Smoke and Solace

Vittoria

Smoke still clung to me long after I’d left the scene.

Even after the paramedic had cleaned the scrape on my shoulder, after the cool antiseptic burned across my skin, the scent of fire, of charred wood and iron, refused to leave. It sat in my lungs, heavy, reminding me how close I’d been to never walking out of that warehouse alive.

Zev sat opposite me in the mansion's sitting room, arm