Tonight, the silence is worse than the groans. It’s thick. Suffocating. We’re all curled in our corners, but I can feel the energy crackling. It’s not just hunger anymore. It’s something primal. Scarlet keeps sharpening her broken knife, the scrape-grind-scrape a promise of violence. Lily’s humming to herself, a pop song from before, but her eyes are glassy, vacant. I see her fingers tracing patterns on her thigh, and I know where her mind’s gone. To touch. To being touched. Any touch, even if it hurts.

My own skin feels like it’s screaming. I remember the last photo shoot before the world ended. Silk ropes. A leather collar, cold and heavy. The photographer’s voice telling me to arch, to beg with my eyes. It wasn’t an act. I wanted to be used. I wanted to be his good girl, his dirty little fucktoy, to feel the sting and the reward. Now? I’d trade my last shred of dignity for a warm hand on my throat and a protein bar. I’d get on my knees and suck a stranger’s cock until he came down my throat if it meant a can of beans for the girls. Isabell would understand. She’s watching me, and I know she’s thinking the same thing—how the ache between her legs is starting to rival the one in her stomach. Desperation rewrites your morals. It turns you into an animal that just wants to be fed and fucked into oblivion.