The boot came up and the noise hit us like weather.
Men shouting in unison somewhere close, the specific rhythm of people being drilled, hundreds of voices going up together with no thought at all for what might be listening. The sound was thick, organised, continuous—boots on concrete, metal striking metal, the raw volume of a place that had stopped caring who heard it.
This was it. This was the sound we'd been hearing roll down the capital all evening, and we'd been driven straight into the middle of it. The air that came in with the open boot carried dust and the sharp edge of something burning somewhere not far enough away.
The tattooed boy stood over us with two others behind him, and the knives in their hands caught the light. Short blades, the kind you keep close. The street light behind them threw their shadows across the four of us still packed into the metal.
