Some of them were adults now, talking about where they had come and what those places had given them. Stability. Purpose. A chance to build something that didn’t end in human violence.
Then there were the forums. Threads arguing back and forth.
It’s a front. Just a bunch of thugs in suits.
PR cleanup.
They’re buying favor with the human government.
Replies stacked beneath them.
The Syndicate keeps us supes safe and our voices heard in government.
You don’t know what you’re talking about.
I lived there. They saved my life.
I’d sat there scrolling through it all, watching the divide play out in real time, unable to decide which version felt more real. One thing was immediately clear, this family had hit the genetic jackpot because every single one of them was stunning. Even the women made my heart skip a beat, and I didn't swing that way.
The phone buzzed again on the bench. The sound snapped me out of it, and the shop around me came back into view.
“Are you done with the red Audi yet?”
Alto’s voice carried from the office doorway, cutting through the low hum of the garage. I slid the wrench into place one last time and gave it a final turn, the metal tightening with a clean, solid click.
“Yeah,” I called back, rolling out from under the car.
The creeper wheels squeaked softly against the concrete as I pushed myself out into the open. I sat up, wiping the back of my hand across my forehead, leaving a faint streak of grease behind.
Alto stood half in the doorway, already turning his head toward the customer waiting behind him. He gave me a quick nod before shifting his attention fully to them, one hand gesturing toward the bay.
“I’ll pull it out front in a second,” he said, his tone shifting into that smooth, easy cadence he used out front, then the door clicked shut behind him.
I stayed where I was for a second, glancing down at my hands.
Black with grease. Oil worked into the creases of my knuckles. Denim overalls marked with stains that never fully washed out.
The shop smelled the same as always—oil, metal, a faint trace of magic lingering in the air from the last job. It was steady. Predictable.
Nothing like the world I’d been reading about.
Another buzz from my phone rattled the bench, but I didn’t look at it. Not yet.
Why am I still thinking about them? About him?
The lazy prince of the Syndicate. The golden boy genius. The weapons master. Calix Winstale.
I could still see his face above me, gazing down at me with those golden-pink eyes that made my breath catch.
I had just been on the floor between them. Not a person. A piece. A way to get under someone else’s skin. That realization sat heavier the more I turned it over. After that, I made a point of asking around about them, discreetly of course.
People didn’t say much outright, but their reactions filled in the gaps. A pause before answering. A glance over their shoulder.The way some of them lowered their voices without realizing it as they told me about the background to Manshu’s and Calix’s attitude toward each other.
His father had tried to go to war against the Syndicate.
Apparently, he’d gathered a following of supes who thought the Syndicate held too tight a leash. Supes who believed humans should be beneath them in more than just status or wealth. That the Syndicate’s version of “balance” was actually weakness.
In bars and garages, the story always shifted depending on who told it, but the ending never changed.
