Kyle’s POV
The hangar stunk of blood and ozone.
Bodies—ours and theirs, lay broken across the steel floor, crimson streaks smeared across walls that had once been silver. My chest heaved, every inhale dragging smoke and iron down my throat.
But it wasn’t just the stench that choked me.
It was the hearts.
Above every soldier, above every dying enemy, I saw them flicker, translucent, pulsing shapes of light that revealed their final emotions.
Fear. Regret. Pain.
I staggered, clutching my head. My gift had always been hard to silence, but now? With so much death, so much emotion spilling at once, it was like drowning in a storm of voices.
I don’t want to die.
Tell her I loved her.
Why did it end here?
They screamed in my skull.
“Kyle!”
Samantha’s voice cut through, steady, pullin
