As her stroll continued, the warmth of Maryanne’s bed leached away as if Claire had never known the comfort. She wandered, confused… wishing she could unsee all of it. In less than a year, the city had become a wasteland, another world that poisoned all it touched with frost, ice, and loss.

Shepherd’s plan had been a success. Thólos was destroying itself, and all the man had to do was sit back and watch.

A whoosh of breath left her lungs and Claire stopped walking. Hunched against the wall was a dead child—blue, frozen—a little boy no older than nine.

Kneeling over the stiff corpse, Claire reached out and brushed back his matted hair, wondering how Shepherd could think this child’s death would satisfy his plan. What great lesson would society learn by a lost life no soul would remember?

Slumping to the kid’s side, mimicking the body’s posture, Claire tried to find a reason for any of it. Tragedy in Thólos was nothing new. Since the occupation, orphan children died all the time.

More children were orphaned every day.

This was the new norm.

And who took them in? Where were they to go?

The people failed. Claire was not even sure if she could justify it anymore, not after seeing this. Leaning her head to the side she rested her cheek on the dead boy’s hair and stared forward. There was no pleasure in her freedom or her view of the sky… there had not even been a sense of victory at her success freeing the Omegas.

Even in Maryanne’s company she had only played the part, falsified emotion on instinct.

Closing her eyes, she let out a breath, ruffling the stiff brown hair under her lips. There was no point in being Claire anymore. Instead, she would be nothing, as hollow as Thólos had allowed itself to become.

It was the sound of a sob that woke her, and for a moment she thought it was from the boy she slept against. Waking abruptly, her bleary eyes darted around and found nothing—just the same empty alley and the same piles of icy garbage. The only difference from before was the darkness, a thing her eyes adjusted to quickly after so long underground.

Oblivious to the freezing cold, Claire stood, ignoring the crack of stiff knees. Her pillow, the forgotten corpse, sat as rigid as before, the child staring forward into the same future as hers… into nothing.

Claire claimed him, and with more strength than she felt, she hoisted the boy up on her back, the corpse’s limbs not easy to manage.

Not a soul disturbed her as she walked with her macabre prize through the streets of hell.

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