I squat a few feet away, slow, controlled. I don’t touch her. Not yet.
Her knee is wrapped in filthy fabric, soaked dark. Bad work. Emergency work. She did it herself. The cut isn’t deep enough to cripple her, but it’ll ache. It’ll remind her she’s in a body she doesn’t fully control right now.
She looks at the bandage, then back at me.
Still no words. That’s another tell.
“Hurts?” I ask, neutral.
Her lips press together. A nod. Minimal.
Most women would answer louder. Or not at all. Silence can be a weapon or a shield. Hers feels like a decision.
I straighten and lean back against the wall, arms loose, posture unthreatening on purpose. The worst thing I can do to her right now is rush. Panic feeds panic. Calm feeds something else.
I’ve learned that the hard way.
The mall sounds different when it’s almost over. No running feet. No laughter echoing from above. Noscreams tearing the space open. Just the hum of power, the low vibration of generators somewhere deep in the Rot’s guts.
Aftershock.
This is where people start to break.
She doesn’t.
Still on her back, she shifts her weight carefully, testing balance without testing restraints. Her shoulders stay squared. Her chin lifts a fraction, like she refuses to be seen from above.
That’s pride. It won’t save her. But it will complicate things.
I glance down the line of captured women again. One’s already bargaining in a whisper, voice hoarse and frantic. Another stares at her hands like she doesn’t recognize them anymore. The third sobs quietly, exhausted past dignity.
She doesn’t look at them for long. That’s not cruelty. That’s survival.
I’ve seen this stage a thousand times, but it never quite looks the same. The Hunt strips people down fast. What’s left is whatever was underneath to begin with.
I wonder what she thinks this means. Most of them think being caught is the end. They’re wrong.
“Do you know where you are?” I ask.
Her eyes flick past me, taking in the space again. The height of the ceiling. The absence of storefronts. The way sound carries wrong here.
“Yeah,” she says after a beat. Her voice is rough, but steady. “The Rot.”
Not wrong. Not complete.
“And what that makes you?” I ask.
She hesitates. Just a fraction.
That’s where the fear finally sneaks in.
“A Runt,” she says.
There it is. The word lands heavy. I watch her reaction to it, the way her shoulders tense, the way she swallows once like she’s forcing something down.
She’s heard things. Rumors. Enough to scare her, not enough to prepare her.
I don’t correct her. I don’t soften it. The Rot doesn’t reward mercy. It rewards clarity.
