Scarlet was right. The air did feel different.
As Rhett walked side-by-side with the other inhabitants of the Arena district, he could sense something had shifted. This was only his second time observing with them—his first was when he'd still been pretending to be a zombie, following behind Claudette's army—but the change in their energy was unmistakable.
Before, they'd felt despondent. Decadent. Every step they took spoke of suffering and malignant pain, like prisoners serving life sentences with no hope of parole.
Now their energy was electric, but not in a good way. The people no longer carried the hollow eyes of never-ending suffering. Instead, they radiated terror—jittery, sharp-edged fear that made Rhett's skin crawl.
No longer like prisoners. More like people on death row.
Fragments of hushed conversations drifted through the crowd:
"Did you see the Zombie Queen? How she injured all those people? I heard one of them died..."
