The air up here tastes like ash and regret.
It's thick, metallic, clinging to the back of my tongue like soot after a fire that hasn't finished burning. Every inhale scratches. Every exhale feels like a confession I'm not ready to release. The night is cold but the heat of everything I've done clings to me—as if the world below is still smoldering from the truth I dropped into it.
Blue and red lights dance across the rooftop, reflecting off the steel parapets and glass skylights like a funerary strobe. Helicopter blades beat overhead — the night sky cracking under their weight. A dozen agents, guns raised, faces hidden behind visors, surround me.
They call it a "containment." I call it a cage.
