Jason sank to his knees as smoke swallowed the sky, the color of it an angry crimson, like the world itself was bleeding. The house before him, her house, collapsed in slow motion, boards shrieking and crumbling as if mourning their own destruction.

His chest caved with a ragged sob, the kind that seemed to come from somewhere deeper than his lungs, deeper even than his body. Everything around him blurred—faces, sirens, flames—until all that remained was the ash.

He should have looked away. Should have closed his eyes.

But he didn't. He couldn't.
The paramedics moved solemnly through the smoke, their silhouettes stark against the firelit haze. The stretchers were draped in white sheets—too still, too final. He counted them without meaning to.
One... two... three.
Jason didn't flinch. His heart was hollowed out, like something had been carved from within him with a hot blade.
It should've been him.
Not Selena.
"No," he whispered hoarsely, his voice splintering. "No, it can't be."
He stumbled backward, eyes wide, brain refusing to bridge the gap between what he saw and what he believed. Reality came in slow waves, each one more unbearable than the last. And then he was moving, sprinting toward the stretchers with a desperate, raw urgency. A rescuer with no one left to save.
"Selena," he choked, reaching trembling hands toward the nearest form.
The heat of the fire still lingered in the air, as if the world itself was scorched. He lifted the sheet with shaking fingers. What stared back at him was no longer her face—just blackened skin, unrecognizable. His mind rejected it. It can't be her. It isn't.

I'm standing here, frozen in the middle of some smoke-drenched hellhole with Jason's body just inches in front of mine, shielding me like it'll make a difference. But I've already seen it. The blood. The body was tied to the chair. The message on the wall, thick and red and dripping.


I don't know who "we" is, and I don't know what they know, but the way Jason's jaw tightens as he reads it, the way Luca won't even meet my eyes… I know one thing:


"Jason," I whisper, my voice hoarse, "what the hell is going on?"


He turns slightly, just enough for me to catch his face—stone cold, unreadable, the kind of look that makes people shut up and step back. But I'm not people. I'm me. And he brought me here.


"You said it was work," I say, louder now, anger threading through my throat. "You said you'd be gone an hour, no big deal—what is this? Who are you?"


Chapter 70 - The Silence After the Storm