CHAPTER 196 — WHEN THE CITY CHOSE SIDES
The rain did not stop through the night.
By morning, the entire city felt soaked in tension, not the kind that exploded loudly, but the kind that settled deep into people's bones and changed the way they looked at everything around them. Elena felt it the moment she stepped out of the car. The streets still moved with familiar rhythm, but the rhythm no longer felt unified. Something invisible had fractured beneath the surface, dividing the city into people who still clung to the system because they feared what came after it, and people who had already begun pulling away because they feared the system itself more.
That divide was growing faster now.
And the terrifying part was that everyone could feel it.
