Adrian woke up before sunrise with a dull, throbbing headache behind his eyes and the dry taste of copper on his tongue.
He sat up slowly on his cot, rolling his neck until it clicked. Catching that two-ton ceiling slab yesterday had saved their lives, but his body was paying for it. Cassandra Nova's abilities gave him terrifying potential, but his skull was still bone, his veins were still blood, and his nervous system was still human. Using brute force without training was like firing an anti-tank gun from his bare shoulder. From now on, he needed to rely on precision and quiet control.
Across the cold room, a floorboard creaked.
Pietro was already awake, sitting on a wooden crate pushed up against the door. The boy's eyes were bloodshot, dark rings hanging under them, his right hand gripping an old butter knife like a dagger.
On the far cot, Wanda tossed under the wool blanket. Her face was pale, her forehead slick with sweat, and a ragged, wet cough rattled in her chest every few seconds. Breathing in clouds of pulverized drywall and soot had caught up to her lungs.
Pietro stood up the moment Adrian moved.
"She's burning up," Pietro whispered, his voice hoarse and raw. "Her chest hurts. She can't keep her eyes open."
Adrian walked over and pressed the back of his hand to her forehead. Her skin was far too hot.
"Concrete dust," Adrian said quietly. "Her lungs are irritated. She needs antibiotics and clean water, or it turns into an infection."
Pietro stepped toward the window, looking down at the empty street. "The rail depot three blocks south has supply crates. The local militia keeps medicine there for themselves. I can slip through the fence and grab a box before anyone sees me."
"Sit down," Adrian said flatly.
Pietro glared at him, his knuckles turning white around the handle of the knife. "I'm fast. I won't get caught."
"You're seventeen, you haven't slept in twenty-four hours, and there are three armed men standing by that gate with Kalashnikovs," Adrian said, his voice completely level. "If you get shot, who takes care of her? Put the knife on the table."
Pietro hesitated, his chest rising and falling hard, but the cold logic hit him. He dropped the butter knife onto the pine table with a small clatter.
Adrian knelt by Wanda's cot.
Her eyes cracked open, dull and unfocused, shining with fever. Beneath her skin, Adrian could feel that strange, jagged crimson current twitching in tiny, erratic bursts—a frightened mind lashing out at its own illness.
Adrian placed two fingers gently against the side of her temple. He didn't force his way into her thoughts. Instead, he pushed a soft, steady wave of psionic calm across her nervous system. He dulled the raw irritation firing in her throat and quieted the chaotic hum in her veins.
Wanda let out a long, shuddering breath. Her tight shoulders relaxed into the mattress, and her breathing smoothed out into a deep, quiet sleep.
"What did you just do?" Pietro asked, staring with wide eyes.
"I eased the pain so she could rest," Adrian said, standing up and pulling on his canvas coat. "Lock the door behind me. Don't open it for anyone unless you hear three slow knocks. I'll be back in an hour."
Adrian walked down the cold concrete stairs and stepped out into the damp morning fog.
Novi Grad at dawn was grey and lifeless. The war had left the streets broken, the potholes filled with freezing rain, and long lines of tired citizens stood outside the government bakeries waiting for flour rations that never arrived on time. With the central government in shambles, armed neighborhood gangs and corrupt district militias ran the streets, charging everyday people "taxes" just to cross a bridge or open a shop.
At the corner of the market street, two men in mismatched military jackets stood beneath a streetlamp, rifles slung across their shoulders. They were stopping anyone trying to reach the private pharmacies and grocery stalls.
"Hold up," the taller man barked, stepping into Adrian's path. He had a cigarette hanging from his lips and a scar along his jaw. "Curfew papers. And ten marks for the district security fee."
Adrian stopped two paces away, hands resting loosely in his coat pockets.
A day ago, he would have had to turn around and walk away, or hand over his last scrap of paper money. And if he was foolish, he could use his new telekinesis to slam both men through the brick wall behind them.
But loud fights drew attention. Gunshots brought military trucks, and military trucks brought reports that eventually landed on the desks of foreign spy agencies or underground factions.
Quiet was always better.
Adrian looked directly into the scarred man's eyes.
He sent a thin, delicate probe of telepathic force into the man's forebrain. He didn't damage the brain or wipe the man's memory. He simply reached in, plucked the thought of demanding a bribe, and gently replaced it with a different reality.
The scarred man blinked twice. His gaze went slightly blank, then sharpened again.
To the gunman, Adrian was not a stranger. Adrian was an authorized relief worker from the southern ward, a man who had already paid his paperwork fees weeks ago, and a friend of his commanding officer.
"Oh," the gunman said, clearing his throat and stepping aside. "It's you, Kovac. Didn't recognize you in the fog."
"It's cold out here, Boris," Adrian said smoothly.
"Tell me about it," Boris grunted, shaking his head. He reached into his heavy coat pocket, pulled out three stamped blue paper slips, and shoved them into Adrian's hand. "Take these. Extra food slips from the morning truck. Also, avoid the main bridge today. State police set up a checkpoint there, and they're arresting anyone without stamped IDs."
"Appreciate it," Adrian said, pocketing the slips.
He walked past the guards into the market without a single word of protest from either man. His temple gave a tiny, faint throb, but that was all. No flying concrete, no broken bones, and no bodies left in the mud.
Thirty minutes later, Adrian climbed the dark stairwell back to his apartment.
He knocked three times, slow and even.
The bolt slid back instantly. Pietro pulled the door open, looking pale and tense, the butter knife still gripped tight in his hand. When his eyes fell on Adrian, his jaw dropped.
Adrian walked past him and set his haul down on the wooden table: a brown glass bottle of liquid penicillin, two rolls of sterile white gauze, a half-dozen fresh brown eggs wrapped in paper, and a heavy cloth sack filled with dry heating coal.
Pietro quickly bolted the door and stared at the supplies. "How did you get all this? The black market charges half a month's wages just for the penicillin."
"I talked to the guards," Adrian said, taking off his coat.
"You talked to them?" Pietro scoffed, looking at Adrian as if he were insane. "Militia doesn't give away coal and medicine for a conversation."
"People give you whatever you want if they think it was their own idea," Adrian replied, his voice calm and steady.
He grabbed an old iron bucket, dumped a shovel of black coal into the iron stove, and struck a match. A bright, crackling warmth began to spread through the cold room.
He measured a dose of the medicine into a chipped spoon, walked over to the cot, and lifted Wanda up slightly. She swallowed it without waking, her feverish brow already cooler to the touch than it was an hour ago.
Adrian set a tin pan over the hot stove, cracked three eggs into it, and divided the hot food onto two tin plates. He handed one to Pietro along with a slice of bread.
Pietro sat on his crate, eating with frantic speed, clearly starving. Between bites, he kept his eyes locked onto Adrian, the suspicion in his gaze slowly giving way to something that looked like quiet awe.
"What are you going to do with us?" Pietro asked quietly, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
"Nothing," Adrian said, taking a bite of his own meal. "You stay here until your sister can walk. You don't pick fights, you don't show off whatever tricks you can do, and you don't leave this room without me. The world outside is messy. If someone sees what you can do, you won't end up in jail—you'll end up in a metal cage in an underground lab."
Pietro flinched slightly, but he nodded. "Understood."
Adrian finished his food, picked up a tin mug of boiled water, and walked over to the cracked window.
Through the dirty glass, he looked out across the grey rooftops of Novi Grad. Smoke from artillery craters drifted in the distance, sirens whined in the valley, and people walked with their heads down in the mud, living like stray dogs just to see tomorrow.
He glanced down at the wall beside the stove. Pinned to the peeling wallpaper was a faded paper map of Sokovia, marked with broken roads, militia checkpoints, and abandoned factories.
Scavenging for eggs and tricking two guards at a corner would keep them alive for a week, maybe a month. But it wasn't safety. When the real storms came—when billionaires built flying suits, when secret armies moved in the dark, and when alien armies fell from the sky—an old apartment in the slums would just be kindling.
Adrian took a slow sip of the hot water, his eyes cold and focused on the map.
If he wanted to be truly safe, he couldn't hide in the shadows forever. He had to take the whole city.