Sage claimed the barn loft before Riot finished parking, scaling the ladder with her rifle slung across her back and her pack between her teeth.
“I’ll take first watch,” she said from above. “You two take the cellar. Fire’s fine down there—stone won’t carry the light.”
Cass was already exploring. He’d climbed out of the car the moment it stopped, bare feet on cold earth, and gone straight for the old windmill—a skeleton of rusted metal with most of its blades missing, creaking in the evening breeze like it was trying to say something important but had forgotten most of the words.
“This is amazing,” Cass said, one hand on the windmill’s base, his face tipped up toward the broken blades. “What did it do?”
“Pumped water from underground. Wind turns the blades, the blades turn a mechanism, the mechanism pulls water up.”
“Just from wind? Nobody had to power it?”
“Nope. Wind did all the work.”
Cass’s face lit up. “That’s clever. Why don’t the corporations use these?”
“Because you can’t charge people for wind.”
“Oh,” he said quietly. Then added, brighter: “Well, this one still works a little bit. Listen—when the wind comes from that direction, it makes a different sound than the other direction. Like it’s trying to sing two different songs depending on who’s listening.”
He could see the way Cass kept reaching for wonder, for curiosity, for all the things that made himCass, even as something behind his eyes occasionally shrank. He’d blink and find something new to ask about. The windmill. The stars. The name of a plant growing through the barn’s foundation even though he revealed he knew the name of the plant.
It was like he was building a wall out of small joys, one question at a time.
They made camp. Cass was good at this, apparently, gathering kindling with an intuitive sense of what would burn well, arranging blankets in the cellar so the fire’s warmth would reach without the smoke pooling. He worked with steady hands and quiet focus, the practical competence that kept surprising people who expected nothing from him because he asked simple questions.
Riot built the fire and tried to think about fire.
He was not thinking about fire.
He was thinking about Cass waking up screaming and vomiting and crying. He’d built a door around it—heavy, solid, the kind of mental compartmentalization that survival had taught him—and the Berserker kept tearing it down. Every time. Patient and methodical in its destruction, like a dog that found a bone and would not be redirected.
You know what he was describing. You know what that bastard did to him. Torturing him wasn’t enough, he—
Riot shoved kindling into the fire. Sparks scattered.
The Brennan part of his brain, which was becoming louder than it had been even before the modifications, understood why Cass’s door was cracking now. It was textbook—the body sorting new experiences from old ones, learning the difference between wanted touch and violation. The memories weren’t surfacing because Cass was getting worse. They were surfacing because he was getting better. Because his body and mind had finally learned the right words and was retrospectively categorizing what had come before.
Riot rebuilt his door again, and he’d keep rebuilding it until Springfield, where he’d open it himself and gladly walk through it to give Brother Matthias the greeting he deserved.
Sage came down from the loft to share the fire and the food—bread, dried meat, and a tin of something optimistically labeled BEANS.
She ate like only the calories mattered, cross-legged, with her rifle across her lap. Then she set her plate aside and fixed them both with a look that said the meal was over and the briefing was starting.
“Walk me through what happens when we arrive,” she said. “From the moment we reach Springfield Gardens. Every step.”
Cass straightened. He’d been sitting close to Riot—not clinging, but near enough that his shoulder touched Riot’s arm, a contact he’d been maintaining all evening. Now he leaned forward, his face shifting into something more focused.
“We wouldn’t go to the main gate,” he said. “Seekers—people who want to join Elysian—go to the Welcome Center. It’s on the east side of campus, near the vegetable hydroponics. Sister Delphine runs it. She’s...” He thought about it. “Nice. Actually nice.”
“Describe the intake process,” Sage said. “Everything they’d do to you on day one.”
“Medical screening first. Basic—blood pressure, temperature, weight. They check for diseases because campus health is communal.” Cass ticked items off on his fingers. “Then a Harmony Exam. That’s a series of questions—how you feel about community, about sharing, about letting go of individual desires for collective good. People who argue with the questions get flagged for extra attention.”
“What does extra attention look like?”
“Longer meditation sessions. More one-on-one time with an Elder. Sometimes they give you resonance supplements.” He said the last word without flinching, but Riot saw his hand press flat against his thigh—a small, controlled movement. “Those ones are supposed to help you relax.”
“Sedate you,” Riot translated.
