Aria's POV
There's a specific kind of horror that comes with watching buildings full of innocent people burn while knowing you could have prevented it if you'd acted differently. It's the kind of horror that either breaks you completely or transforms you into something much more dangerous than you were before.
I felt the transformation happening in real time.
"How long do we have?" I asked Hayes as he worked frantically to override the emergency exit locks.
"Before the fires spread to this building? Maybe ten minutes."
"Before everyone in those dormitories dies?"
"Aria—"
"How long?"
"Some of them are already dead. The buildings that got hit directly, anyone on the upper floors—"
"How many might still be alive?"
Hayes stopped working and looked at me with the kind of expression pe
