Five days left. That is the entire countdown shown. And by then, something had undeniably shifted not just in the situation, but deep inside Lynda herself. The urgency was still right there, pressing in on her, and the pressure had not faded a bit. But that old anxiety?, It was gone. She found something steadier. Not control over what would happen, but over how she would respond.

The city had started to take notice. Not in some dramatic way, there were no screaming headlines or breathless ...