Chapter 84: A Dawn of Scars

The flashing red and blue lights painted the pre-dawn fog in strobing, hellish hues. They sliced through the trees, turning the scene of brutal, primal combat into a sterile crime scene. Uniformed officers swarmed the clearing, their voices sharp and authoritative, cutting through the ringing in my ears. The world, which had narrowed to the space of a few feet—to Brock’s snarling face, to the splintered wood beneath my knees, to the sight of Marlee, safe—snapped back into a wider, colder...