Once again, Kai was avoiding sleep.
He lay on the hard, splintering floorboards of the ragged apartment like a corpse, eyes open, unmoving, drowned in silence - but his mind was a storm of noise.
No dreams. No peace. Just the endless churn of frustration clawing at the inside of his skull.
'Powerless... Again.'
It burned him - how easily Nyx still played with his life like it was some grand experiment. How that sadistic bastard was out there, somewhere, still pulling strings, unleashing chaos on the world like a child ripping the wings off flies.
And Kai?
He was stuck. No memories. No direction. Just flashes of pain and power and rage.
His fists clenched at his sides.
The apartment was mostly silent now. The others were sprawled out, scattered around the room in various poses of sleep. A faint snore from the corner. A soft shuffle of fabric. The occasional twitch from Lenny's massive, scaly body.
But inside Kai's head, it was anything but quiet.
