The apartment still smelled faintly of bruised fruit and crushed bread. Celine had dropped her groceries on the counter the moment she staggered in last night, too shaken to care that half the eggs had cracked inside the carton. Her umbrella leaned bent and crooked against the wall, a dented testimony to how surreal things had become.

She sat at the kitchen table, her phone in her hand, staring at the blank screen as if it might offer answers. Sleep had never come. Each time she closed her ...