The last thing I register is Landon shouting, Victoria and Piper huddling together, and Raymond swearing with terrifying calm. I don’t see Jane.
Then the smoke swallows everything.
And I’m gone.
35
ELLIE
Iknow the second I sit down for breakfast the following morning that something has changed.
Nothing iswrongyet. The air still smells the same. My body still works the way it always has. But there’s a pressure in my chest, a quiet insistence, like the world has already leaned forward and I’m the only one pretending we’re standing still.
I can’t point to a reason. That’s the worst part. If there were signs, I could argue with them. If there were facts, I could line them up and make sense of it. Instead, there’s just this hum under my skin, a warning without words.
I keep thinking,After this.
After tonight. After the door opens. After whatever comes next.
I try to name what I’m afraid of, and my mind goes blank. Not pain. Not loss. Not even danger, exactly. It’s more like the knowledge that whatever version of me exists right now is temporary, already dissolving at the edges.
I feel watched by the future.
Like something has already been decided, and I’m only now being informed.
I move forward because standing still seems impossible. Every step carries the same quiet certainty—this is the moment before the story splits, and I won’t recognize the path I’m on until it’s too late to turn back.
For all intents and purposes, everything appears normal.
I sit down—Zane on one side and Beckett on the other, with Dominic directly across from me—and watch Aria daintily sip from her coffee mug.
Normal. Routine.
Yet my skin prickles with a keen awareness, with the knowledge of what’s to come. Alarm bells blare in my head.
Fischer is home, but he hasn’t left his room. I think Aria locks him in there when she doesn’t want to speak to him.
Is it possible she overheard our conversation?
Perhaps.
Aria sits at the table with her legs crossed, silk robe pristine, steam curling from her coffee mug like it’s part of the aesthetic. Morning light filters in through the window and turns everything soft. Safe. Ordinary.
That’s how she likes it when she drops bombs.
“The Paragons of Prosperity are hosting another event,” she says casually, eyes on her mug as she takes a sip.
The words hit me like ice water down my spine.
My hands curl into fists at my sides, though I keep my expression placid. “Is it going to be like the last one?”
Lenny’s desperate cries…
Senator Reece Whisper’s naked, mutilated body…
Doyle’s head jerking back with a bullet between his eyes…
Aria looks up slowly. Her smile spreads with deliberate precision, sharp and pleased. Wicked, if I’m honest.
