(Liam Romano's POV)
The instant coffee left a metallic aftertaste, like licking the lip of a galvanized cup. That cold iron lingered on my tongue the way the war had made its own flavor of morning: small, sharp, and impossible to wash away. It tasted of the blood I couldn’t see but that collected under my nails; of trajectories and calculations that had nothing to do with breakfast and everything to do with survival.
While Hailey tended the children, I opened the tablet on top of a rust-pitted toolbox. The glow from the screen painted my hands in a pale, hungry light. A map of the city filled the display: dots like bruises—green ones for assets that still answered, red ones for the pockets that had bled out or been compromised. Too much red. The pattern felt like a body temperature readi
