Tuesday Morning | Geneva Outskirts | Abandoned Safehouse

The rain hadn’t stopped since the fire.

The flames that had devoured the Eden facility were long extinguished, but their smoke still clung to the air heavy, chemical, unforgiving. Violet stood near the cracked window, watching the black plumes fade into the distant skyline. Her reflection looked back at her in the glass pale skin, hollow eyes, a tremor in her fingers that wouldn’t leave no matter how tightly she clenched them.

Bryan was across the room, hunched over a broken table, dismantling his weapon piece by piece. The rhythmic click click of metal against metal was the only sound cutting through...