When the Glass Breaks is a standalone short story set in a larger world. It serves as an early entry point into a series Cole Shaw is currently developing, introducing the characters, the rules of the hidden war, and the forces moving behind the scenes.
Jessie keeps his world small on purpose. Late-night gigs, a cheap apartment, and sunglasses he never takes off. If he can’t see what’s really out there, maybe it can’t see him back.
But the voice in his head has other plans.
Shem has warned him for years about a hidden war moving under the surface of the city, a war that needs a Champion, and a Gift Jessie refuses to use. Then something finds him anyway. A pale, hungry thing crashes into Jessie’s life, and Jessie gives it a name that sticks: Pointy. The rules turn simple overnight. Run, or bleed.
The attacks don’t stop. They escalate. And every trail leads to the same place, a half-built construction site soaked in symbols and secrets, where monsters don’t just hunt, they perform.
When Jessie discovers who the ritual is meant to lure, the last of his distance disappears. Alice is back, dragged into a nightmare Jessie never asked for. And the boy with her is more than collateral. He is the kind of truth that rewrites a life in a single breath.
To get them out, Jessie will have to step into the open, shatter his blinders, and fight in a game he never agreed to play.
Because in this war, people are leverage, the city is a trap, and the only thing more dangerous than the monsters is the mind that’s been guiding Jessie toward them all along.
