By the time he left the room, the hallway already smelled like cleaning agents and burned electronics.
Downstairs looked like a place that had survived something and hadn't decided yet whether to be proud of it or ashamed.
Workers moved through the space with tired efficiency, sweeping glass into piles, dragging broken chairs out, stacking tables that had been flipped or snapped. One wall had a long crack running through it where someone had hit it hard enough to leave a story behind. The front windows were patched with temporary panels, light bleeding in through uneven seams.
There was blood on the floor in more than one place, dark and half-cleaned, smeared thin where someone had tried to scrub it too fast. Guns lay in a bin near the counter, stripped and tagged, bullet casings scattered everywhere like confetti nobody wanted to acknowledge. The air still smelled faintly of ozone and smoke under the cleaner.
Xavier took it in as he walked.
