"Hello? We're done—I'm hanging up." I slammed the phone against the couch arm before the message finished. The plastic thumped. The screen went black and then lit with missed call icons, but I didn't look. I heard my own voice in the silence, flat and small. "Fine," I said out loud. "Fine, Evelynn." A recorded version of her voice came back, tinny and bored through the speaker. "This is Evelynn. If it's about the lease, send me a text. If it's about us, don't bother. Goodbye." I ripped the cord from the wall. The line screamed for a second and died. The motion started like a muscle memory—an angry, automatic thing—and then stopped when a flash hit me. Truck metal and glass, the smell of coolant, the weight of bodies pressing in. I tasted iron and heard metal grind. I screamed. The sound was raw, half fear and half the residue of a life that ended with teeth and hunger. I doubled over, hands on my knees. I forced myself up and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. My apartment was quiet in the way an empty freezer is quiet. No sirens. No shouting. Just the refrigerator hum and a clock on the stove ticking. "Stop it," I told the empty room. "Stop." I went for the kitchen like someone sprinting for a door. I didn't have a plan. I had a need—food, light, a stomach