I was dreaming of quiet things.
Not blood,not bullets,not the kind of nightmares that had haunted me for weeks.
For once, I dreamed of an ordinary morning,sunlight spilling across my bed, the smell of coffee drifting in the air, Valen leaning against my counter like he belonged there.
But the dream shattered with the shrill ring of my phone.
At first, I thought I’d imagined it, that it was part of the dream. But then the sound grew sharper, cutting through the fog in my head. My hand fumbled across the nightstand, found the phone, and pressed it to my ear.
“Elara.” A voice….urgent, unfamiliar. “Get out. Now.”
Before I could respond, the line went dead.
And then I smelled it.
Smoke.
Thick,acrid,curling into my room like fingers.
I bolted upright. For a split second, I couldn’t mov
