When Ethan was young, he was deathly afraid of the dark. The possibilities of what lay in wait hiding in the shadows danced at the edge of his vision while he laid in bed at night, keeping him awake. He would toss and turn, whimpering pathetically on the top bunk in their small, childhood home, annoyed Alex to no end.
It certainly didn't help that the much braver Alex loved horror movies and, while Ethan's dad tried to distract him from the horrifying creatures routinely adorning the only television in their house by playing board games with him in their kitchen, Ethan would still catch glimpses of people being eaten whole or cut through with a chainsaw, guaranteeing him another week of nightmares.
Well after midnight on one summer night after Ethan caught a particularly gruesome scene of a woman being exsanguinated by a vampire, Ethan remained wide awake, muttering to himself about a vampire waiting just outside his window. Alex, unable to take his whining anymore, popped her head up onto the top bunk, scaring him. She covered his mouth, muffling his scream.
"Ethan," she snapped, "I have wrestling practice at nine and you are keeping me up."
"I can't help it!" He protested. "I always feel like there's something coming to get me."
Alex rolled her eyes. "None of the stuff in those movies is real."
"I know that," he shot back, absolutely lying, "but…maybe there's other things out there that are real."
Alex sighed in response, annoyed. She thought for a moment, then grabbed his shoulder. "Here's the deal: I will stay up later than you to make sure nothing comes to get you, okay?"
Alex was several inches taller than Ethan which, in a four year old's mind, basically meant she was invincible, so he readily agreed, nodding vigorously. Knowing Alex was watching over him, ready to take on any monster that dared to come through their window, Ethan slept through the night for the first time all summer.
Now, it was Ethan who was watching over Alex for the past three nights after she had gotten out of surgery. He hoped she knew he was there for him, just like he knew she was watching over him all those years that they shared a room.
But a small part of him wondered if she wanted him there at all. It was his fault she was here in the first place. It was his fault she was in the hospital.
She was cleared for visitors on the morning of her fourth day after surgery, and Raz was the first to arrive to the hospital room, holding two bags.
Ethan's eyes, bright red from tears, wearily let him in. Raz visibly deflated when he saw Alex for the first time. She was still in white, but she had traded her signature costume for hospital robes, and her hair was matted to the pillow. She looked as vulnerable as either of them. Distracted, he went to put the bag down on a bedside table but accidentally knocked a vase with flowers to the floor, shattering it.
"Sorry, sorry, I'll get someone to clean that up."
Ethan hardly noticed the sharp noise. His voice came out dull and lifeless. "Don't bother."
Raz hesitated, unsure, then took a seat next to Ethan, handing him a bagel. Ethan set it on the table next to him, not even bothering to unwrap it.
"How is she?"
Ethan kept his eyes looking over Alex. "The doctors couldn't just…stitch her back up like you or me. They removed the firestone from her stomach, but her skin is too strong for a standard scalpel so they had to put a synthetic skin over hers until it heals."
"Can't exactly restitch a diamond if it gets cut, right?"
"Exactly. Her full recovery is going to take a long time given how dense her skin is."
Raz shook his head. "Thank goodness you got her here fast enough. You saved her life, Ethan."
Ethan laughed derisively. "I dragged you out of the mine after causing a cave in and I teleported Alex to the hospital after I gave Rainey the only tool she could use to hurt her. Why can I only be a hero after I've hurt someone I love?"
Raz was silent. For the first time in their relationship, if he had something to say, he kept it to himself. Instead, Ethan said it for him, his voice hoarse.
"You were right all along, Raz. It finally happened. Everything caught up with me. Everything I lied about blew up in my face. I thought I could control everything. I thought I was stronger."
Raz sighed deeply, the silence stretching between them. A long moment later, he directed his attention to Ethan. "Alright. That's all in the past now. You messed up, people got hurt. What now?"
The door opened gently, and Ethan was surprised when Amory entered the room.
"Ah, Raz nodded, standing to leave. He patted Ethan on the shoulder. "Guess you'll find out. I'll be back later. Hang in there, okay? She's strong, we know that. She'll get better, and so will you."
Amory watched Raz go, then laid down a card on Alex's bedside table and placed a comforting hand on Ethan's shoulder before sitting down next to him. It was a long while before she spoke.
"We think she was working with Kingston," Amory told him, breaking the silence.
"Slate?" Ethan asked, straightening up in his chair. Slate hadn't been spotted after fleeing the arena, laying low after the first part of her plan had been a smashing success. At first Ethan tried not to think about her, but in the past two days he found himself obsessing over ways to stop her, ways to put all this right. Or, at least, as right as they could be, considering the doctors didn't know how long it would be before Alex woke up again.
Amory nodded in response, keeping her eyes straight ahead. "Her working with one of our employees so close to the heart of our operations would explain how she kept pace with what Apex knew about the firestones and Alex's…vulnerabilities."
"Where is he now?"
"Gone to ground, we believe. Kingston hasn't been in the lab since…" Amory trailed off, she shifted gears. Back to work. "I have people looking for him, tracking his last few moves, but…he's not the real issue. Slate is."
"Right," Ethan nodded.
"I spoke with Raz. He told me that when you got powers, she was with you. Slate."
Ethan nodded slowly.
"Did you know her?"
Ethan shivered involuntarily. "Briefly."
"Do you know…what she wanted?"
Ethan gestured to Alex, breathing slowly. "This. Titan out of the picture. After that…I'm not sure. The destruction of Apex, she said."
Amory nodded. "This is hard for me, seeing her like this but…I don't blame you, you know. For this." She gestured to Alex. "I'm sure Alex doesn't either. Nobody thought this was possible, an Altered actually hurting Titan, piercing our veil of invulnerability. You took a calculated risk. You must have assumed, rightly, that I wouldn't have ever let you anywhere near the Protectorate program had I known you created not one, but two new Altereds, so you tried to keep it all under wraps. And you came very close to doing so, except Slate slipped through your fingers, and we ended up with..." She paused, then looked away. "Well."
Ethan didn't really know what to say. Amory had summed up his past three months almost perfectly. Put so succinctly, he wondered how things would've gone if he had just been honest from the start. He certainly wouldn't have been here, in the hospital, waiting for Alex to wake up.
Instead of walking down the path of what-ifs, he changed the subject. "Are attacks up, since by now the Altered must have noticed Alex's absence?"
Amory shook her head. "We're keeping things under wraps the best we can, but they'll notice, eventually, that her cape doesn't flutter through the city's skies."
Despite his situation, Ethan was able to take some small comfort knowing that everything outside wasn't falling apart. At least, not yet. He couldn't think of an apology appropriate enough for the scale of mistake he made, so he kept silent. Amory stayed far longer than Ethan would've imagined a woman in her position had time for, but eventually she cleared her throat, drawing his attention.
Ethan knew what was coming, but he felt strangely numb. He already made the biggest mistake of his life; the consequences now were just perfunctory. He was the shattered vase on the floor: already destroyed, beyond recognition, unable to be disfigured any further.
Amory's voice was soft, nearly apologetic, and yet still authoritative. "I can't have you back out in the field. Stay out of Ascension and let me have my Protectors handle Slate."
Ethan nodded, keeping his eyes forward. He gave Amory the bag Raz brought in.
"Training shirts and communicators," he explained. "Everything I was given."
Amory hesitated, but took the bag from him. "Thank you for making this easy. Let's talk when Alex is back up and moving, okay?"
Amory moved to the door, then hesitated, casting Ethan a regretful glance.
"If it means anything to you, I meant what I said when I interviewed you for the Protector position. I respect what you did. You saw an opportunity to improve your life and took it. I wouldn't be in charge of Apex if I hadn't done the same at more than a few points in my life. You couldn't have known it would end up like this."
Amory stepped out, leaving Ethan alone once more. He slumped in his chair, stewing in his sense of failure.
He worked so hard to get these powers and then he kept telling himself he'd stop Rainey and save Alex and become a Protector, but all he managed to do was lie to Quinn, get Alex nearly killed, and throw the entire city into chaos without even coming close to stopping Rainey. He found himself drowning in the weight of the consequences of his decisions, paralyzed in the chair. He wallowed for a long, long time until his phone buzzed, causing him to sigh. He really couldn't take another "just checking in on you" text, but he picked it up anyway, only to freeze when he saw Quinn's name.
They hadn't spoken since he revealed that he knew Slate was her sister. He wasn't sure what to expect, but assumed she'd be angry. Possibly a lot of four letter words that he deserved to hear. Instead, she sent him a challenge.
Do you think you can fix this?
Which of my many mistakes is she even talking about? He wondered absently. He thought about ignoring her text, but the longer he went on he kept coming back to it, wondering what she meant, what ideas she might have. Even if she just wanted a chance to scream at him, Ethan thought that would be better than what he was doing.
For the first time since fighting Slate, Ethan's heart rate spiked at the chance to see Quinn. The world around him seemed to regain its color. His eyes peered out the window, brilliant afternoon sunshine pouring in nearly blinding him. He saw his reflection in the window, looking nearly as deathly as Alex: pale, hair grown out unevenly, his eyes gaunt. Forcing himself, he looked past his own reflection and despite the dreary hospital room the outside world looked warm, inviting, a place he wanted to rejoin, and he had just received an invitation.
He was weary to leave her, but Alex was stable, for now, and if someone was powerful enough to break through the security that Amory had put together to guard Alex, there wasn't going to be much Ethan could provide. Plus, he really did want to see Quinn, despite how badly their conversation was likely to go. Ultimately, he realized, it didn't matter what problem she was referring to, the answer to all of them was the same. He picked up the phone, texting her back.
Not without you.
The space between him sending that text and waiting on her reply was agony. He looked at Alex, a small smile making its way to his face. "Well, what's it going to be?" He asked her. Finally, his phone buzzed again.
"Moment of truth," he took a deep breath before picking his phone back up.
Meet me at my place, Quinn replied, sending an address on the east side of town. Ethan silently pumped his fist, pushing himself to a stand and stretching out his legs, giving Alex one last chance to wake up before he left.
"No?" He asked her quietly, opening a portal in front of him. "Okay, well, you're not in fighting shape, and someone's got to fix this. I know what I just said to Amory, but…I can't let someone else put themselves in danger to stop Slate when I'm the reason she's even here. Everyone in Ascension probably wishes it was you, but they're going to have to settle for me."