First Blood on Delancey

The aftermath spread farther than the fight. In diners, churches, mosques, synagogues, shelters, group chats, military bunkers, corporate towers, and alien memory vaults, people argued about what Kieran Vale represented. Some wanted a champion. Some wanted a weapon. Some wanted proof that ordinary people had not been replaced by the age of gods. Kieran wanted a shower and three hours without his bones humming. Instead he received messages from strangers describing symptoms, nightmares, missing relatives, and sudden abilities they were afraid to confess. He read them all. That was another kind of pain, slower than broken ribs and harder to heal.