Chapter 11
Chapter 11
Elara is attacked and injured by another inmate who accused her of stealing. Sterling is arrested for contempt of court because he helped Elara. Lina submits all evidence to Helena, who has no choice but to surrender it to the council and schedules the appeal date
The light in the work camp was the first thing Elara learned to hate. More than the bark of the guards, more than the sting of the overseer's whip, more than the hunger that coiled in her belly like a sleeping animal, she hated that pale, merciless fluorescent glow. It never quite turned off. It bleached the color from everything it touched—her skin, her clothes, her memories—and it followed her even into sleep as a phantom ache behind her eyelids.
She had been at New Horizon for eleven days. Or twelve? The hours blurred into a single gray smear. Wake before dawn. Work the assembly line, fitting tiny components into circuit boards until her fingers were raw and her eyes burned. Eat the gray paste that passed for food. Work again. Sleep. Repeat. The other women around her moved like ghosts, hollow-eyed and silent, or else with a desperate, jagged energy that frightened her more than the silence.
Elara had learned to keep her head down. To speak only when spoken to. To give the guards no reason to notice her, no reason to single her out. She clung to thoughts of Leo—his small, bright face, the way his hand fit so perfectly in hers, the sound of his laugh—and she counted the days until Lina would come.
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