As the sky began to pale, the first dull greys of dawn broke through the heavy blanket of smoke. The compound lay in pieces, blackened earth, splintered wood, sagging structures still steaming from the night’s violence. The fires had been extinguished. What remained was ruin.

The damage was staggering. The elephant dormitories had been saved, just barely, but the veterinary shed was a hollowed shell. Its roof had collapsed inward sometime during the night, taking with it months of records, supplies, medicines, and carefully prepared emergency kits.

The deck at the main house was gone entirely, a fractured mess of timber, wire, and muddy earth. Tina’s herb garden had vanished under the water, replaced now by a slurry of uprooted plants and ash.

A section of fencing lay twisted and flattened, as if some great hand had swiped through it. Everywhere she looked, the signs of violence remained.

Bette turned a slow circle, trying to take it all in. Her shoulders sagged under the weight of exhaustion, her clothes still damp from the flood, stiffened by soot and blood. Every muscle in her body ached, her hands raw from the axes, from crawling through the mud, from hauling herself up when the water had knocked her flat.

But it was her heart that felt truly broken.

The grief came in waves now. Not just for the compound, but for Kamau. His face still flashed in her mind, wide-eyed and determined as he ran for what they thought was a rope. The horror that followed, the way the black mamba had moved, how his body had convulsed and then gone limp… It clung to her like smoke in her lungs.

She had hoped for more from him. Even after everything, after all the tension and mistrust, she had quietly believed he might come around. That in time, he would find purpose in protecting instead of destroying. She had seen it in the way he stood up during the night, in the way he threw himself into the fight against the fire. He could have left. He hadn’t. That had meant something.

And now he was gone. Swept away like so much else.

Bette blinked hard, trying to fight the pressure behind her eyes. She hadn’t cried yet. Not through the fire, not when Chang vanished into the inferno, not when Kamau went still in Elijah’s arms. But now, in the fragile light of morning, it threatened to split her open.