Velvet Vice burned.
Smoke curled up into the rafters in slow, heavy waves, swallowing the lights one by one, choking the last notes of music out of the air.
Tables were on their sides. The floor was slick with blood and bodies, some groaning, some not moving at all.
Selene staggered upright, her ribs streaked in red, the gun clenched tight in her hand like it was the only thing holding her together.
Clone Eighteen stood dead center in the wreckage, lit by fire, soaked in blood, still as stone.
She didn’t move. She didn’t have to.
She looked like she belonged there.
“You always thought the war ended with your mother,” she said.
Selene didn’t answer. Didn’t flinch.
Eighteen c****d her head, her expression unreadable. “But Mireille wasn’t the final act. She was the architect of somet
