Mei hadn't expected the food.
That was the honest truth of it, standing in the backyard of a house in Brigantine with a crowd of people she didn't know, watching bowls get filled and passed along a table, she had expected a lot of things and this hadn't been one of them. She wasn't complaining. In a world where every tin of food and every bag of rice represented a decision someone had made about priorities and survival, being fed as a prisoner was not nothing. It was, objectively, better than the alternative.
That didn't mean she felt good about standing in line for it.
She hung back for a moment, arms crossed, watching the others, older prisoners, people who'd clearly been here long enough to know the routine, move toward the food.
She stepped into the line.
