Annetta slowly blinked. She looked at Kenzie's pointing finger, then up at Kenzie's face.

Annetta didn't say a word. She turned her head away and went back to smoothing the wrinkles out of the shawl beneath Clara.

Kenzie's face flushed red. She was used to family dinners where Annetta sat quietly at the end of the table, absorbing the subtle insults from the blood relatives.

"Did you hear me?" Kenzie shrieked. She stepped forward and stepped on the edge of the cashmere shawl.

Annetta's head snapped back around. Her eyes were so cold, so devoid of humanity, that Kenzie's breath hitched in her throat. Kenzie stumbled backward, her heel catching on the uneven concrete, and fell hard onto her backside.

"You crazy bitch!" Kenzie screamed, crying in frustration. "You're nothing! You're just a cheap commoner Alek picked up! You should be serving us!"

Several inmates groaned in the darkness. A crumpled ball of wet toilet paper flew across the cell and hit Kenzie in the shoulder.

Hayley rushed forward, pulling Kenzie into her arms. She glared at Annetta. "You have no heart! We are family!"

Annetta stood up. She towered over the mother and daughter huddled on the floor.

"The Crane family privileges died three hours ago," Annetta said, her voice carrying effortlessly over the murmurs of the cell. "There is no room service here. There are only survivors and victims."

She pointed toward the tiny, barred window high on the wall, showing the pitch-black night.

"Tomorrow morning, they are putting us on a bus to a dead zone in the mountains. If you speak to me like that again, Kenzie, I won't touch you. I will just let them have you."

Annetta gestured toward the back of the cell. Three heavily tattooed women were leaning against the bars, grinning, their eyes raking over Kenzie's exposed legs with predatory hunger.

Kenzie turned pale. She scrambled backward, pressing herself against the wall, her mouth clamped shut.

Hayley glared at Annetta. "When we get there, we are splitting up. I don't need you."

"Good," Annetta said.

"Enough."

The word was spoken quietly, but it carried the weight of iron.

Cristina stood up. She smoothed the front of her ruined blouse. She looked down at Hayley and Kenzie with absolute disgust.

"Shut your mouth, Hayley," Cristina announced, her voice exhausted but laced with the undeniable authority of the Crane matriarch. She didn't look at Annetta, but her words cut through the dark cell. "We have lost our home, our wealth, and our protection. Right now, she is the only one who seems to understand the reality of this filth. So you will listen to her, or you will freeze on your own. I will not have this family tear itself apart before we even reach the mountains." Hayley's mouth fell open. It wasn't an endorsement of Annetta, but a brutal, pragmatic calculation by the matriarch.

The cell settled into a tense, freezing silence.

The temperature plummeted as the night deepened. The heating vents blew cold air. Clara shivered violently in her sleep, her lips turning a pale shade of blue.No matter how thick the cotton clothes were, they couldn’t keep out the cold wind. Annetta held Clara even tighter in her arms.

However, Annetta’s thin silk shirt provided no warmth at all. Her teeth chattered, and her skin was covered in goosebumps.

Cristina watched her. Without a word, the older woman shifted her position. She moved directly in front of the air vent, using her own body as a human shield to block the freezing draft from hitting Annetta and Clara.

Annetta looked up. Cristina gave her a single, firm nod.

They huddled together in the dark. Annetta closed her eyes, but she didn't sleep. Her mind was racing, pulling up the digital blueprints of the Ark. She was calculating the distance from the drop-off point to the bunker, inventorying the solar batteries, the water filtration systems.

Suddenly, the harsh glare of the corridor lights snapped on.

Heavy boots pounded against the concrete. Two guards slammed their batons against the iron bars of the cell, the noise deafening.

"Wake up, ladies!" the guard yelled. "Transport is early. Line up for strip search and shackles. The bus to the mountains leaves in twenty."

Annetta opened her eyes. They were sharp, focused, and deadly. She scooped Clara into her arms.

The exile had begun.

The processing center was a huge, ventilated warehouse, devoid of any sense of warmth or humanity. Water droplets clung to the concrete floor, along with the mud brought in by the violent storms outside.

Annetta stood in the line. Giggles appeared on her bare arms again. The thin cotton underwear offered no protection against the biting cold. Ahead, a prison guard was shouting orders, forcing the exiled women to strip completely, hand over all their personal belongings, and then enter those humiliating chemical showers.

Clara clung tightly to Annetta’s legs, trembling under her thin coat—the thick winter coat had been taken away when the search began. Annetta watched as it was thrown into the incinerator, turning to ashes along with Kenzie’s designer shoes. She remained expressionless, but at that moment, it felt like an invisible hand was gripping her heart. The promissory note and pocket watch, sewn into the lining of the coat, were gone.

“Hurry up! Next person!” The prison guard shouted, hitting the metal table with his baton.

Kristina stood behind Annetta. The old woman’s face was pale, with deep lines of exhaustion and disbelief etched on her face. When it was her turn to go up to the table, Kristina’s hands trembled so much that she could barely unbutton her tattered shirt.

“Hurry up, old woman,” said a female prison guard, sneering. She threw a rough canvas prison uniform onto the table. “Don’t waste time.”

A flicker of remaining pride flashed in Christina’s eyes, but she bit her lip and obeyed, putting on that irritating fabric over her trembling body. Annetta stared at her mother-in-law, saying not a word of comfort. Comfort was a luxury they couldn’t afford in the mountains.

“Hold out your hand,” the bailiff ordered as Annetta stepped forward.

Annetta stretched out her hands. The cold steel of the heavy shackles dug into her skin, with the metal sinking deep into her flesh. A thick chain connected her wrists to a heavy belt around her waist, severely restricting her movement. The same was true for Christina and the others. Only Clara, being too young, had her little hands tied together with thick plastic ties.

“Wait in line outside,” ordered the bailiff.

The massive warehouse doors swung upward with a harsh screeching noise. A cold wind, carrying with it freezing rain, rushed in. The storm was like a wall of dark, roaring water. Through the pouring rain, Annetta could see federal transport buses with black armor parked in the mud, waiting.

Annetta took Clara’s bound hands and stepped into the storm. The freezing rain struck their faces like tiny shards of glass. Nearby, Kristina stumbled in the mud. The heavy shackles made it difficult for her to keep her balance. She fell to her knees, with icy water soaking through her canvas prison clothes. She gasped for breath.

Annetta didn’t reach out to help her up. Instead, she leaned in closer, her voice breaking through the sound of the rain: “Get up, Kristina. If you stay on the ground, they’ll abandon you to die. Get up and go.”

Kristina raised her head, her eyes filled with shock. But that shock acted like a defibrillator, stimulating her nervous system. She gritted her teeth, grabbed the edge of the bus steps, and pulled herself up, despite the shackles on her hands.

Annetta followed behind. Her wrists were bleeding, and her hands trembled—not from fear, but from the cold and blood loss. All her personal belongings were taken away from her before she took a shower, including anything she could use to bandage her wounds. The wounds on her knuckles had been scraped open by the shackles, and blood dripped down her fingers. She didn’t dare look down, fearing that she might faint from excessive blood loss.

She got into the bus, found a seat, and placed Clara on her lap. The bus started its engine and drove into the dark storm.

Federal Transit buses are nothing more than rolling cages of iron.

There were no windows; instead, thick steel plates covered the glass. The interior was illuminated by yellow bulbs that flickered, enclosed within cages. The air was filled with the smell of diesel, sweat, and vomit.

4 a.m. The bus rolled over a huge pothole on the winding roads of the Appalachians.

Annetta’s body shook violently. The heavy steel handcuffs dug deeply into her wrists, tearing at her already injured skin. Warm blood flowed down her fingers, but she didn’t make a sound.

Clara was lying on Annetta’s lap, her little hands tied with straps. The little girl’s face was a sickly greenish color, and she was vomiting due to severe motion sickness. Annetta used her own hands, which were bleeding and handcuffed, to hold Clara’s head. She also used her body to cushion the blows, so that her daughter wouldn’t hit the metal seats ahead of her.

Across the hallway, Christina had her eyes tightly closed. Her lips moved silently as she prayed in despair.

In the front part of the bus, separated by a heavy barbed-wire fence, were male prisoners who were considered to be at the highest risk of causing trouble.

A bald man with a thick neck turned around. There was a Nazi symbol tattooed on his neck. He stared at Annetta and Kristina, revealing a disgusting smile.

“Look at these wealthy men,” the bald man shouted over the roar of the engine. “Girls, winter in the mountains is long and cold. You need to find someone to keep you warm.”

The other male prisoners laughed, howling like animals.

Kristina shrank back, turning her face away from the wall.

Annetta didn’t look away. She raised her head, her eyes fixed on the bald man. There was no fear in her gaze, only a cold, deathly calmness.

The bald man’s smile froze. He didn’t like the way she was looking at him. He tried to get up, but the bolts on the floor held him in place.

In front, behind the bulletproof glass partitions, two armed U.S. marshals were drinking coffee, ignoring the shouting.

Suddenly, the bus braked sharply.

The tires skidded loudly on the slippery asphalt surface. The huge vehicle lost control and started to spin out of control. Everyone was thrown forward with great force. Annetta threw her upper body over Clara, using her shoulders to brace against the steel seat frame, thereby absorbing the impact.

Thunder rumbled outside. The rain pounded against the car’s roof like bullets.

The sound of the bailiff came through the walkie-talkie, mixed with static noise: “The mudslide has destroyed the main highway. We’ll take the old logging trail. Hold on tight.”

The bus left the paved road and entered a dirt road with deep ruts. The bumps became much more severe.

In the back seat, Kenzie Whaley finally broke down. She started screaming, with high-pitched, hysterical cries: “I can’t take it anymore! Let me get out! I want to go home!”

The bald man roared angrily, “Make that bitch shut up, or I’ll strangle her!”

Haley sobbed, trying to cover Kenzie’s mouth.

Annetta stared at the bald man. With each jolt of the bus, the rusty locking mechanism on the shackles around his right ankle scraped against the bolts in the floor.

It’s loosening.

Annetta tried to reach for her boots—but her hands were handcuffed to her belt, so she couldn’t reach them. She bit her lip and turned her gaze away. That metal piece, which she had secretly hidden in her cell, was now completely useless, stuck somewhere out of reach.

The bus rolled over a huge crater.

With a metallic snapping sound, the handcuffs on the bald man’s ankles broke off from the floor.

He didn’t hesitate. He leaped over the seat, and his huge hands reached straight for Annetta’s throat.

The bailiffs shouted loudly, frantically trying to get to their tasers, but they were trapped behind bulletproof glass.

Annetta didn’t scream. She shoved Clara roughly into Christina’s arms.

When the bald man’s thick fingers reached for her collar, Annetta didn’t try to resist him by force. She fell backward, raising her handcuffed hands in front of her—this was all she could do.

“He got free!” she cried out, her voice sharp. It wasn’t panic. It was calculated action. Her eyes weren’t fixed on the bald man, but on the two bailiffs.

The marshals heard the word “break free”. Frightened by the mudslide, they took action immediately. The safety door was forced open. A bright electric arc illuminated the dark interior of the bus. The marshals fired their tasers directly into the bald man’s broad chest.

The man convulsed violently. The electric current paralyzed his muscles. He screamed in pain and collapsed onto the bus floor.

Annetta slowly sat up. Her chest rose and fell with each breath. Her hands, still handcuffed to her belt, remained motionless.

She glanced around the bus. Every prisoner stared at her with absolute fear and silence.

The bald man was convulsing on the floor, foaming at the mouth. No one said a word.

Annetta looked down at Clara and said softly, “Close your eyes, baby. Go to sleep.”

She didn’t look at the fallen man again.

Throughout the rest of the journey, no one said a word.