yours back to his senses."

Sofia Lanka didn’t turn her head. She remained curled on the thin, lice-ridden cot of the Central Detention Center, her eyes fixed on a singular crack in the concrete floor. The air in the cell was thick with the smell of mildew and the despair of a hundred forgotten souls. Her wrists, raw and bruised from the zip-ties the Oversight guards had used, throbbed in time with the pounding in her skull.

"I didn't ask for...