Chapter 11
ELEVEN
LEO
There was something about the way our sixth prisoner spoke that made the horns on Alex’s head spark.
I didn’t catch it at first. Nearly every Variant that we’d captured in connection with the organization was the same; no distinguishing features or accents, no way to leverage personal connections. They were blank canvases.
But for Alex, it was simple. I hadn’t even realized what she was doing until it was already done.
“Are you hungry? Thirsty?” she asked, leaning back in her chair. “There’s a Packy around the corner; I could grab you a couple nips.”
Alex laughed as if she’d told a joke, her body completely at ease in front of the man that glared daggers at her.
She put on a show for him, even as I saw her withering away from fatigue.
I wanted to smash his face into the metal table, but she continued to chat, no real questioning being done, and he finally relented.
“…I could go for a grinder,” he mumbled.
Without warning, she pulled us in. Alex’s ability had always been a mystery to me; it was adaptable, always changing.
When we fought mock battles against each other, I could tell when she had trapped me, when she’d won.
It didn’t matter what the daydream was; all that mattered was that my body was on the ground.
But then I noticed how sometimes I’d be in her daydream without even realizing.
She decided, whether you were aware or not, and I never wanted to admit how terrifying that could be.
After he’d warned me to stay away from her, we were partnered up for a mock battle.
I’d been too focused on controlling my fire, making sure not to burn her again.
Before I knew it, I was free flying through the air. She’d pushed me off a fucking plane.
It took entirely too long for me to realize I wasn’t getting closer to the ground as I fell, and that there was a strange detached feeling to my body. Once I woke up and refused to move from the safety of the floor, Joon actually reprimanded her.
An absolute menace.
It was the same now as we sat side by side in a booth, the prisoner across from us.
Instead of wearing the plain gray uniform and handcuffs he’d been brought in with, she’d dressed him in jeans and work boots, with a winter jacket and beanie.
She’d changed my outfit too, making it nearly identical.
Alex let her jet black hair fall down a thick, oversized white sweater in waves, and I peeked beneath the booth to see she’d given herself boots that were way too expensive for her tax bracket.
The details were always so specific. We were in a dive bar, and although it was June, snow fell outside the windows as if we were in the middle of a harsh blizzard. Road salt decorated the ground, tracked in by the boots of make believe patrons.
“Sorry,” the prisoner scrunched his brows. “I, uh…what were we talking about?”
Alex let out a little giggle as she tilted her head, and I eyed the diamond snowflake earrings hanging beneath her black hair.
I wonder how many outfits she’s tried on in these daydreams.
She could live any life she wanted, in here. I wasn’t sure how she did it—I’d never come back to reality. Though, I wasn’t sure what dreams I could create. I only had nightmares.
“You seem out of it today,” she hummed. “Work not going well?”
He blinked and began to pick at his nails under her gaze. “Yeah, I guess you could say that…”
“Listen.” She reached out and put her hand over his. “I know you’re nervous, but you made me a promise. You told me you’d get me in with your head guy. I’m just…so sick of these fucking Heroes, you know? We gotta do something about them.”
I shifted in my seat, and if I weren’t under Alex’s power, I was sure I’d be burning.
His eyes raked over her body, and I wanted to burn him to a crisp.
But she kept leaning in, kept making sure that his eyes stayed on her instead of me.
I was a background character; white noise in the moment they shared.
Why am I even here?
It was the right move at the moment; a show of support, or camaraderie, or whatever the fuck good Heroes believed in.
Alex was working too hard. Watching her go in and out of consciousness, her nose bleeding from all the smelling salts we had to used to keep her awake, it drove me crazy.
I knew I was the villain in her story, but that wasn’t what I wanted to be.
Words didn’t come easy, my feelings never translated the right way. It was exhausting, and anger was easier to deal with. This attempt to be caring, showing her that I wasn’t such a bad guy after all, was like being forced underwater. I didn’t know how to swim.
What the fuck am I doing?
“Splinter isn’t what you think it is,” he hummed, and I snapped my attention back to the conversation.
“Nobody knows who’s at the top; the captains are the closest we can get.
Talk to Lycean; he posts up at the Crowns Club.
He’s a captain with them; he’ll set you up with an initiation if he thinks you’re worth anything. ”
I leaned forward on my elbows, towering over Alex, who watched me with wide eyes, silently warning me to keep my mouth shut.
“What do we have to do for the initiation?” I asked, my voice strained with rage.
His eyes glazed over, and Alex’s horns sparked again. “Isn’t it obvious? All you gotta do is kill a Hero.”
“The Crowns Club is a popular nightclub for Variants in Connecticut,” Alex dropped a stack of papers onto Dahlia’s desk.
“It’s a perfect location to scout for new recruits.
The state doesn’t have as many Heroes, and their Villains usually work in white collar crime.
As long as they behaved, Splinter would fly under the radar, while maintaining access to nearby cities. ”
She hadn’t let herself rest, like she promised.
After the last interrogation, she demanded that we go straight to the VIA, and had spent nearly an hour researching and printing information for Dahlia.
There was still a bit of dried blood beneath her nose.
The bags under her eyes were even darker now.
I had to stop her from running straight into the doorway when Dahlia called for us.
We’d been up for twenty hours straight, and counting.
Fucking workaholic.
I didn’t sign up for this shit.
“This organization has more reach than we thought it did. Splinter,” Dahlia pursed her lips, and her face contorted with disgust. “This isn’t just a Nightmyre problem; we have no idea how far this goes.”
“If they have to kill a Hero to make it in, we should start searching through everyone in the VIA that’s been killed in action in the past three years,” Reed chirped as he scanned through the documents on the desk.
The collar of my shirt was too tight; it rubbed against my neck and was convincing me that I was suffocating.
Dahlia’s office smelled like ink and copy paper, and today the scent made me want to crawl out of my skin.
Pressure built in my chest, and I was waiting for the explosion.
I knew the organization—Splinter—was bad.
They’d done everything from dealing drugs on the streets that made Variants go crazy, to robbing banks, to murder.
But the only connection we’d had before was those fucking jackets with the S made of bones.
Joon and I had tried warning the VIA when they first appeared in Nightmyre—Villains that wore the same logo, but seemed to act randomly, and always shut down during interrogations. We knew it was only the start.
They didn’t fucking listen until it was too late.
And now Alex is wrapped up in it, all because I couldn’t mind my own damn business. Great job, Leo. Joon’s definitely proud right now.
“No,” Alex sighed. “Syndicates of this level don’t start with initiations like that.
They would have started smaller—look into anything where Villains specifically targeted Heroes or the VIA in the past ten years.
Random attacks, arson, small bombings, threats.
Don’t limit it to Nightmyre; check through the entire country, and then overseas. ”
My head was spinning now. Flashes of the collapse pushed into my mind as I stared down at my boots.
We thought we’d found their hideout; it took four teams of Heroes and ten days of tracking and observation to find a cluster of them in an abandoned building by the harbor.
Screams rang in my ears, Joon’s voice shouting for help.
“There’s been an influx of missing Heroes in the past few years,” Dahlia sighed. “We’ve suspected it for some time, but I think it’s safe to say that Splinter is at the head of all this. This isn’t just an attack on the VIA.”
“It’s a crusade against Heroes,” Alex murmured.
“The VIA was formed to help combat the upraise in Variant crime. The data is growing every day; more Variants being born and abilities getting stronger. There’s always been radicals; it was only a matter of time before they got smarter with how they do things.
Stay below the VIA’s radar, and they could expand across the globe without anyone realizing. ”
“Until they’re ready to act.” Dahlia nodded along.
Their voices were swallowed by the sound of pillars crashing to the ground. The scent of ash in the air, the roar of flames, the way my throat was shredded. I didn’t realize how much I screamed until the footage came out on the news. It was pitiful.
The funeral was even worse.
It was too bright; sunny, not a cloud in the sky as an empty box was lowered into the ground.
Words of honor were spewed, but I couldn’t hear them from the treeline I’d watched from.
I didn’t deserve to be there—but I stayed, and couldn’t make myself leave until Alex finally got up from the ground.
She was alone then, too. I didn’t go up to her, didn’t make a sound, didn’t even let her see me. I couldn’t stomach it.
I’m a coward.
I didn’t realize I was on fire until I was suffocating.
“What the hell?” Alex’s voice broke through, forcing me back into reality.
My hands clawed at my throat as the couch beneath me charred, smoke radiating off of it. Reed had a hand outstretched, panic on his face. Dahlia only watched with cold indifference—she was used to it, by now.
But the flames wouldn’t go out; they kept bursting forward as soon as Reed tried to swallow them.
My chest went tight and my stomach dropped; were my lungs turning to ash too, now?
The burnout was coming — the one everyone expected.
I always thought it would be in a blaze of glory, fighting off Villains like I was raised to do, sacrificing myself for a cause I didn’t have a stake in. This, though?
It…was right.
Succumbing to my own mind, to all the things I’d pushed down.
It’s what I deserve.
“Damnit,” Reed snarled. “Get ahold of yourself.”
I wheezed and gasped, dropping to my knees as orange and yellow licked around my hands and face.
The air around me shimmered, fighting to snuff out my oxygen.
Then Alex was there, kneeling in front of me as she held her arms up, as if that would protect her.
That fucking scar was right there, taunting me, warning me to stay away.
She should have gotten rid of it—why didn’t she have someone heal it for her?
“Get away,” I ground out. “Don’t get close.”
Don’t let me burn you again.
Her eyes shone, and it wasn’t with hatred or distaste. It was…concern. The horns on her head started to spark, and my eyes went wide before she turned my world on end.