1. Broken
Broken
Of the most dangerous city-states that remain in Nye Verden, the war zone that is New Chicago is only matched by the lawlessness of the Western Alliance.
Imust admit, the body looks fucking gnarly.
With the head bent at a weird, unnatural angle, it’s a wonder that the rest of it doesn’t look like wall-flung-spaghetti.
Christ, that was an inside thought.
I glance up from the twisted corpse and over to Persephone De Luca, lieutenant and lead homicide detective of the New Chicago Police Department. She looks thoroughly distracted by the brass talking at her.
At. Not with.
Grunting, I flick my attention back to the mangled man. He’s relatively nondescript. A general white guy with close cut hair. His glasses are quite literally jammed onto his face. The rest of him is hard to differentiate because his body looks as if it were thrown from a great height.
Yeah. Thrown.
I glance up to the overcast New Chicagoan sky. It being cloudy isn’t the issue so much as the fact that the nearest building is, in fact, one of the commercial districts’ skyscrapers.
Which means this man’s death is probably a murder; likely by a Remnant. And that means my job is about to get a lot harder.
I glance back at Percy again. She’s smiling the way she does where her nose crinkles. Clearly whatever the man had said was funny enough that she could pretend to laugh at it.
Then her amber eyes flick to mine. And, as her gaze pins me that way it does, she frowns—as if reading everything.
She holds a hand up to the man who looks mildly affronted that a woman might dare interrupt him but isn’t stupid enough to say anything to her about it.
“What’d you find?” she asks, kneeling beside me.
For a moment, it all feels right. The cool air. The smell of the Affliction-powered engines whirring around us. The way Percy looks at me, as if I might be important to her.
Then I glance down at the body by my feet and remember that I am, indeed, an idiot.
“I think he was thrown,” I say, pointing at the wall behind him and then the way his face has caved in. “As in not from a building but from a hand.”
She quirks a dark eyebrow at me. A silent urge to continue.
I point up above us. “If someone fell from up there, they’d be a grease stain. As it is, he’s not exactly in the best shape, but he’s recognizable.”
Percy follows my finger, then looks back down at the body.
“Have you read him?” she asks the next obvious question.
I let out a snort, happy to know that despite the taboo, Percy still values me—if just for the powers alone.
With a gloved hand, I reach out to the man’s back, careful not to disrupt anything else.
Then—
Darkness erupts around me. As if the light of reality is turned off, I’m left in the ether. Alone. Standing on nothingness and seeing into the forevermore.
And nothing happens. The vacuum of reality shifts—which is odd given there’s no basis for up or down. Violent stabbing of pain erupts behind my eyes as I collide with something hard and cold.
“Fuck,” I groan, my vision swimming back to the dark alleyway tucked between New Chicago’s best. The cold, wet stone of the alley presses into my palms.
“Arya?” Percy’s concerned voice is beside me, her warm hands on my back and shoulder.
I turn and am stupidly stunned by the way the Affliction lamps catch her brunette hair, giving her an ethereal glow. The slight messiness of the bun only makes her look more human and just as perfect.
“Arya?” she prompts, and I shake myself out of it. Her eyes wide with fear.
“Something’s wrong with my ability,” I grunt, hoping desperately that my stomach doesn’t revolt. I can taste the bile. “Or—”
“Or someone’s interfering?” Percy picks up on my line of reasoning immediately.
I let out a really gross hiccup, feeling the nausea cascade into my mouth. The taste of my own tongue is disgusting.
“Fuck,” I whisper, squeezing my eyes tight to ward off the way the ground wobbles.
Her hand makes warm, soothing circles on my back as her other hand helps me to sit back on my heels. My knees feel damp against the dirty alley. Her comforting perfume cuts through the otherwise trashy environment near dumpsters that haven’t been tended to in months.
“Come on,” she whispers, trying to pull me standing. I oblige, though taller and stronger than she is.
At six foot five, my fit build is only offset by my strikingly silver hair and eyes. So, it’s no wonder most of the officers detest me. If not for my proclivity for women or my appearance, they might actually at least tolerate me.
And they glare at me with this “what the hell, mutant?” expression as I put a steadying hand on Percy’s shoulder.
Her head comes just up to my ears at an impressive six foot. And, unfortunately, at this angle, I can smell the fruity soap she uses. And I can’t help but glance down her slender neck and naturally tan skin.
“Are you going to be okay?” she asks.
“I think so,” I say, knowing I’ve been less than useful this morning already. “I think it’s safe to say this isn’t a normal murder. Nothing interrupts my power. And gravity alone doesn’t do that to a person.”
“I can get behind that,” she says, her eyes not leaving my face. The amber irises flit around as if she might figure out why I’m malfunctioning.
Sorry, Percy, that’s just me.
“It’s four in the morning,” she says softly, “want to get a drink?”
“Sure,” I say, giving her a weak, but real grin.
“Don’t puke in the car,” she says with a ghost of a smile as she presses a hand into the small of my back. Her other gesturing back to the corpse.
One of the other officers gets the picture and leads the techs to the body, letting them finish their jobs.
“I’ll swallow, don’t worry,” I say, grateful that she lets out a soft guffaw at the innuendo.
As we reach the car, I turn to face the alley again while Percy rounds to the driver’s side. The sleek metal feels cold and steadying against my palms.
Nothing interferes with my powers. Nothing.
“Don’t worry,” Percy says, pulling open her door, “I’m still hiring you. How else will I deal with everyone else?”
I pull my own door open, smiling at her gratefully as I sit and strap in.
Her faith in me is misplaced, of course. Monsters don’t get their happy endings in New Chicago. Or anywhere in this post-Disruption world.
And they never get the girl they’ve been in love with for almost three years.