Marco Vasquez
The petal bloomed in the ash like a wound reopening, its edges unfurling with a wet, deliberate slowness that made my stomach lurch. The alley was a ruin: bricks pulverized to dust, the brownstone’s skeleton smoldering, the air thick with the stench of charred wood and something sweeter, more insidious, like blood left too long in the sun. I knelt in the debris, my knees sinking into soot that clung to my skin like guilt, the silver scars on my hands pulsing faintly, a reminder of the network I’d thought I’d tamed. Elena stood over me, Dad’s knife dangling from her blood-slick fingers, her eyes wide and wild, reflecting the petal’s crimson glow. Alexander’s arm was a steel band around her waist, his combat knife still dripping with ichor, his face a mask of exhaustion and de
