Chapter 25 Brewing Storm

• Nina lay on the narrow bed, eyes tracing the cracks in the ceiling, listening to the morning ritual: the muted thud of weight, the rough exhale, the guttural grunts that broke the silence of dawn. Sleep had long abandoned her.
• Her nightmares never did.
• They came in fragments — a hand yanking her by the hair, her mother’s body jerking as the gun went off, her father’s voice shouting Run! Before the sound of his body hitting the ground. Then the fire. Always the fire. Her brother’s voice screaming for help, swallowed by the heat and smoke until all that remained was silence.