The moment Patrick forced his way into the inner section, the air changed.
It wasn't just guarded space.
It was controlled suffering.
The structure was larger than expected, a converted storage block divided into long rows of reinforced rooms, ten on each side, their heavy doors locked with crude locking mechanisms, and what lay inside them made everything else they had seen in Rus feel restrained by comparison.
People.
Packed.
Not organized, not contained, but crammed together in numbers that made no sense for the space provided, bodies pressed against bodies in rooms that could barely hold a fraction of them comfortably, and yet over a hundred were forced into each one, their conditions stripped down to survival alone, no order, no dignity, only exhaustion, fear, and the hollow stillness of those who had stopped expecting anything better.
Patrick froze for a fraction of a second.
Not out of fear.
But recognition.
