The storm hadn’t just torn through the city.

It had torn through us.

Rain still dripped from the cracked windowpanes, the echo of thunder retreating like a warning that had finally run out of breath. The silence that followed was almost cruel in its heaviness — thick with things unsaid, and wounds that had no visible mark.

Isabella sat on the floor beside the shattered remnants of the desk, her chest heaving, a streak of dirt across her cheek. Her hair clung to her neck, wet, wild — beautiful even in ruin. I couldn’t take my eyes off her, not even now, when the air still smelled of smoke and...