The rain had passed by morning, leaving the world damp but sparkling with a tentative promise. Puddles mirrored the muted sky, and the scent of wet concrete mixed with the faint green of sprouting weeds. Hale, Evelyn, and Gray moved deliberately through the cracked streets of the industrial ring, each step measured, each choice about where to set their small foothold considered carefully.

Hale had claimed the skeleton of a collapsed warehouse for their base—a structure partially shielded ...