There was a silence only family could fill.
Not the kind you found in cemeteries or waiting rooms—those were hollow, haunted silences. This was different.
It was late. The house was quiet. Rain tapped lightly on the windows like memories trying to get back in. In the living room, the warm flicker of a muted TV cast shadows against the couch where Cale and I sat, shoulder to shoulder, in that perfect stillness that didn't need to be broken.
He handed me half a chocolate bar. The cheap kind from the corner store we used to raid after school.
"Dad left early this morning," he said. "Said he had a job thing."
I nodded.
"Mom's still coughing at night. You hear it?"
"I do."
We both fell quiet again.
Then he said, out of nowhere, "You've changed."
I glanced at him. "How?"
"You don't flinch anymore. Or crack jokes when things get awkward. You're like… I don't know. Like someone older trapped in you."
I didn't answer. Because he was right.
He looked at me. Really looked.
"Are you okay?"
I tried to lie. I did.
But something in his voice shattered my usual armor.
"I don't know," I said quietly.
He nodded like he'd already known that answer. "I get scared sometimes. You come home bleeding. You say it's training. But sometimes, you're shaking. Like you fought someone you couldn't beat."
"I always beat them," I said.
"But not without damage."
I sighed. "That's life, Cale. Winning hurts too."
He was quiet for a long moment.
Then he leaned into me—head against my shoulder, like he used to do when we were kids and the power went out.
"I don't want you to disappear, Kai."
I froze.
"I don't know what's going on with you," he whispered. "But promise me something."
"What?"
"Don't become someone I can't recognize."
I didn't promise.
Because I couldn't.
Because I already had.
Later that night, after he'd gone to bed, I slipped out and walked to the gym. I couldn't sleep. My bones itched. My fists twitched.
The streetlamps buzzed overhead, casting pale yellow halos across the cracked sidewalk. The air smelled like wet pavement and ghosts.
I needed to hit something.
Needed to feel control again.
But the gym wasn't empty.
Ryker was there.
And he wasn't alone.
In the far corner, he stood facing one of those old industrial punching machines—the kind you only ever saw in bars, designed more for show than actual training.
He wrapped his hands slowly, then took a deep breath.
And hit it.
Once.
The machine exploded.
Not literally. But the internal mechanism shattered with a high-pitched crack. The heavy bag it was attached to snapped off the chain and slammed into the far wall.
The air vibrated.
Dust fell from the ceiling.
I stood frozen in the doorway.
He turned.
"Didn't think you'd show."
"What… what was that?"
Ryker cracked his neck. "That? That was a warm-up."
I stepped closer, eyes wide.
"No human hits like that. Not even pro fighters. That wasn't strength. That was—"
"—force," he finished. "Controlled from the inside."
I blinked. "Explain."
He walked over, slow and deliberate. His eyes, usually dead calm, carried something sharper now. A flicker of… power. Of truth.
"You ever hear of ki?"
I frowned. "Like… anime energy blasts?"
He smirked. "Yeah, that's the Hollywood crap. But the real thing? It's simpler. Older."
He tapped his chest. "It's what happens when mind, breath, and movement align perfectly. Internal force. Not muscle. Not adrenaline. Something deeper. Something alive."
I stared at him, throat dry.
"You've been training your body, Mercer. That's good. But it's time you learn that power doesn't stop with fists."
He turned to the ruined machine.
"It starts here—" he tapped his temple.
"—flows through here—" he touched his diaphragm.
"—and explodes from here." He raised a fist again, relaxed but coiled like a loaded spring.
"I'll teach you. If you're ready."
"I am," I said without hesitation.
"Good. Because if you want to break monsters—"
He looked me dead in the eye.
"—you'll need to become something more."
I stood in the middle of that ruined gym, the rain outside hammering the roof like a war drum.
And for the first time in two lifetimes—
I felt the spark of something bigger than rage.
Something ancient. Something real.
Something that would let me burn the world down.