Looks, rank, power, money? What do any of those things matter to me? I’m a scavenger. Preston and his kind keep trying and trying to get us to forget what’s important, to convince us that we’re the trash they treat us as, but it doesn’t work.

Not on me.

I straighten up and lift my chin.

My dignity was just peeled off me, and turns out, I’ve got strong bones inside, not a squishy center. I hold onto that, wind the knowledge tight like a tourniquet.

I don’t claim Preston Charge, and I wasn’t the one who came close to biting—that was him.

I’m pulling it together until I round...