The evening was red due to the battles.
Isla leaned on Dante's shoulder on the rooftop of the abandoned warehouse, and heard the din of fight resounding in the streets below. Shouting and gunshots sounded close and fast, but were swallowed up by the heavy, yellow-gray smoke from incinerated autos and trash fires. Darkness rolled forward and backward in crests, with people running in pursuit of each other, and cries abruptly severed by the clashing metal and the dull thuds as the bodies crashed onto the stone.
She should have looked away. She would have done so months ago. What she was seeing would have made her cover her eyes and pray for silence. But now, her eyes stayed glued to the chaos below. Every shot, scream, and fall filled her mind, and she took it all in without even a twitch.
Dante breathed softly next to her. "This is what it costs to stay alive. We pay for all pieces of earth and all walls in blood. Luca knows it, I know it, and now you do too.".
