When Kade opened his eyes, his hands were red.
Not stained—soaked, like he'd been drowning in a sea of blood. It dripped from his fingertips, slow and deliberate, soaking into the cracked pavement beneath him.
He didn’t feel anything at first. His head ached, but not in the usual way. This was something deeper, like his mind had just been unplugged and then forced to start running on autopilot.
The question that burned his thoughts came instantly, cutting through the fog:
Whose blood is this?
The streets around him were unnervingly still. Not a sound. Not a breath. The only movement was the flicker of dying neon signs above, warping in colors that made no sense at all. The air was thick, metallic—he could almost taste the electricity in it, sharp and unnatural. The usual chaos of the
