The ambulance lights painted the street in pulsing red and white by the time they arrived, a small crowd of neighbors gathered at a careful distance, the particular hush of people who sensed tragedy without yet knowing its shape.
Aria was out of the car before it fully stopped, Damien's security team scrambling to keep pace behind her, her mother's building rising ahead of her looking exactly the same as it always had same peeling paint, same crooked mailbox except now with paramedics moving in and out of the front door with grim efficiency.
"Mama" Aria pushed past a paramedic at the entrance, panicking, making her voice unrecognizable even to herself. "Where's my mother, where are my girls"
"Ma'am, I need you to stay back—"
"That's her daughter," Damien said, appearing at Aria's shoul
