POV: Karen — Present Tense

The city feels alive tonight, but every street looks like a trap. Every flickering streetlight, every shadow passing behind tinted windows, it’s all potential danger.

Dre walks beside me, his hand brushing against mine for a fraction of a second, not enough to be intimate, just enough to anchor. He’s awake now, aware, but I can still see the cracks, flashes of confusion, the ghost of the conditioning, the remnants of what Yasmin tried to build in him.

My ...