Jorak
The alarm pulses through the floor of my containment cell, rattling the glass of water on the bedside table until the surface shatters into concentric rings.
Beside me, Asa stirs. The testing yesterday hollowed him out.
I want to tell him to stay asleep. I want to wrap myself around him and let the current swallow anyone who tries to open that door.
“They’re moving us,” I say. My voice sounds like gravel grinding together. I sit up, the movement sharp and predatory. I don't have my tactical gear, just the thin cotton pants they’ve given me, but the power doesn't care about clothes. It’s already reaching out, tasting the ozone in the vents.
The door slides open with a hiss of pneumatic pressure. Mercer stands there, his suit immaculate, his expression as flat as a stagnant pond. He doesn't look like a man about to send a volatile weapon into a crowd of civilians. He looks like a man checking a ledger.
“He’s not recovered,” I say, nodding toward Asa. I don't say his name. Giving Mercer his name feels like giving him a handle to pull on. “The resonance tests yesterday nearly fried his nervous system. You send him out there now, and you’re disposing of an asset.”
Mercer’s eyes shift to Asa, analytical and cold. “Professor Renwick is not a field asset. He is a stabilizer. And since you’ve made it clear you won't function without him, he goes where you go. Unless, of course, you’d like to try the sedative again?”
The threat is a dull blade, but it still draws blood.
I feel Asa’s hand find mine under the sheets.
His fingers are cold, but his grip is steady.
“I’m fine,” Asa lies. He sits up, his movements stiff.
He looks at Mercer with that sharp, academic disdain he uses on failing students.
“I assume you’ve at least got a car waiting?
Or are we expected to stabilize the infrastructure from the sidewalk? ”
Mercer doesn't smile, but the corner of his eye twitches. “The transport is in the bay. Five minutes.”
The air outside the facility is worse than the air inside.
It smells of scorched earth and wet copper, the heavy, cloying scent of a suppression node bleeding out.
As the armored transport tears through the streets of District Six, I watch the city through the reinforced glass.
People are huddled on corners, their eyes wide and feverish.
Some of them are clawing at their own throats, their movements jerky and aggressive.
Asa sits next to me, his shoulder pressed against mine.
He’s staring at a tablet Dr. Rue pressed into his hands, his thumb scrolling through energy readouts and thermal maps.
He looks like he’s grading a particularly difficult thesis, but I can feel the tremor in his leg.
I reach over, pinning his knee with my palm.
“Don't look at the numbers,” I murmur. “Look at me.”
“The numbers are the only thing making sense right now, Jorak,” he whispers back. He doesn't look up, but he leans into my touch. “The pressure gradient in the central node is exponential. If that casing cracks, the backflow will turn every Guide within ten blocks into a vegetable.”
“It won't crack,” I say. I don't know if that’s true, but I know I’ll tear the node apart with my bare hands before I let it touch him.
The transport slams to a halt. The back doors throw themselves open, and the chaos of the site floods in.
Alarms scream, a high, rhythmic wail that sets my teeth on edge.
In the center of the plaza, the suppression node, a massive, black pillar of lead and reinforced steel, vibrates so hard it’s a blur.
Around it, four Guides are on their knees, their faces gray, their hands glowing with a dim, flickering light as they try to suck the stray power into their own bodies.
The stray power isn't a stream; it’s a flood. It’s white-hot static that burns through the air, charring the pavement.
“Secure the perimeter!” an ESA captain shouts, but his voice is drowned out by a pulse of energy that sends a ripple through the crowd of civilians pressed against the police tape.
They scream, a collective, jagged sound, as the fever hits them all at once.
They begin to surge forward, eyes glazed, driven by a primal need to escape the heat.
I step out of the van, the Black Current roaring to life in my veins. It feels like mercury, heavy and lethal. I can feel the node’s corruption calling to me, a jagged, broken rhythm that wants to be finished. I want to strike it. I want to shatter the pillar and let the energy burn itself out.
“Jorak, wait.” Asa is behind me. He isn't supposed to be out of the van, but he’s standing there, his eyes fixed on the vibrating pillar. He isn't looking at the Guides or the screaming people. He’s looking at the air itself.
“Get back in the car, Asa,” I growl. My hands are beginning to smoke, the black tendrils of my power licking at my wrists. “I can handle this.”
“You’ll destroy the block,” he says. He steps closer, reaching out.
He doesn't grab my arm; he just hovers his hand near my skin. I can feel the cool draft of his presence, the way his power, his math, starts to pull at the static around me. “You’re trying to punch a hole in a dam. You’ll just drown everyone. ”
“The Guides are burning out,” I say, nodding toward the woman closest to us. Her nose is bleeding, the red dark and thick against her lips. “If I don't vent the pressure, they’re dead.”
“Then vent it where it’s weak,” Asa says.
He finally looks at me, and his eyes aren't anxious anymore. They’re focused.
“It’s not a solid wall of power, Jorak. It’s a weave.
Look at the base, three feet up. The harmonics are shearing there.
That’s where the pressure is knotted. If you cut there, the corruption will unravel toward the ground. The earth will take the excess.”
I hesitate. Every Guide I’ve ever worked with told me to pull back. They told me to dampen, to suppress, to hide. None of them has ever told me where to strike.
“Trust me,” he says.
I turn toward the node. I don't close my eyes, but I let the Black Current take the lead.
I see the world in shades of entropic gray, the node a blinding, screaming white at the center.
And there, exactly where Asa pointed, I see it, a seam.
A place where the equations don't balance, where the power is fighting itself.
I reach out and catch the air with my fingers, fisting my hand into the static. I feel the heat, the bite of it against my skin, but behind me, I feel Asa. He’s a weight, a solid anchor at my back, his presence a constant, cooling pressure that keeps my mind from fracturing.
The Black Current follows my lead, a sharp, surgical blade of shadow that slices into the seam.
The sound is like a thunderclap without the roar, a sudden, violent decompression.
The white-hot static doesn't explode; it drains. It spirals down the pillar, guided by the path I’ve cut, and vanishes into the pavement with a hiss that smells of scorched ozone.
The vibration stops and the node settles into a low, steady throb. The Guides on the ground slump, their lights going out, but they’re breathing. The civilians at the tape stop screaming, the sudden absence of the energetic pressure leaving them dazed and shivering.
I stand there, my chest heaving, my hands still wreathed in black smoke. It’s clean. For the first time in my life, a suppression mission hasn't felt like a catastrophe managed with a hammer. It feels like an equation solved.
“Not bad,” I rasp, turning back to him.
Asa is leaning against the transport, his face the color of chalk. He looks like he’s about to vomit, but he manages a weak, sarcastic smirk. “I told you. It’s all just design theory, Jorak. Most people just have terrible taste in energy.”
“You’re doing it again,” a voice says, low and mocking.
I spin, the Black Current snapping at my fingertips.
Silas is standing ten feet away, leaning against a rusted lamp post. He looks like a ghost in the settling dust, his worn jacket blending into the shadows of the alleyway.
No one else seems to notice him, the ESA guards too busy tending to the fallen Guides and the screaming civilians.
“Silas,” I say, my voice a warning. “You’re a long way from your hole.”
“And you’re a long way from being free,” Silas replies. He doesn't look at me; he looks at the node. “You think you fixed it, don't you? You and your little professor. You think you saved the day.”
“The node is stable,” Asa says, stepping forward. He’s shaky, but he isn't hiding. “The pressure is gone.”
“The pressure isn't gone, Professor. It’s just moved,” Silas says.
He pushes off the post, his movements fluid and dangerous.
“That’s what these things were built for.
They don't cleanse anything. They just bury it. Every time you ‘stabilize’ one of these, you’re packing the powder into the keg tighter. ”
“Mercer says they’re the only thing keeping the flares from leveling the city,” I say.
Silas laughs, a dry, bitter sound. “Mercer says a lot of things. He’s the one who built the keg. He’s just waiting for the right moment to hand someone the match. Ask yourself, Jorak—why does the city only flare near the nodes? Why does the power only leak where the ESA has built its walls?”
He looks at Asa then, his gaze heavy with something that looks almost like pity. “Keep guiding him, Professor. You’re doing exactly what they want. You’re making their weapon efficient. Just don't be surprised when they decide you’re part of the machinery.”
“Silas, enough,” I growl, stepping between him and Asa. The Black Current surges, a warning growl in the back of my throat. I don't trust Silas, but his words are like grit in a machine. They make the world feel friction-heavy and wrong.
“Enjoy your ride home,” Silas says, stepping back into the darkness of the alley. “The extraction team is two minutes out. Try not to sign anything on the way back. Especially not your soul.”
He’s gone before I can move. The ESA captain appears around the corner of the transport, shouting into a radio, and the moment of quiet fractures.
Medics swarm the plaza, and the sterile, controlled reality of the facility begins to reassert itself.
Mercer will want a report. Rue will want blood samples. The cage is closing again.
We’re ushered back into the transport. The ESA staff member guarding the door watches us with wide eyes. He’s seen what we did.
“The Director is expecting you back at the wing for immediate debrief,” he says, his voice trembling. “He says the success of the university node response has opened up new deployment schedules. You’re going to be very busy.”
“We’re not going to the wing,” I say. I don't look at him. I sit down on the bench and pull Asa toward me. He doesn't resist. He’s shivering now, the adrenaline crash hitting him like a physical blow.
“I—I have orders, Thorn,” he stammers.
“Change them,” I say. I reach out and grab Asa, lifting him until he’s forced to sit in my lap.
I wrap my arms around him, tucking his head into the crook of my neck.
He smells of pear and vanilla, and underneath that, the sharp, electric scent of the node.
He’s my mate. He’s my guide. And I’m done letting them treat him like a spare part.
“We’re going to his place,” I say, my voice vibrating against Asa’s temple. “Tell Mercer if he wants his weapon to stay sharp, he lets my Guide rest where he belongs. Otherwise, the next node that spikes is going to be the one under his office.”
He signals the driver, and the transport turns away from heading to the Stabilization Center, heading toward the residential district.
Asa breathes out, his body finally going limp against mine.
He grips the front of my shirt, his knuckles white, and for the first time since the alarm pulsed in the cell, I feel the Black Current settle.