Cassian’s POV
The rain has turned the city into a smeared watercolor of red taillights and sodium-yellow streetlamps. I’m driving too fast down streets I haven’t used in years—old arteries that still remember the weight of my tires from nights I’m not proud of. The wipers slap a steady rhythm against the windshield, but they can’t keep up with the downpour. Doesn’t matter. I can see enough.
My phone is mounted on the dash, screen split between the live feed from every camera I’ve managed to access and a map dotted with red pins—every abandoned building, every foreclosed warehouse, every stretch of overgrown rail yard within twenty miles of our house. I’ve already crossed off three locations. Each one was empty. Each one felt like another piece of my chest being torn out.
I don’t feel t
