"Stay. Down. Or I'll put a hole in your foot," I snapped, my voice sounding wrong—too high, too thin.
I had the kid pinned against a stack of rusted crates. My fingers were digging into the collar of his oversized hoodie, and he was shaking so hard I could feel his heartbeat thumping against my palm. He looked about fourteen, eyes wide and wet, staring at me like I was the monster that had just crawled out of the gutter.
"I didn't do anything! I just saw—" Leo stammered, his breath coming in short, jagged gasps.
"You saw too much," I interrupted, tightening my grip. "That's the problem. In this city, seeing is a death sentence. Now tell me who you're with. Who's paying you to hang around the docks?"
"Nobody! I'm just... I live in the stacks!"
I slammed him back against the metal. The sound echoed through the narrow alley, a sharp clang that made us both flinch. I didn't recognize this body. These hands were small, soft, the skin pale and unmarked. No calluses from a monk's staff, no scars from the Veil wars. I felt like a ghost wearing a cheap suit.
"Listen, kid," I leaned in, my face inches from his. I could smell the metallic tang of blood and old rain on him. "I don't know who I was ten minutes ago, and I don't care who this body belongs to. But right now, I'm the only thing between you and a corporate cleanup crew that doesn't leave witnesses. Give me a reason not to leave you here for them."
Leo swallowed hard. He looked at the dead body a few yards away—the man I'd just neutralized with a flare of the Current. "You... you did that. That light. That wasn't a Cape gift. Capes don't... they don't burn like that."
I froze. "What do you mean?"
"The corporate heroes, the ones on the screens," Leo whispered, his voice trembling. "Their powers are clean. Gold, blue, white. But yours... it looked like a void. Like it was eating the air. Only the forbidden stuff looks like that. The stuff the Board kills people for even mentioning."
I let go of his collar abruptly, stepping back. Forbidden. Of course. I had spent my previous life mastering the Veil Current in a world that revered it. Here, it seemed I was a walking heresy.
"Get up," I ordered.
"Where?"
"Away from here. Now."
I reached down to grab my arm—the one that was still stinging from the scrap. The skin was bruised, a deep purple that looked ugly against the pale flesh. This body was weak. Pathetic. I could feel the latent energy of the Current humming in my marrow, but the vessel was too small. It was like trying to pour an ocean into a thimble. Every time I pushed, the muscles screamed.
"I can't go back to the stacks," Leo said, scrambling to his feet. He was shorter than I thought, barely reaching my shoulder. "If they saw me with you, they'll burn my whole block just to find me."
"Then we find somewhere else," I said, scanning the mouth of the alley.
"You don't even know where you are!" Leo blurted out, a sudden spark of defiance hitting his voice. "You're in Ashport. The bottom of the food chain. You can't just walk around with that... that thing inside you and expect to survive the night."
I grabbed his wrist, pulling him close. I didn't do it gently. "Then you're going to be my map. You know the blind spots. You know where the cameras don't reach. You lead me, or I leave you to the dogs. Deal?"
Leo looked at my hand on his wrist, then up at my eyes. He saw something there that didn't match the teenage face I was wearing. He saw the war-monk. He saw the man who had watched worlds burn.
"Why are you helping me?" he asked, his voice small. "You almost killed me two minutes ago."
"Because you're the only witness who can tell me what the hell is going on in this city," I replied. "And because I'm not in the habit of letting kids get slaughtered by corporate suits."
"That's a lie," Leo whispered. "You're just scared to be alone."
I felt a flicker of genuine irritation. I shifted my grip, nearly twisting his arm behind his back. "Careful, kid. I've forgotten more ways to kill a man than you've had hot meals."