Chapter 1
ONE
ALEX
“Alright, Alex, let’s begin,” Minnie mused as she flipped open her leather-bound notebook. “How have you been feeling?”
I couldn’t tell her that I’d downed three bottles of wine this week—it was only Wednesday.
I couldn’t tell her how often I spent daydreaming, or that I had five missed calls from the hospital to request more contract work.
I couldn’t tell her that the guilt of slacking off was eating me alive, or that I’d fix it all next week.
Instead, I avoided her all-seeing eyes and focused on the pattern of her white cardigan.
I pondered whether it was cashmere or cotton.
White was definitely Minnie’s color—it made her flawless complexion pop, warm and golden.
Her dark curls were pulled back today, and I could see the small scar on the side of her neck, the same one as mine, that marked us as Variants.
In elementary school, they claimed that nine percent of the world’s population had the Variant gene.
In middle school, I’d learned that the gene only started manifesting as strange abilities about a century ago.
By high school, studies showed that nearly thirty percent of the world’s population were Variants, and ninety-eight percent of them had developed abilities.
Every day, more Variants popped up, and it had become normal to see us on the streets.
Some with hidden abilities, like Minnie and me, and others with physical ones, that contorted their features and made them appear less than human.
There was a stigma, of course. But we were people—therapists, teachers, business owners, Heroes.
And some of us became Villains.
It was a joke at first; a strange attempt by governments to normalize the anomalies that popped up on every continent.
It was easier for the public to digest things they’d read about in comic books and watched on TV shows.
But the names stuck, and the world learned that Variants needed to be watched, to be tracked, to be chipped.
Now, babies were tested for the gene right after birth, and were given their chip the moment it was found.
My own neck began to itch, and I scratched at the soft skin beneath my ear, feeling the miniature computer that had sat there for twenty-eight-years. It didn’t bother me until three years ago. Now it was something nagging, something I desperately wanted to claw out of my skin and—
“—Alex?”
“Great,” I squeaked as I jolted, my spine going rigid as I attempted to focus. “I’m doing great. I’ve been doing more work at the hospital. It’s been mostly geriatric lately, which is…comforting.”
A lump formed in my throat; there was nothing comforting about death, even when it was beyond someone's time.
But I was the one that made it easier on them; I was the one they relied on to pass peacefully.
It was better than children, at least. Those were the ones that followed me home at night, the ones that made everything else worse.
Minnie smiled, that I’m-not-as-stupid-as-you-think-I-am smile. “I’m glad you’re doing great. But I asked how you were feeling.”
My knee bounced, and I chewed the inside of my cheek; there was no lying to Minnie.
She was one of the best therapists in the city who specialized in Variants, and her ability allowed her to detect deception.
I thought that was cheating, but after almost three years of appointments, she didn’t need an ability to figure me out.
“I’m feeling…” I trailed off as my heart started to race, and my stomach churned. “Heavy, I guess. I’ve been feeling heavy.”
She leaned back and nodded silently. I knew she’d wait for me to dig it out of myself, to spill everything that was building inside.
Minnie was easy to talk to; she was familiar, but June made me want to choke.
It made the air thinner, and the ground more fragile.
Usually, we had monthly appointments. Every June, we switched to weekly.
I’d been doing good, only a week ago, and even considered cancelling this session. But that was last week, and last week was still April.
Minnie found her mercy because she prompted the response from me. “Have you been thinking about Joon?”
Not June, but Joon, with a ‘ch’ sound that people always managed to miss.
I’d been thinking about both. Constantly, obsessively, and the thoughts festered. Wine helped, at least. I could be stone-cold sober eleven months out of the year; but June was for drinking. It was for numbing and waiting it out, hunkering down for the storm to pass.
I rolled my neck and forced myself to exhale. “Yeah, a lot. It, um…I don’t know. I wasn’t paying attention, but I started to think about him more and… well, then I realized what month it was, so it makes sense.”
She nodded again. “Anniversaries are always the hardest. Sometimes our bodies remember before our brains do. How has the daydreaming been?”
My shoulders shrugged, I think, but my body had gone numb.
I focused on the carpet now; on every thread and deep blue fiber.
The diffuser on the table next to me whirred and made the room smell like oranges.
Minnie told me that citrus could encourage calm and clarity.
I’d even switched my shampoo to one that was lemon scented, in an effort to put my best foot forward, or whatever.
Today, the smell only reminded me that I hadn’t eaten yet.
“More than usual. It’s the only time that I get to see him,” I whispered as I blinked back the tears.
“Everyone copes differently with loss, but your ability makes moving on more difficult. You can’t acknowledge his death if you’re keeping him alive in your head, Alex. We’ve talked about this.”
“I know.”
“You’re allowed to go at your own pace; these things take time.
But try to acknowledge it in the daydreams, when you’re speaking to him.
Acknowledge your grief, and voice it out loud.
Don’t just create a scenario where he’s alive again—try to reframe it as a goodbye.
Make it about closure, not about holding on.
” Her voice was soft, that tone she always used when she wanted to make a point but didn’t want to be an asshole.
“We tried last June, but you’ve had another year to process.
I think it would be beneficial to try again. ”
I knew I was prolonging it—the goodbye. Joon was gone, and I couldn’t remember the last words we said to each other.
I’d spent two weeks overseas on a mission before I got the call that my best friend had died in a building collapse.
It was the day before I was scheduled to return.
A jet flew me out that night, and I came home to…
nothing. They didn’t even have his body for me to cry over.
A cold, empty box was lowered into the ground for show.
It had been three years since then.
Like I said, Minnie was good. I wasn’t able to return to Hero work yet, didn’t even think I wanted to. But the VIA allowed me to pick up contracts with the police departments and hospitals during my leave, and I was managing. Surviving.
But June always knocked me out like a heavy hitter in a boxing ring. It reminded me that there was never closure, and that I was alone. I pretended for the rest of the year that I had my shit together—it only half worked.
“We’ll see how it goes today,” Minnie said. “Let’s call it a practice session. It will get harder before it gets better.”
She never said easier, because she knew it wasn’t easy.
Minnie chose her words carefully, and I’d caught on over the years; better meant sleeping through the night, better meant being able to show up to work, better meant getting through a TV show without his face popping into my head.
It had gotten better; but it never got easier.
I took a deep breath. “Okay.”
It didn’t take long to slip in. I’d been daydreaming since I was a child; I loved it back then.
The way the small, horn-like attachments on my head sent blue sparks around my face always reminded me of magic.
I could create anything in my head, as long as I’d seen it before.
If there was inspiration, there was always a story to be told in my mind.
A vivid, realistic replica that made swimming at the beach possible in December, and turned sloppy joes into chocolate cake. It was simple then.
But when my eyes closed, when the room shifted and the velvet couch beneath me turned into a lumpy mattress, there was only despair.
A small TV on the floor crackled as the screen buzzed with white and black, and a sticky controller appeared on my lap.
Two empty pizza boxes sat open beside me, and a grumbling figure fiddled with wires on the floor.
His mop of black hair touched the base of his neck, the same length that he had in high school.
Joon had gone for a shorter cut once he entered the academy, but this was the image I knew best, the one that never lost detail.
A gray t-shirt hung off his body; he’d just begun to train for his entrance exams, and he hadn’t packed on the muscle yet to fill anything out.
Long, nimble fingers worked and fidgeted as I watched him. Friday nights were for pizza and gaming; I would complain about schoolwork, and Joon would tell me that it didn’t matter. Because one day, we’d be Heroes. We did become Heroes—but that was all wasted now.
“Joon,” his name hovered on my lips, weaker than intended.
He turned, and my heart ached, as it always did.
His face never changed over the years; Joon was someone who never seemed to age, one of the lucky ones.
Dark eyes glimmered with mischief, like a fox.
Full lips that always pulled into a smile, and straight, dark brows that were always meticulously groomed.
Joon had been the conscious one; he cared about his appearance, took care of himself.
I hadn’t been able to do that for years.