Page 206 of Villainous Rise

He held me tight with one arm, forcing my chin up to look at his face. When he finally spoke, his voice was flat and emotionless, completely devoid of the warmth that defined him.

“You have something of mine, little Annie Bishop.”

Those words. That exact phrasing.

My vision tunneled. Little Annie Bishop. The name Halcyon had crooned as he stalked through my childhood home, calling out to me as I hid.

“No,” I whispered. Those eyes weren’t Helios’s anymore. Something ancient and malevolent stared back at me through them.

“Please, no.” My voice broke as terror clawed up my throat.

I noticed his hands were gloved and Helios never wore gloves. His powers worked better with direct contact, and he’d always said gloves made him feel disconnected from the world. This small detail confirmed what I already knew in my heart: Halcyon was in control.

Helios’s gaze dropped to my wrist, focusing on the cuff. He gave me a savage smile and clamped his gloved hand around it. With a sickening crunch of metal and circuitry, he crushed it against my wrist. I gave a strangled scream as pain shot up my arm, fragments embedding themselves into my skin.

A heavy, buzzing pressure flooded my veins. It was Havoc’s power waking up from its dormant state. The stolen power felt like liquid static and vertigo rushing through my bloodstream. The force pushed against my insides but I hadn’t absorbed the ability to channel or unleash that kind of destructive force. It would stay trapped inside me where it couldn’t do anything but make me feel uncomfortable.

But my relief vanished a second later. Havoc’s power was never the true threat.

Without the cuff, there was nothing holding back Halcyon’s power. Nothing protecting the world from me.

“So that’s where you were,” he said through Helios’s mouth, his tone filled with cruel delight. His eyes gleamed with recognition and triumph. “How very, very clever to hide you. So very clever.”

I wasn’t quite sure what was happening, but I understood that somehow the cuff had hidden me from Halcyon by blocking his power.

Helios tightened his grip and took off flying again, higher and faster than before.

“How interesting that you stole from Havoc as well,” Halcyon said, cocking his head at me.

I wanted to reach out to Helios, to try to break through Halcyon’s control, but I was terrified of what would happen if I tried. What if trying to speak to Helios while Halcyon was already in his mind destroyed him? And we were so high. If Helios dropped me now...

Panic consumed me, memories of that night twenty years ago flooding back. I was ten years old again, helpless and alone, with Halcyon hunting me through the darkness.

The wind cut through my clothes like icy blades as we flew. My teeth chattered uncontrollably, my fingers and toes going numb. I couldn’t feel my face anymore, my tears freezing against my cheeks.

I tried to curl into myself for warmth, but Helios’s grip remained rigid, holding me exposed to the elements. His body radiated heat, a cruel irony as he deliberately kept that warmth from actually reaching me.

After what felt like hours but was probably only minutes, we began descending. Through frozen eyelashes, I made out a sprawling complex of buildings nestled against the mountains outside Chroma Bay. The facility looked abandoned, windows broken and walls crumbling in places, nature reclaiming the grounds around it.

Helios landed roughly on a cracked helipad, the impact jarring through my already aching body. He dragged me toward a rusted door, ripping it from its hinges with one hand while maintaining his grip on me with the other.

Inside, the air was stale and musty, but mercifully warm. He threw his hand up and the lights sputtered to life, illuminated with his power.

Dust particles danced in the beams of illumination streaming from the lights. The place had clearly been abandoned for years—some kind of research facility, judging by the remnants of laboratory equipment visible through doorways as Helios pulled me down a long hallway.

He finally stopped in what must have once been a central testing arena for Supers. Without ceremony, he released his grip and shoved me to the floor. The concrete was cold against my cheek, but I barely noticed, too focused on trying to stop shivering long enough to think.

Something clattered nearby and I forced my head up. Helios had knocked over a metal tray and frozen mid-motion. His entire body trembled slightly, and his face showed a flash of horror. His eyes, for just a moment, were his own again as they locked onto mine, wide with panic and confusion.

Then, like a candle being snuffed out, the light of recognition vanished. His features smoothed back into that terrible blankness, eyes going cold and distant once more.

He walked to the center of the testing area and stopped at a specific spot on the floor, circling it slowly. The concrete there was discolored, darker than the surrounding area, with strange scorch patterns radiating outward.

“Do you remember this spot, William?” Helios’s voice came out wrong. “This is where it happened. Where Ava Morgan stood.”

Helios’s face contorted, a flash of anguish breaking through Halcyon’s control.

“She was so pretty, wasn’t she? All that red hair. Such a shame what happened to it when your power surged.” Halcyon’s cruel words poured from Helios’s lips. “The way it singed away in an instant. The way her skin blistered and peeled as your energy burned through her.”