We escaped. We disappeared. It took us months to slip the leash and another year to build something that would help us fight back. A network, a resistance. Shell identities and escape routes and safehouses. A parallel structure outside law and the Institute’s reach. We recruited Ascended of our own, near-death survivors and disappearances the Institute failed to clean up. We were a family of people who refused to belong to Malcolm Bellrose.
For the first time since my death, I believed we might actually survive.
Then three years ago, everything collapsed.
Someone burned through everything we had built like it wasmade of paper. Accounts disappeared, contacts were exposed, locations were compromised. Ascended started getting picked off one by one by the Institute’s new militia. By the time I realized what was happening, it was already too late.
Malcolm found us.
Ash died in my arms.
I spent the next year in hiding and in mourning while the Institute hunted every survivor of our resistance, every person who had anything to do with it. Those who just wanted to live without fear, to be free.
For a short time, I had given them that.
It took two years to rebuild something resembling a resistance. It’s smaller but harder to find. And we’re a lot more careful about who we trust.
Which is why Cason is currently unconscious in the basement of this safehouse.
My shadows curl along the floor when I think about him. The fact that Cason Bellrose was the one holding the smoking gun will always feel like the world’s biggest betrayal.
Last night, I gave him a glimpse of what I’ve become. Just a taste. After years of anger and grief, my shadows surged harder than I expected, than I intended. Between that and the shock of everything he learned, he couldn’t mentally handle it. He passed out before the real fun started.
I left him on the floor of that room. I want him awake when I break him.
The stitches inside my chest pull, the ones I used to seal that hollow cavity that Cason carved into me seven years ago. It’s uncomfortable, but I haven’t let it hurt in a long time.
I couldn’t go near him. Ididn’tgo near him forhim. To protect him.
And this is what I get in return.
I swing my legs out of bed and get to my feet. Cold air hitsmy bare skin. The shower helps clear the last of the nightmare from my head as hot water pounds against my shoulders and steam fills the small bathroom.
By the time I step out, my pulse has steadied.
Control is important, especially today.
I dress is black slacks and a black shirt, rolling the sleeves up out of habit. I rarely ever dressed in more formal clothes like this…before. However, I lead a resistance of people who have died and come back with superhuman abilities. I feel like that requires a level of attire above casual.
I reach for the shoulder holster hanging over the back of a chair and slide it on, adjusting the straps across my chest. The weight of the gun settles comfortably beneath my arm once I holster it, familiar and reassuring.
Some habits don’t disappear just because you die and come back with abilities more powerful than a bullet.
When I step into the kitchen, the smell of coffee is already permeating the air. Sebastian Cross leans against the counter scrolling through a tablet. He looks up when I enter.
“Morning, boss.”
Sebastian is in his mid-thirties, former military, and the closest thing this operation has to a second-in-command. His Ascension left him with what he calls kinetic debt. Every hit, every impact, every ounce of force that should break his bones instead gets absorbed and stored in his body until he decides to pay it back. I call it the reason most people learn very quickly not to hit him twice. It makes him extremely hard to kill and even harder to fight.
He’s also the only other Ascended from the last resistance still alive besides me.
“You have a report for me?” I ask.
He slides a mug of coffee across the counter toward me, and I immediately take a sip, preferring it black.
“Our scouts confirmed movement near the east corridor last night,” he says. “Institute patrols. Nothing close enough to compromise this location.”
Occupying the safehouse closest to Bellrose Institute is always risky, but we’ve taken all the precautions we can. It was easier to transfer Cason somewhere close than to take him to one of our other safehouses farther from here.
