Chapter Three
Gray
Gray woke drowning in lightning.
In the dream, electricity poured from his hands in an endless torrent, striking everything he touched.
Rick went down first, convulsing on the ground.
Then Evie. Then Fallyn and Zane and all the others, one by one, bodies arcing with voltage they couldn't survive.
He tried to stop, tried to pull the power back inside himself, but it just kept coming.
The Gemini Initiative compound burned around him, and somewhere in the flames, Hannah Charge screamed his name.
He jerked awake at his desk, heart hammering, hands crackling with residual static.
The holographic displays cast blue light across his face, showing troop movements he'd been tracking before exhaustion finally claimed him.
Again. Third night this week he'd fallen asleep in his office instead of making it to his quarters.
Gray rubbed his eyes and forced himself to focus on the data scrolling across the screens.
Castor Consortium teams were positioning in major cities across the country, Yaz coordinating their movements with her usual icy competence.
The Pollux Legion had rapid response units prepped and waiting for Rick's orders.
Mercury variants were standing by for aquatic extraction if any operations went sideways near the coasts. Everything was ready.
Everything except him.
He pulled up the news feeds and froze.
They Want You to Fear Us: A Firsthand Account of Protogenus Manipulation was trending across every platform. Hannah's article had gone viral overnight, spreading faster than even his best analysts had predicted. The comments sections were battlegrounds:
This proves they've been manipulating us. We've been played by Protogenus from the start.
Convenient excuse from a liar who hid among us for years. Why should we believe anything she says?
Finally someone fighting back with truth instead of violence. Share this everywhere.
More propaganda from the freaks. Registration now. Purification soon.
The narrative was shifting. The seeds of doubt had been planted. People who'd accepted Protogenus's version of events were starting to ask questions.
His phone buzzed. Text from Vera: She's coming. ETA two hours.
Gray swallowed hard. He typed back: Who?
You know who. Stop playing dumb. She saw what you need and she's coming to help. Don't screw it up.
He stared at the screen until it dimmed. Hannah was coming back. By her own choice. Not because he'd asked or demanded or manipulated. She'd seen his situation and decided to return.
He didn't know whether that made things better or infinitely worse.
***
HANNAH
Hannah's sedan crossed into New Athens City limits just as dawn broke over the skyline.
The city looked different from her memories of business trips years ago.
Military vehicles at every major intersection.
Checkpoints every few blocks, manned by officers in tactical gear who watched passing cars with suspicious eyes.
Tension hung in the air like humidity before a thunderstorm, and Hannah's powers responded to it, electricity prickling beneath her skin.
Her phone had been exploding with responses to the article since she'd published it. She'd turned off notifications hours ago, but she kept checking anyway, unable to stop herself from reading the messages that poured in.
You're brave for speaking out. My daughter is a Castor and now she's not afraid to tell us.
You're a lying freak who deserves to burn. We know what you really are.
I was at the bank. You were always kind to me. I'm sorry for what they did to you.
We know where you're going. You won't make it to the Gemini compound alive.
She deleted the threats, saved the supportive ones. Evidence for later, if there was a later.
A checkpoint loomed ahead. Hannah slowed, keeping her hands visible on the steering wheel as norm police officers waved her forward. One of them ran her plates while another studied her face through the windshield. She watched his expression change as the computer returned results.
He reached for his radio.
Within sixty seconds, she was surrounded. Six patrol cars, twelve officers, hands on weapons. The morning sun glinted off their badges and the barrels of their guns.
"Hannah Charge." The lead officer's voice carried through her closed window. "Exit the vehicle with your hands visible."
Electricity sparked across her knuckles before she could stop it. Stress response. The officers saw it and jumped back, weapons rising.
"Don't make this worse." The officer's voice cracked with fear poorly disguised as authority. "Failure to register under the new Supernatural Documentation Protocol is a federal offense."
"I wasn't aware registration was mandatory yet."
"As of six this morning. Emergency measure passed overnight. You're in violation."
Hannah's mind raced. They'd timed this. Protogenus or their allies in the government had pushed through emergency legislation specifically to arrest her before she could reach the Gemini Initiative.
Her article had scared them, and this was their response.
Make an example of her. Show what happened to supes who fought back.
The lead officer reached for her door handle.
Hannah's hands exploded with electricity. Not an attack, just a barrier of crackling energy that made the officer yank his hand back with a yelp. But they didn't see the distinction.
"Hostile supe. Engaging."
Weapons rose. Safeties clicked off. Hannah stared down a dozen barrels and wondered if this was how it ended, shot to pieces at a routine checkpoint before she ever got the chance to make a difference.
Lightning split the morning sky.
***
GRAY HAD SENSED THE disturbance from across the city, a spike of electrical energy that called to his own powers like a beacon.
The bond they hadn't acknowledged was already pulling them together. He'd been pacing his office, waiting for Vera's predicted arrival time, when Hannah's electricity surged and his entire being responded with an almost physical tug. He didn't think. He just moved.
The city's power grid became his highway.
He dissolved into the electrical current, traveling through cables and transformers and substations at the speed of thought.
The world was a blur of voltage and potential, and then he was reforming in a flash of lightning that made every officer at the checkpoint shield their eyes.
"Stand down." His voice carried the weight of command and barely contained fury. Lightning crackled across his shoulders, a warning that needed no translation.
"Sir, she's in violation of..."
"She's with the Gemini Initiative. I'll handle registration." Gray's tone left no room for argument. "You have ten seconds to lower your weapons."
The officers exchanged glances. Gray watched them calculate the odds, watched fear war with duty in their expressions.
One by one, weapons lowered. But he heard the muttered comment from the back of the group, loud enough to carry: "Even the Initiative's leader can barely control himself. They're all dangerous freaks."
Gray's hands clenched. The officer who'd spoken flinched, realizing his mistake.
It would be so easy. One bolt. One second. The man would be on the ground before he finished his next breath. The Pollux nature that Gray had spent a decade suppressing demanded release to teach this norm what happened when you insulted someone like him.
Hannah stepped out of her car. Gray saw her watching him, saw her clock the struggle happening behind his eyes. She didn't look afraid of what she was seeing.
"Get in my car," he said, not looking at the officers. If he looked at them, he might lose the battle he was fighting with himself.
Hannah grabbed her bag from the sedan and followed him to the black SUV idling at the curb. As they drove away, his knuckles turned white on the steering wheel.
They drove in silence for the first few minutes, tension filling the car like static before a storm.
Gray kept his eyes on the road, fingers gripping the wheel hard enough to creak.
Hannah stared out the window at the militarized city passing by, feeling the electricity crackling between them.
Literal and metaphorical. The bond that neither of them had asked for making itself known with every breath.
Gray spoke first. "You didn't have to come back."
"Protogenus leaked my identity and destroyed my life. Where else could I go?"
“You’re always welcome at the Gemini Initiative. No strings attached.”
She snorted. “There’s always a price.”
He ignored that for right now. "Evie had no right to visit you. To bother you. To get you involved.”
Hannah turned to look at him directly. "She said you're losing control. How bad is it?"
Gray's grip on the wheel tightened. "I nearly killed a prisoner two days ago. My lightning went straight to his heart. Three seconds. That's how long his heart stopped." He paused, gathering himself. "And in those three seconds, I was glad. Not horrified. Glad."
Hannah didn't recoil. "Because he deserved it?"
"Because it felt good to finally stop holding back.
Even for three seconds." Gray's knuckles had gone bloodless on the wheel.
"I can feel it building, Hannah. The rage, the violence, everything I've spent ten years suppressing.
Rick says I need to stop fighting my Pollux nature.
But if I do that, what kind of leader will I be? What kind of person?"