After the Flash

The acrid smell of spent gunpowder and something distinctly chemical—perhaps the remnants of Lina’s hastily deployed ‘smoke suppressant’—still clung to the air, heavy and sickeningly sweet. The siren song of the distant police radio felt less like a threat now and more like a monotonous, irritating hum beneath the strained silence that had fallen over the little clapboard house.

Rene sat on the porch steps, her knees drawn up to her chest, watching the fine grey ash drift down from the sky like morbid confetti. Her knuckles were white where she gripped her jeans. The adrenaline had burned out hours ago, leaving behind a hollow, vibrating exhaustion that made her bones ache. She kept glancing nervously at the neighboring yards—Mr. Henderson’s prize-winning petunias were definitely scorched, a jagged, blackened line where the final, desperate burst of the fireworks raid had landed.

Dion emerged from the front door, moving with a slow, deliberate stiffness that suggested deep fatigue or the lingering after-effects of whatever he’d last found to medicate the panic. He didn’t look at the scorched lawn. He looked only at Rene.