Lan Yue spent the next four days becoming a ghost.
Not the dramatic kind. Not the kind that howled through hallways and made the living uneasy. The other kind. The kind that stood in plain sight and was never noticed. The kind that watched.
Bethany had been exceptional at watching. In the apocalypse, the people who survived longest were not the strongest or the fastest. They were the ones who paid attention. You learned which rooftops were safe by watching where rainwater pooled and where it didn't. You learned which survivors would betray you by watching how they rationed food when they thought no one was counting. You learned everything worth knowing about the world by sitting still and letting it forget you were there.
Qin Wen's world had forgotten Lan Yue existed. She intended to use that.
On the first day, she mapped his routine.
