All we could hear at first was the sharp, cracking sound of a cage breaking open.

It wasn’t a normal sound. It wasn’t small. It wasn’t something you hear and ignore.

It was loud. It was deep.

It was the kind of sound that reaches your bones and warns you that something terrible is coming.

The moment it echoed across the desert camp, everybody, except me, Mira, the rogues, and two guys I didn’t know, jumped backward like scared chickens. Captives screamed, fell, pushed one another, and ...