Five people sat around a table of expensive wood. On each tray in front of them, plastic bags of blood. Not wine. Not food. Blood, the way other families served dinner.
"I called this meeting," Sophia Vale said, "because Bala has informed us the government can no longer send criminals."
The walls of the room were covered in photographs. Decades of them. Generations. The same faces in each one, unchanged, looking back from different eras wearing different clothes, the only constant their eyes and the specific quality of their stillness.
"Is this a joke?" Steff asked. The middle-aged Vale with grey hair.
Vince sat beside Celestine. Carrise, the youngest, across from them.
"No," Sophia said. "The walls are under pressure. Losing people now would be the worst possible decision the government could make. We need to find other sources."
