The world didn't end with a bang.
It ended with a high-pitched, metallic shriek—sharp enough to rattle my bones, to vibrate through my teeth like a warning I was too late to understand.
For a split second, everything felt suspended—like the city itself was holding its breath, waiting to see if we would survive what we had just set in motion.
Reid vanished into the wall of fire and black smoke.
And then the north pillar—the one Julianne had "gifted" to the building—began to glow.
Not red.
Not orange.
But a blinding, unnatural blue.
The kind of blue that didn't belong to fire.
The kind that felt wrong—cold, calculated… alive.
I stood frozen on the sidewalk, my body refusing to obey me. The heat from the fire trucks roared against my skin, but it was nothing compared to the inferno devouring the Silver Star. My father's hand gripped my shoulder, heavy and unyielding, anchoring me to a reality that was already collapsing into ash.
