Elena Vasquez
The hospital’s waiting room was a purgatory of beige walls and fluorescent hum, the kind of place where time stretched like taffy, sticky and endless. I sat on a plastic chair that creaked under my weight, my tactical gear traded for a borrowed hoodie from Marco: too big, smelling of his teenage sweat and cheap cologne. Alexander paced the linoleum, his phone glued to his ear, barking orders to his security team in clipped tones that barely masked the storm in his eyes. Marco slumped beside me, his laptop balanced on his knees, fingers flying across keys as he chased digital ghosts through Victor’s fractured network. Sofia was in surgery again, complications from the graze, the cancer rearing up like a beast she’d starved for years. The doctor’s words echoed: “She’s stable,
