Rising From Exile: The Widow's Comeback

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.