Shirley
The blood wouldn’t come off.
No matter how hard I scrubbed, it stayed there—faint, metallic, clinging to the creases of my palm like a memory I couldn’t erase. I stared into the cracked mirror in Cassandra’s safehouse bathroom, heart pounding with something between rage and guilt.
I should’ve been able to fight them off myself.
I’d felt the spark—the hum of something inside me waking up. Just like Dr. Myles said. Like something buried in my blood was clawing to the surface, impatient, wild. But it wasn’t enough. Not yet. Not like I needed it to be.
And Dante… He’d shown up like he always did. The knight in leather armor, dragging death behind him like a cloak. He’d looked at me like I was his entire world—right before stepping into my fire to pull me out of it again.
I didn’t
