Chapter 185

• Lucia's POV
• We carried Leo up the fire escape at dawn. Sky the color of old bruises. City already burning below us.. Ethan’s goodbye gift. Bombs in empty subway cars, abandoned malls, places that used to mean something. Red flashes lit the horizon like cheap fireworks.
• Ryan had Leo wrapped in a faded Spider-Man blanket we found in the playroom wreckage. The one Leo slept with when he was eight and still believed in heroes. Sofia walked ahead, arms full of splintered crib pieces she’d pried off the walls downstairs. Broken horses, faded moons, tiny mattresses that smelled like dust and lost babies.