"Stop it!" he yelled, trying to wrench away. "Stop acting like them! The Capes, the Enforcers... they all act like they own the air we breathe. If you're just going to be another monster, then just leave me here! At least the Enforcers are honest about wanting me dead!"
I stopped. The words hit a nerve I didn't know I had in this borrowed chest. I looked at him—really looked at him. He wasn't just a witness. He was a mirror. He was exactly what I had been before the wars—someone clinging to a shred of dignity in a place designed to strip it away.
I slowly released his wrist. My hand was shaking. Not from fear, but from the sheer effort of suppressing the Current. It wanted to roar. It wanted to tear through this fragile skin and incinerate everything within a city block.
"I'm not a hero," I said, my voice dropping an octave. "And I'm definitely not one of them."
"Then prove it," Leo challenged, though he was still shivering. "Prove you're not just another suit with a different face."
I sighed, glancing at the sky. The smog was thick, blotting out any hint of stars, replaced by the neon glare of holographic billboards that danced above the skyscrapers. A giant woman's face, smiling and flawless, was selling some kind of neural-link perfume. She looked like a goddess. She looked like a lie.
"Fine," I muttered. "Lead the way. But if you try to sell me out to the nearest patrol, I'll make sure you're the one paying the price."
Leo didn't smile, but the tension in his shoulders dropped an inch. "This way. There's a crawlspace under the old refinery. It's the only place the drones can't map because of the interference."
We moved in silence, sticking to the shadows of the rusted warehouses. Every few seconds, I'd stop, closing my eyes to feel the vibrations in the air. The Current was acting like a sonar, picking up the hum of distant machinery and the rhythmic thrum of something... heavy. Something fast.
"Wait," I whispered, pulling Leo behind a concrete pillar.
"What is it?" he hissed.
"Someone's coming. And they aren't walking."
Above us, a sudden, piercing whine sliced through the air. It sounded like a jet engine shrunk down to the size of a car. A streak of crimson light descended from the smog, cutting through the gloom with surgical precision.
*BOOM.*
The impact shook the ground, sending a cloud of grit and ash exploding upward. The shockwave nearly knocked Leo off his feet, and I instinctively threw an arm across him, pinning him to the pillar to keep him from flying outward.
As the dust settled, a figure emerged from the crater.
She was wearing a sleek, charcoal-grey combat suit that clung to her like a second skin, reinforced with matte-black plating at the shoulders and shins. A visor slid up from her forehead, revealing eyes that were a piercing, predatory blue. She didn't look like the smiling goddesses on the billboards. She looked like a weapon.
She didn't look at Leo. She didn't look at the surroundings. Her gaze locked onto me with terrifying accuracy.
She stepped forward, her boots crunching on the debris. In her hand, she held a device that looked like a tuning fork, and it was vibrating violently, emitting a low, rhythmic pulse.
"That's a weird signature," she said, her voice cool and devoid of emotion. She stopped ten feet away, her eyes scanning me from head to toe. "Not a Cape gift. Not a cyber-mod. It's raw. It's... ancient."
I shifted my weight, my muscles coiling. I didn't have a weapon, but the Current was screaming in my veins, begging to be let loose.
"Who are you?" I asked, my voice steady despite the adrenaline.
She tilted her head, a small, dangerous smile touching her lips. "I'm the one who cleans up the messes the Board doesn't want the public to see. And you... you're a very interesting mess."
She raised the device, and the pulse suddenly spiked.
"Mira Quinn," she announced, her voice echoing in the narrow space. "And you just flagged a forbidden flare in my sector. Which means you're either a dead man walking, or the most valuable thing in Ashport."
She moved then—not a walk, but a blur of motion. Before I could even blink, she was in my space, her hand snapping out to seize my throat, pinning me against the concrete with a strength that defied her frame.
Her face was inches from mine. I could feel the heat radiating from her suit, the scent of ozone and expensive steel. Her eyes weren't just blue; they were analyzing me, searching for a weakness.
"Now," she whispered, her grip tightening just enough to make my lungs ache. "Tell me where you got that power before I decide to rip it out of you myself."