Chapter 53

**Sloane**

By the time the afternoon sun starts to fade, the compound walls rise in the distance. My grip tightens on the handlebars. It looks exactly the way it always has. Barbed wire glints under weak light. Guard towers stare like unblinking eyes. The main gates, thick enough to stop a tank, are already opening as if they’ve been waiting. Roxanne shifts behind me, her hands tightening on my si