Destiny (Nightmare Misfits #1)

Chapter 1

Nova

I wake up cold, which means I woke up.

The alley is one I’ve used before—two walls cutting the wind, an overhang that keeps the rain off if I press close enough to the stone, and a sightline to the street that lets me hear footsteps before they arrive.

I found it three weeks ago and I’ve been rationing it since, never two nights in a row, never enough to become predictable.

My body does its inventory without permission. Stiff neck. Empty stomach. The cold that stopped being cold somewhere around year three and just became weather. There’s pain in my hip from the cobblestones but I don’t look at it. Looking at things makes them real.

I sit up slow, keeping my shoulders against the wall, and listen.

The territory is waking up. Carts. Shutters. Someone shouting about prior-day bread, which means the bakery on Venn Street is already setting out and if I move now I can be there before the crowd thickens. I’m calculating the route when I hear footsteps that don’t belong.

Too even, too patient—not drunk, not lost, not in a hurry to be somewhere else.

I’m on my feet before they round the corner, which is the only reason I’m standing when they see me instead of sitting. Small advantage. Probably doesn’t matter. But I’ve stayed alive this long by collecting small advantages.

Two men. Not territory watch—the uniforms are wrong, darker and better fitted, with an insignia I don’t recognize. They stop at the mouth of the alley like they expected to find me here.

Maybe they did.

“Miss,” the taller one says, polite and bored, like this is the third stop on a long shift. “We need you to come with us.”

“I think you have me confused with someone.”

“We don’t.”

His partner shifts his weight slightly. Not blocking the alley exit, but filling the space in a way that makes it clear the exit isn’t really an option.

I know how to read people. Fifteen years of practice. Loud ones are scared—they escalate because they’re not sure they can back it up. Calm ones already know how this ends.

These two are calm.

“What’s this about?”

“Just routine verification.”

“I haven’t done anything.”

“Then it won’t take long.”

I could run. There’s a gap between the building to my left and the wall behind me, barely wide enough for my shoulders. I’ve used it before. If I’m fast, if they’re slower than they look, if I can get to the next street before they figure out where I went—

But running means being chased. Being chased means being seen. Being seen means someone remembers my face, and the whole point of the last fifteen years has been making sure no one remembers my face.

I’ve survived this long by being forgettable.

“Fine.”

The street is bright and ordinary and completely wrong.

I’ve walked this route a hundred times, but always early morning or late night, always slipping between the crowds instead of through them.

Now it’s full daylight and I’m flanked by uniforms and I’m aware of myself in a way I haven’t been in years—the smell of the alley still on my clothes, the way people’s eyes slide past me, the space the officers take up on either side.

Two people escorting a woman who isn’t struggling. Nothing interesting. Nothing worth a second look.

That’s what I’d think if I saw me.

Four blocks. Five. They guide me toward a building I’ve walked past a hundred times without seeing it. Gray stone, narrow windows, a door like every other administrative door in the district. The kind of place that processes people into paper and files the paper away.

Inside is clean and quiet and somehow worse than the alley. A waiting area with a desk and a few chairs and a hallway that leads somewhere I can’t see. The whole place smells like nothing—like someone scrubbed out anything human and left antiseptic behind.

“Have a seat.”

One officer disappears down the hallway. The other stays by the door, watching me while pretending not to.

I sit while counting exits trying not to be obvious. Front door behind me, occupied. Hallway ahead, unknown. No windows. The chair I’m sitting in is bolted to the floor.

This is fine. Vagrancy check, probably. Maybe a relocation sweep. I’ve been through this before—not here, not this building, but the same kind of processing. Answer the questions, don’t volunteer anything, be boring enough that they stamp a form and send you on your way.

I’m good at being boring.

Five minutes pass. Ten. Fifteen.

The officer by the door hasn’t moved.

I’m starting to wonder about the bread on Venn Street—whether it’s gone by now, whether I’ll have to find something else, whether any of this is going to matter by the time they let me out of here—when a door opens at the end of the hallway.

A woman emerges—middle-aged, plain professional clothes, carrying a folder. She doesn’t look at me.

“This way.”

I follow her to a smaller room with a table that’s seen better days, two chairs, no windows. She sits on one side and opens the folder and uncaps a pen like she’s done this ten thousand times before.

I take the other chair.

“Name?”

“Nova.”

“Age?”

“Twenty-six.”

“Place of residence?”

“Between places.”

“House affiliation?”

“Dream.” The lie is automatic. “Originally.”

She writes it all down without looking up. I’ve done this before. Different buildings, different officers, same bored questions. You give them what they want, nothing extra, and they lose interest and let you go.

“Show me your mark.”

My stomach tightens.

“Wrist,” she says.

And just like that, I’m awake.

I’ve been here before too—this exact moment, different rooms. This is where I smile and deflect and show them something fast enough that they don’t look too close.

A flash of skin, a muttered excuse about fading or placement or a birthmark that confuses people.

It’s worked before. It’s always worked before.

But she’s not even looking at me. She’s looking at the folder, pen ready, waiting for me to comply so she can move to the next box.

“I’m in a hurry,” I try.

“Wrist.”

I push up my sleeve.

The skin is pale. Bare. The same as it’s been every day of my life.

She glances at it. “Other one.”

I show her.

Nothing.

She makes a note. No reaction. No surprise. Just pen moving on paper.

The silence that follows is the first wrong thing.

“It’s a late bloom,” I say. “It happens—”

“When did you last present for intake?”

The word lands like ice water.

Intake.

I’m ten years old. Crouched behind a door I’m not supposed to be near, listening to adults use words I don’t understand. Noncompliant. Unregistered. Containment. I didn’t know what they meant then.

I know now.

“I asked you a question.”

“Never.”

It comes out too quiet. She writes it down anyway.

“That’s not possible,” she says, still writing. “Intake is mandatory. There are systems.”

“And yet.”

She stands. Goes to the door. Speaks to someone I can’t see—low murmur, words I can’t make out. When she comes back, she doesn’t sit.

“You’ll remain here.”

“For how long?”

“Until verification is complete.”

“What does that—”

“A physician will confirm there’s no mark present. After that, we’ll determine next steps.”

“And if I want to leave?”

She picks up the folder.

“Someone will escort you to a holding room. You’ll have access to food and clean clothes.”

“But I can’t leave.”

“That depends on what we find.”

She’s already moving toward the door. I think maybe she’ll turn around—say something human, something that acknowledges I’m a person and this is strange and she sees me sitting here in this room.

She pauses at the threshold.

“I’ve been doing this job for twenty-three years,” she says. “Get comfortable.”

Then she’s gone.

The door closes. The lock clicks.

Well fuck.

The holding room is cleaner than the alley. Warmer. A bed with actual sheets, a dresser, a door that doesn’t open from the inside.

Not a cell, they said.

Right.

Someone brought food—real food, more than I’ve eaten at once in months—and a change of clothes. Soft gray fabric. No House colors. The kind of thing you’d give someone who doesn’t belong anywhere. I should laugh, but I can’t find it in me.

I sit on the edge of the bed and stare at the wall.

This morning I woke up in an alley, hungry and cold and free. The same as every other morning for the last fifteen years. Invisible. Uncounted. Alive because no one was looking.

Now someone is looking. And I’m definitely not free.

The lights hum. Footsteps pass in the hallway. Voices I can’t make out. Somewhere in this building, people are filling out forms about me. Making decisions about me.

I don’t know what happens to people who don’t have marks. I’ve spent my whole life making sure I never had to find out.

I lie back and stare at the ceiling.

Tomorrow they’re going to examine me. Confirm what they already suspect. Try to figure out what I am.

And when they can’t—

I close my eyes.

It’s not like I’m going to fucking sleep anyway.