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"Don't move, or I'll put a hole in your knee," the guard snarled, pressing the hot muzzle of the rifle into the base of my skull.
I didn't even blink. I just stared at the cracked concrete of the warehouse floor, my breath coming in ragged, shallow hitches. My hands were zip-tied behind my back, the plastic digging into my wrists until they bled.
"You're making a mistake," I muttered. My voice sounded like I'd been eating gravel.
"Mistake?" The guy laughed, a nasty, wet sound. He shoved me forward, nearly knocking me off my feet. "You're a bottom-feeder, Noelle. A little street rat who thought she could skim off the top of a Syndicate shipment. You're not a villain. You're a nuisance."
He slammed me against a rusted steel pillar. The impact knocked the air out of my lungs, and for a second, the world blurred. I could smell the grease, the old blood, and the cheap cologne the guard was wearing. He leaned in close, his breath smelling of stale coffee and cigarettes.
"Where is the shard?" he hissed. "Give us the starlight fragment, and maybe we'll let you bleed out slowly instead of just tossing you in the harbor."
I spat on his boots. "Go to hell."
He didn't argue. He just swung. The blow caught me across the jaw, sending me spinning. I hit the ground hard, my cheek scraping against the grit. I could feel the copper taste of blood filling my mouth.
Then I heard it. A high-pitched, terrified scream.
I twisted my head. A few yards away, a kid—maybe seven years old—was huddled in the corner, clutching a dirty teddy bear. He was just a witness, some poor brat in the wrong place at the wrong time. And he was directly under the overhead crane.
*Creeeeeak.*
I looked up. The rusted cable holding a massive I-beam was fraying. One strand snapped. Then another. The sound was like a gunshot in the silence of the warehouse.
"Look out!" I screamed, lunging forward despite the ties.
"Shut up!" The guard grabbed my hair, yanking my head back. "Stay down, bitch!"
I didn't stay down. I couldn't. The beam groaned again, and this time, it gave way. Tons of industrial steel plummeted toward the kid.
I didn't think. I didn't have time to. I threw my entire weight forward, sliding across the concrete like a baseball player hitting home plate. I tackled the kid, shielding his small, shaking body with my own, and in that split second, I let it go.
I didn't just push. I reached out with my mind and gripped the air.
*Crack.*
Black veins erupted across my skin, crawling up my arms like ink dropped in water. A surge of cold, violent energy exploded from my palms. It wasn't a shield—it was a void. When the steel beam hit us, it didn't crush us. It shattered.
Not bent. Not dented. *Shattered.*
The steel disintegrated into a million jagged shards of dust and shrapnel, the impact sending a shockwave that knocked the guard flat on his ass.
I lay there, gasping, the kid trembling beneath me. But the cost hit me immediately. The black veins didn't vanish; they started to burn. It felt like someone was pouring molten lead into my arteries. I coughed, and a spray of dark, metallic blood hit the floor.
"What the fuck..." the guard stammered, scrambling backward. He looked at the pile of steel dust and then at me, his eyes wide with a mix of horror and greed. "You... you actually have a Void-class power? No wonder the Syndicate wants you alive!"
He raised his rifle, aiming for my head.
I tried to move, but my muscles were locking up. The power was eating me from the inside. Every time I used it, it took a piece of me. My vision started to flicker, edges curling into darkness.
"Please," the kid sobbed, clinging to my shirt. "Please help me."
I managed a jagged smile, even though it hurt to move my lips. "Run, kid. Run while he's still stupid."
"I'm not letting you go anywhere," the guard snapped. He stepped forward, the boot heels clicking on the concrete. He reached down, grabbing my collar and hauling me up. He didn't care that I was bleeding. He just wanted the prize. "Now, tell me how to control that power, or I'll start cutting off fingers until you do."
I looked him dead in the eye. "I can't even control it myself, you idiot. It's killing me. Want to see how fast it can kill you?"
He sneered and raised his hand to strike me again, but he never got the chance.
*BOOM.*
The warehouse's corrugated metal doors didn't just open—they exploded inward. A blinding flash of gold and white light flooded the room, searing the dimness away. The shockwave sent the guard flying backward into a stack of crates.
I squinted, shielding my eyes. Through the glare, a figure descended.
She looked like she had stepped out of a damn fairytale. Long, flowing hair that shimmered like spun silk, a costume that screamed 'high-budget agency,' and an aura of purity that made me want to gag. She landed softly, her boots barely making a sound on the debris.
Wren Starr. The Golden Girl. The city's perfect, shimmering idol of justice.
She didn't look at me at first. She looked at the destroyed beam, then at the kid. Her expression was one of practiced, cinematic concern.
"Are you alright, little one?" her voice drifted through the air, melodic and sweet. Too sweet. It sounded like a commercial for toothpaste.
The kid scrambled away from me and ran toward her, sobbing. Wren caught him in a gentle hug, her gold-trimmed cape fluttering around them. She looked over the kid's shoulder at me, and the warmth in her eyes vanished. It was replaced by a cold, clinical appraisal.
"So this is the one," Wren said, her voice dropping an octave. The sweetness was gone. Now she sounded like a CEO evaluating a faulty product. "The one with the unstable Void signature."
I let out a dry, hacking laugh. "Great. The prom queen is here to save the day. You want a trophy or a photo op, Starr?"
Wren stepped away from the kid, her movements fluid and predatory. She didn't walk; she glided. She stopped inches from me, the scent of vanilla and expensive ozone filling my senses. She was so close I could see the tiny, golden flecks in her irises. She looked down at my bleeding wrists, then at the black veins still pulsing under my skin.
"You're a mess," she whispered.
"Love you too," I snapped.
She didn't smile. Instead, she reached out, her gloved finger tilting my chin up. The touch was light, but there was an underlying strength that told me she could snap my neck before I could even blink. Her eyes searched mine, not with empathy, but with a strange, hungry curiosity.
"The agency doesn't want you dead, Noelle. They want you branded," Wren said.
"Branded? What is this, a cattle ranch?"
"Something like that." Wren leaned closer, her breath warm against my ear. "You're going to be the perfect little villain. The foil to my light. The monster the city loves to hate. And in exchange, I might just tell them how to stop your heart from stopping."
I stiffened. "I don't work for heroes."
"You don't have a choice," she replied, pulling back with a smirk that didn't reach her eyes.
Suddenly, every screen in the warehouse—the security monitors, the guard's dropped tablet, even the digital billboards visible through the holes in the walls—flickered.
An emergency broadcast flashed across the city. The agency's logo spun in a circle of gold. A polished announcer's voice boomed over the speakers, echoing through the ruins.
*"Citizens of the city! We are proud to announce a new era of justice. To ensure the safety of our streets, the Hero Corp is pairing our brightest star with a new, reformed antagonist for a series of public rehabilitations. Please welcome the new partner of Wren Starr..."
I froze. The screen shifted to a high-res photo of my own face, taken from a security camera three days ago.
"...Ellis Noelle."
I looked up at Wren. She was still smiling, but her hand had moved. She wasn't holding my chin anymore. She was holding a small, glowing device—a containment cuff—and she was about to snap it shut around my wrist.