I open my eyes.
The ceiling above me is low and unfinished, a grid of exposed piping and bundled cables running along it like industrial veins, all lit by a single dim utility strip bolted to the wall a few feet to my right. The light buzzes faintly, an electrical insect hum that drills straight into the back of my skull.
The room is small. Windowless. Bare.
No art. No furniture except the narrow cot I’m lying on and a battered metal chair shoved into the corner. The walls are poured concrete, stained in places with old water marks and rust shadows, and the air has that stale, underground quality that tells me this place hasn’t seen real sunlight in a very long time.
Where the hell am I.
My left arm is immobilized against my body in a rigid sling that wraps around my shoulder and torso, thick padding pressing into my ribs, and when I try to lift my head to look at it more closely, pain explodes behind my eyes hard enough to make me hiss and drop my chin back onto the pillow.
“Okay,” I mutter to the ceiling. “Cool. Love this for me.”
I test my fingers.
They move.
Slowly. Clumsily. But they move.
That’s… something.
My throat feels like sandpaper soaked in battery acid, so I swallow and immediately regret it.
“Water,” I croak into the empty room, fully aware of how pathetic that sounds and deciding I do not care.
Nothing happens.
Of course nothing happens.
I close my eyes for a second and try to line my thoughts up into something resembling a coherent timeline instead of a highlight reel from a nightmare.
Restaurant.
Glimner.
Explosion.
Fire.
Men with guns.
The gas line.
Then—
My chest tightens.
Something huge and wrong tearing into the kitchen.
Bone-white spurs.
Impossible speed.
Being lifted off the floor.
Arms like a furnace around my body.
Eyes that glowed.
