The wail of the sirens wasn't a warning. It was a hammer, smashing the fragile silence of the night into a thousand jagged shards.
Blue and red lights strobed against the high windows of the ruined gym, painting the wreckage in the colors of emergency. They were close. Too close.
I lay on the cracked concrete, my chest heaving, the taste of copper and ozone thick in my mouth. My [Danger Sense] wasn't just humming; it was screaming, a high-pitched whine that drilled into the base of my skull. But it wasn't warning me about the Watcher, or the Legion, or the Scuttlers.
It was warning me about the girl standing five feet away.
Akemi didn't move like a panicked high schooler. She didn't freeze like a civilian witnessing a supernatural catastrophe. She moved like a soldier in a kill box.
