SILO
---
Silo held his position at the tree line, weapon steady, eyes fixed on the vehicle that had stopped exactly where the perimeter's oldest weakness used to sit before he'd rebuilt it three times over.
The passenger door opened.
Not one of the two escaped adults.
A boy. Fourteen, maybe fifteen, moving with the specific frightened uncertainty of someone who hadn't chosen to be here.
"Hold," Silo said into the comm, adjusting his angle without lowering his weapon. "It's a child. One of the Marlowe children, I think — I recognize him from the intervention photos."
"Is he alone," Ryke's voice, tight with barely controlled fear.
Silo watched the boy take three unsteady steps away from the vehicle, hands raised, his whole body shaking.
"He's alone right now," Silo said. "But the a
