The silence of the penthouse was louder than the sirens at the pier had ever been. I stood in the center of the kitchen, the steam from a cup of untouched coffee curling into the air, my hands still trembling with a phantom resonance. We had made it back—Maya was safe in a secure wing of the sanctuary, and the warehouse was nothing but a memory of scorched concrete and broken glass. I could still smell the salt and rotting fish from Pier 12 clinging to my clothes, a grim reminder of how close we had come to losing everything.
But the "Killing Floor" had left its mark.
I looked down at my palms. The silver lightning-bolt patterns were still pulsing with a faint, agitated violet light, a residual hum from the massive energy discharge I’d channeled to save Silas. It wasn't just a physical
