Page 54 of Veil of Smoke

“Then let’s take it down together,” she says, voice low, sure.

I pull her closer.

Her fingers lace with mine.

As we lie down together, my phone blinks. I reach out for it.

It is a message.

From Rita

“Caldera’s been shipping weird cargo lately. Quiet loads. No sniffs from customs. That ain’t usual.”

I drop the phone. Tomorrow’s problem.

Chapter 11 – Viviana

Smoke fills the sky before I see the flames.

I turn the corner onto Halsted and stop cold. The glow at the end of the street pulses red and orange, flickering off buildings like a siren without sound. My legs move before thought catches up. I run.

Torrisi Blooms is burning.

The windows are gone. Glass litters the sidewalk. Flames twist through the beams where the roof used to be. The vines I’d trained along the front have turned to ash. It smells like scorched metal and rain-dampened death.

My breath tears at my ribs. A yellow tape cuts across the entry, flimsy against the destruction. A cop lifts a hand, voice drowned by sirens. I ignore him. I push forward.

Someone grabs my shoulders.

“Miss, you can’t go in—” A firefighter steps into my path. His suit is soot-streaked, face slick with sweat. “It’s not safe. We’re still containing the rear wall.”

I don’t answer.

“If you cross that line, we’ll have to detain you,” the chief says, voice flat. “This isn’t a film. You’ll choke on smoke and bring down what’s left of the walls.”

I just stare past him at the ruin. At the blackened bones of the only thing that ever felt mine.

Torrisi Blooms is gone.

My hands hang limp at my sides. I can’t move. Can’t cry. Everything is heat and smoke and a memory breaking apart inside my skull.

A man coughs behind me. The fire chief steps forward, pulling something from a charred box. He walks slowly, like every step is borrowed time.

“We found this in the back,” he says. “Under the old display table.”

He holds out the box. Inside, nestled in ash, lies my mother’s locket. The silver chain is blackened, the clasp half-melted. But it’s still whole. Somehow.

I reach for it. My fingers shake. It’s warm, almost too warm, like it remembers everything that burned around it.

My throat closes. Still no tears. Just this tight, awful stillness.

The man nods. “That’s all we recovered.”

I close the lid. “Thank you.”

His eyes soften. “I’m sorry. The structure’s totaled. It lit too fast, too hot. Looked targeted.”

I flinch. “Targeted?”

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