Marco Vasquez

The red vein under Elena’s skin was a living thing, pulsing like a second heart, bright as the thread that had just written VOLUME V: THE FINAL HEART in the ash. It wasn’t a scar. It wasn’t a wound. It was a signature, Javier’s handwriting etched into her flesh, claiming her as the last page. The alley was a battlefield of our survival: rubble smoldering, the brownstone’s corpse collapsed into a crater, the air thick with the stench of blood, ash, and the faint, cloying ...