The crater smelled of ozone and old rain. Dawn pushed a cold white light across the smoking stone where the clock tower had been; the city around it lay quiet, as if the streets themselves were holding their breath.
They found Ethan in the wreckage.
He was half-buried beneath a twisted lattice of cable and masonry, skin caked with ash, eyes open and glassy. When Hannah slid a hand under his neck to test for a pulse, it beat — uneven, fast, scorched with something that did not belong to blood. A faint blue vein traced the side of his throat like a road map for a technology no human should carry.
Maya screamed when they lifted him clear. Myles crouched beside them, her hands already on his jacket, scanning, tapping, humming diagnostics into the portable rig she’d wired to her wrist. The l
