*Author Note* Sorry for the long wait I went on vacation and then got sick after the fact but I have been writing and will put out 2 more chapter tonight. V's perspective in a later chapter might be confusing but trust me I have a good idea cooking and she wont appear again until "The Heist" Mission happens.
(Ember POV)
The cuffs bit into my wrists with that particular kind of discomfort that suggested they were designed more for punishment than security. Standard restraints. I'd felt their like before, though usually in training simulations recently rather than actual custody. The metal was cold against my skin, a constant reminder of my current situation that I found oddly satisfying.
My purple dress was gone, replaced by the standard Academy detention uniform: gray utility pants and a matching gray shirt that bore my identification number stenciled across the back in stark black lettering. C-1247. How impersonal. How perfectly Imperial.
At least they'd let me keep my heels and even fixed the broken one.
The corridor stretched ahead of us, a study in sterile uniformity. Reinforced durasteel walls painted in that particular shade of institutional beige that seemed to exist nowhere else in the galaxy. Overhead lighting panels cast everything in harsh white illumination, the kind that made shadows disappear and left nowhere to hide. The floor was spotless, polished to a shine that reflected the lights above in distorted patterns.
Cells lined both sides of the corridor, each fronted by a containment field that shimmered faintly blue when you looked at it directly. Most were empty, their energy barriers deactivated, the interiors dark and waiting. But a scattered handful as we walked held occupants.
I turned my head as we passed the first occupied cell, letting my sight expand outward in the way that made the world take on additional dimensions. The physical barriers of the containment field registered as a bright web of energy, but beyond it, I could sense the life signature inside. Male, human, about my age. His presence in the Force was muted, dulled by what was probably a combination of alcohol, exhaustion, and the lingering effects of stun weapons.
I didn't recognize him.
The second occupied cell came up on my left, and this time when I looked something clicked. Through my Force sight, I could make out the general shape and size. Female, roughly my build, the distinctive head-tail silhouette of a Twi'lek. Someone else from the party, probably. Her signature felt familiar in a way I couldn't quite articulate, like a song you'd heard before but couldn't name. Someone I'd seen in passing probably, registered subconsciously even if I couldn't put a face to the presence.
The corridor continued, empty cell after empty cell passing by on both sides. I counted them as we walked sixteen empty on the left, fourteen on the right before we reached another occupied one. This one I recognized immediately, even before my eye confirmed it. The massive frame, the particular way he slumped against the back wall of the cell, the shape of his skull even in silhouette.
Dex. The big one from Kade's group.
I couldn't help the smile that spread across my face as we passed. His head was tilted back against the wall, and even through the containment field, I could see the massive bruise developing across his ribs where I'd hit him. The purple-black discoloration stood out starkly against his pale skin, a perfect impression of my knuckles.
Beautiful.
"Something funny, cadet?" one of the guards asked, his voice flat and professional.
"Just appreciating the scenery." I replied, not bothering to hide the satisfaction in my tone.
Pushing out with my Force sight again, this time focusing on the broader picture rather than individual cells. Most of the detention level was empty at least this particular section. I could feel perhaps a dozen life signatures scattered throughout, most of them stationary in cells like the ones we'd passed. A few were moving other guards on patrol, probably, or station security personnel conducting their rounds.
The architecture of the place registered in my awareness like a three-dimensional model built on a computer. Corridors branching off from this main one, intersections where multiple passages met, the larger space of what was probably a central processing area somewhere ahead of us. And everywhere, the steady hum of the station's systems, the flow of air through ventilation ducts, the pulse of power through conduits in the walls.
It was almost peaceful, in its way. Ordered. Controlled. The kind of environment I'd grown up in, even if the specifics were different.
"How many others do you have locked up from the party?" I asked, breaking the silence again. "Seems like a lot of empty cells for what was supposed to be such a big deal."
Silence. Neither guard so much as acknowledged I'd spoken.
We continued walking, and I continued cataloging the cells as we passed. Empty. Empty. One with someone in it that I didn't recognize. Empty. Empty. Empty. Another familiar presence was a girl I was talking to earlier in the night. Her outline was dimmed, probably still recovering from the night.
I stopped walking, turning to get a better look at her cell. The containment field shimmered as I focused on it, and through my Force sight, I could make out her form slumped on the metal bench inside.
The guard behind me gave me a shove, not particularly hard but enough to get me moving again. "Keep walking."
We passed more empty cells. The corridor seemed to go on forever, identical panels of wall interrupted by identical doorways, the blue shimmer of containment fields making everything blend into a monotonous pattern. The only sound was our footsteps—the guards' boots hitting the deck with practiced precision, my own lighter but just as steady.
I found myself counting steps, matching my breathing to the rhythm of our movement. In, two, three, four. Out, two, three, four. The meditation technique Vex had drilled into me during sparring sessions, the one that was supposed to help maintain focus during extended physical exertion.
It also helped pass the time.
Finally, after what felt like an hour but was probably only a few minutes, the guards stopped. We were standing in front of a cell that looked exactly like all the others. Same dimensions, same durasteel walls, same metal bench bolted to the far wall, same waste disposal unit in the corner. The only difference was the number stenciled next to the doorway: D-47.
"Inside" the guard on my left said, his first words since we'd started walking.
The containment field deactivated with a faint hum, the blue shimmer fading to nothing as the energy barrier dropped. The doorway was open now, just empty air between me and the cell interior.
I looked at both guards, then at the open doorway, then back at the guards. "Don't suppose you could take these off?" I raised my cuffed wrists slightly. "Getting kind of uncomfortable."
"Inside" the guard repeated, his tone making it clear this wasn't a negotiation.
I shrugged and stepped through the doorway. The moment I was clear of the threshold, the containment field reactivated behind me, that blue shimmer springing back into existence like a wall of solid light. The guards turned and walked away without another word, their footsteps receding down the corridor until I couldn't hear them anymore.
I stood in the center of the cell for a moment, just taking it in. Three meters by four meters, roughly. Durasteel walls on three sides, the containment field on the fourth. Metal bench bolted to the left wall, about half a meter wide and maybe a meter and a half long. Waste disposal unit in the right corner, basic facilities. A small ventilation grate in the ceiling, probably one-way. No windows, no decorations, no concessions to comfort or aesthetics.
It was, I reflected remarkably similar to the rooms I'd grown up in. Different layout, different specific details, but the same fundamental philosophy. Contain. Control. Eliminate variables.
I moved to the bench and sat down, the metal cold even through my uniform pants. The surface was perfectly smooth, polished by years of use or maybe just manufactured that way. I swung my legs up, lying back on the bench with my cuffed hands resting on my stomach.
The ceiling was the same institutional beige as the walls, broken only by the ventilation grate and the recessed lighting panel that cast its harsh white light over everything. I stared up at it, letting my vision unfocus slightly, and couldn't help the laugh that bubbled up from my chest.
"This brings back memories" I said out loud, my voice echoing slightly in the small space.
_______________________________________
(Cherry's POV Few Years ago)
I woke up in the quiet and didn't know why.
That was the scary part. Usually I could feel when morning was coming the guards' life signatures would start moving differently outside, their energy patterns shifting from the slow, dim pulse of sleep to the brighter, sharper rhythm of waking. The facility itself would change too, its mechanical heartbeat growing stronger as systems powered up for the day cycle. But this time it was different. This time something pulled me awake like someone had tugged on an invisible thread connected to my chest, except nobody had touched me.
I pushed myself up on the thin mattress, my hands finding its edges automatically. The cell around me hummed with its usual low energy—the door with its crackling electrical signature, the ventilation system's steady flow of air that I could sense moving through the ducts, the faint electromagnetic pulses from the security systems embedded in the walls.
My tummy felt funny. Not sick-funny, but scared-funny. The feeling I got when I knew something bad was about to happen.
I let my awareness spread out like Ember had taught me, though for me it wasn't really a choice it was the only way I could see anything at all. The world lit up in my mind like always, everything made of light and energy and movement. The scientist called it Force sight, but for me it was just... sight. The only kind I'd ever known.
The walls of my cell weren't solid barriers to me instead they were thin veils of energy I could sense right through, like curtains made of spider silk. I could feel the corridor outside, its emptiness broken only by the camera in the corner, its electronic eye pulsing with each recorded frame. The other cells stretched out in rows, most of them hollow now empty spaces where life signatures used to be. They'd moved a lot of the other kids away last week, and I didn't know where they went. Their absence left holes in my awareness, cold spots where warmth used to exist.
But then I sensed them approaching, and my whole body went ice-cold.
There were five signatures moving down the corridor toward my cell. Four of them were heavy and dense, like stones the guards with their armor that made them harder to read, their bodies wrapped in layers of metal that dulled their human signatures. They carried those weapons that crackled with electricity, the stun sticks that sent light shooting through the Force whenever they activated them.
But the fifth presence made me want to throw up.
Dr. Kaine. His outline was all wrong. It was like sensing a hole in the world shaped like a person, a void that swallowed feeling and gave back nothing but ice. I could sense him even at a distance, the feeling of chill getting worse as he came closer.
I could feel their footsteps through the floor now, vibrations traveling through metal and concrete heavy boots creating ripples in my awareness with each step.
I scrambled off the mattress, my bare feet finding the cool floor instantly. My hands reached out, mapping the cell's familiar dimensions. Three steps to the door, two steps to the toilet, one step to the sink. I'd counted them so many times I knew exactly where everything was without needing to think about it.
But I needed something. Anything I could use. The cell didn't have much just the mattress that was bolted down, the toilet that was too heavy to move, the sink with its steady trickle of water that I could sense flowing through the pipes...
The food tray.
My hands found it instantly, right where they always left it, metal, solid and real. There was a pan too, the small one they'd given me a few days ago. I could sense its shape through the way it interrupted the air around it, feel its weight as I picked it up with both hands.
The leftover food inside had a dim organic signature, slowly decaying. I dumped it out without caring where it landed, letting it splash on the floor. The pan was lighter now, easier to hold, and I gripped it tight even though my hands were shaking.
The footsteps were right outside.
I pressed myself against the wall next to the door, holding the pan up high like Ember had shown me once. "If someone comes for you" she'd said, her voice firm and protective in my memory, "you go for their head. Don't be nice about it. They won't be nice to you."
Ember always knew what to do. She was smart and strong and brave, and she took care of me even though I couldn't see and was frail. She never made me feel broken or wrong. She just... understood.
The door's locking mechanism disengaged with a click I felt more than heard, the electronic components rearranging themselves. Energy flowed differently as the seal broke.
"Lights on" Dr. Kaine's voice said that flat, dead voice that matched his empty presence.
The cell's lighting systems activated, and I felt the change as they powered up. To me it didn't make much difference, I could sense things just as well. But I knew the change meant they wanted to see me clearly, wanted their eyes to work properly.
I kept the pan raised, kept my position by the wall, tracking their life signatures as they entered.
Four guards came first their armored presences moving with practiced efficiency, spreading out to cover the cell. Behind them came Dr. Kaine, his void-like signature making my skin crawl even though he was several steps away.
"Subject 3-2A.2" he said, using my number like always. His presence didn't shift at all when he spoke, no emotional resonance, no warmth. "You will come with us. Do not resist."
They weren't looking at me I could tell by where their attention was focused. The guards' awareness was directed at the mattress, probably expecting to find me there. Dr. Kaine's attention was on something he was holding, something flat with a faint electronic signature that I'd learned meant he was reading data.
I swung the pan as hard as I could.
My awareness guided me perfectly I could sense exactly where the closest guard's head was, track the angle I needed, feel the arc of my swing through the air itself. The pan connected with his helmet with a CLANG that rippled through the Force like dropping a stone in still water.
The guard's life signature flared with pain and disorientation, his presence staggering sideways. His helmet now had a different shape, a dent I could sense in the smooth curve of metal.
"Shit!" one of the other guards yelled, their emotional signature spiking with surprise, and then their hands were grabbing me.
I tried to swing again but someone caught my wrist, their grip crushing and painful. The pan fell from my fingers, hitting the floor with a crash that echoed through my awareness. Then there were hands everywhere on my arms, my shoulders, lifting me right off the ground.
"No!" I screamed, kicking and twisting. My feet connected with something soft, and I felt the guard's presence fold around the impact, his breath exploding out. "Let me go! Let me GO!"
But there were too many of them. One of the guards got behind me and grabbed both my arms, pulling them back until they were trapped. It hurt so much, sharp pain shooting through my shoulders, but I didn't stop struggling.
"Sedate her" Dr. Kaine said, his presence utterly unchanged by everything happening. No concern, no anger, no nothing just that awful emptiness.
"No!" I screamed louder, because I could sense what one of the guards was pulling out a small cylinder with a needle and chemical signature that made my stomach twist. "No needles! No more needles!"
Those things made everything go fuzzy and wrong, made my connection to the Force feel distant and muffled, made my awareness of the world dim until I could barely sense anything at all. They'd used them on me before, and I hated them more than almost anything.
The guard with the injector moved forward, and I thrashed so hard that the one holding me actually lost his grip for a second. I almost got free, my awareness screaming at me to run, but then more hands grabbed me and suddenly I couldn't move at all.
"Move her" he ordered.
They started dragging me toward the door, their grips tight on my arms. I tried to dig my feet into the floor, tried to make myself heavy, but it didn't work. They were too strong and I was too small and my awareness of their overwhelming presence just made it worse.
The corridor outside felt colder, emptier. They turned me left, away from where the other cells were, toward a part of the facility that felt different darker somehow, even to my Force sight. Like a place where bad things happened.
I reached out with my awareness as far as I could, trying desperately to find Ember, to touch that familiar, fierce presence that always made me feel safe. But I couldn't sense her anywhere nearby. She was too far away, somewhere I couldn't reach.
That made everything so much worse. Ember always made things better, even when they were really bad. She'd hold my hand and tell me stories and promise that everything would be okay. But she wasn't here now.
"Where's Ember?" My voice came out small and broken. "I want my sister. Please. I want Ember."
None of the guards answered. Their presences stayed focused on their task, their emotions carefully controlled. Only their footsteps answered me, heavy thuds that rippled through the floor.
But Dr. Kaine was there, his void-like signature walking alongside us. I could sense him making notes on that device he carried, his attention split between me and his data.
"What about the agreement?" I asked him, louder this time. My voice cracked but I didn't care. "You promised Ember! You made a promise!"
His presence stopped moving. The guards stopped too, probably confused. Dr. Kaine's attention focused entirely on me now, and it felt like being looked at by something dead and cold.
"What agreement?" he asked, his voice still flat.
"You promised!" The words rushed out. "Ember said you promised that if she was good, if she did everything you said, if she didn't fight back anymore, that you'd leave me alone! You promised you wouldn't hurt me if she cooperated! She told me! She said you made a deal!"
I was crying now, tears running down my face even though crying didn't help with Force sight I could still sense everything just as clearly, still feel his awful presence examining me like I was an interesting problem.
Dr. Kaine's void shifted slightly, and I sensed something that might have been amusement cold and cruel and terrible.
"I made no such agreement with Subject 3-2A.1" he said, each word precise and careful. "Your sister was... misinformed. Or perhaps she simply told you what you needed to hear to maintain compliance."
The world tilted.
No. No, that couldn't be true. Ember wouldn't lie to me. She was my big sister, my protector, my whole world. She'd told me the promise was real.
"You're lying" I whispered.
But his presence didn't change. No guilt, no shame, no emotion at all. Just that empty void shaped like a person.
"Continue" he told the guards.
They started pulling me forward again, and this time I didn't fight. I couldn't. All the strength had gone out of my body.
Ember had suffered for nothing. She'd given up everything for a promise that never existed.
"Ember!" The scream tore out of me before I could stop it. "EMBER!"
"Quiet her" Dr. Kaine said, and suddenly his hand clamped over my mouth. But his presence remained utterly flat, unchanging. This wasn't anger—it was just... procedure. Making sure I didn't cause problems.
"EMBER!" I screamed again as soon as his hand shifted, putting everything I had into it. "EMBER, HELP ME!"
And then I felt her.
My awareness, which had been reaching out desperately in all directions, suddenly touched something I knew as well as my own heartbeat. A presence that was warm and fierce and protective my sister's Force signature, bright and burning like a star in the darkness.
Ember.
I could sense her now even through all the walls and distance. She was in a cell different from mine, with more equipment around her. Machines hummed with power, monitoring systems pulsed with data, and tubes connected to her arm fed chemicals into her blood that I could sense flowing through her veins.
She was just starting to wake up. Her presence was dim and fuzzy, like she was swimming up from somewhere deep. But it was definitely her that fierce, protective energy that had kept me safe for as long as I could remember.
"Ember" I sobbed. "Please wake up. Please, please wake up."
The guards kept dragging me down the corridor, further away. My feet scraped against the floor, and my arms hurt, but none of that mattered. All that mattered was keeping my awareness focused on my sister.
Wake up, I thought as hard as I could. Ember, please. I need you. Wake UP.
And then I sensed it her Force sight beginning to expand.
It was so different from mine. When I used my awareness, everything felt cool and clear, like water or wind natural and flowing. But Ember's was different. Hers was hot and fierce, like fire burning away darkness. It spread out from her cell in waves that pushed through walls like they didn't exist, searching, hunting.
I could sense it because my own awareness was active, like how you can feel one current in water when you're swimming in another. The burning intensity of her consciousness rolled out in all directions, and I knew—I KNEW—she was looking for me.
Here! I thought desperately. I'm here! Ember, I'm HERE!
The guards turned a corner, dragging me further away. Dr. Kaine's presence stayed close, one hand wrapped tight around my arm. His grip was crushing, painful, but I barely noticed. All my attention was on that expanding wave of fierce awareness.
It was moving fast now, faster than the guards were walking, spreading through the facility like wildfire. I sensed it wash over empty cells and storage rooms and corridors, cataloging everything with burning intensity.
And then it found me.
The moment Ember's Force sight touched mine felt like lightning and warmth and home all at once. Her recognition spiked sharp and immediate—she knew where I was, knew what was happening. The fuzzy, confused sensation of half-sleep vanished instantly, replaced by something that made me gasp.
Pure, focused rage.
Through my awareness, I tracked her in that distant cell. She moved fast—her presence suddenly upright, sharp, alert. I sensed her grab something connected to her arm and yank it out, felt the brief spike of pain she didn't even acknowledge. Blood began flowing, but she didn't care.
She was on her feet in moments, her presence burning so bright it almost hurt to sense. Even weakened, even thin from whatever they'd done to her, she was still the strongest thing I'd ever felt.
She crossed the cell and struck the door.
BANG.
The impact rippled through the Force like thunder, so powerful that every guard holding me flinched. Their presences flickered with alarm, confused about what they'd heard. Even Dr. Kaine's void shifted slightly—the first real reaction I'd sensed from him.
"Continue moving" he ordered, but something in his void had changed. He was... interested. Anticipating.
"Doctor, tell me the news what do you think you're planning to do?"
BANG.
Another hit. Through my awareness, I sensed the door actually deforming, metal bending under impossible force. The structural integrity was compromised I could feel stress fractures spreading through the material like cracks in ice.
"Ember!" I screamed, hope exploding in my chest. "EMBER!"
"Shut her up" Dr. Kaine snapped, and his hand covered my mouth. His grip was crushing, mean, fingers digging into my jaw until I whimpered.
BANG.... BANG. BANG.
The guard with the injector moved forward and pressed it againts my neck with a click and before I knew it, everything was getting dimmer, the life signatures around me blurring together, the sharp edges of reality softening into nothing.
But I fought it. I fought so hard.
Because Ember was out there. I could still sense her burning presence even through the chemical haze clouding my mind, still feel that fierce determination radiating from her like heat from a fire. She was coming for me. I just had to stay awake long enough to... to...
The guards started dragging me again. Dr. Kaine's presence stayed close, his void-like signature pressing against my awareness. They'd reached an intersection now I could sense the corridor opening up, multiple paths branching off in different directions.
And I could sense more guards arriving. Lots of them.
Their figures flooded into the intersection from multiple corridors, heavy with armor and weapons. I counted eight... no, ten... no, more than that. They were setting up positions, their electromagnetic weapons powering up with crackles of energy that made my body sting.
The group dragging me finally stopped moving. Dr. Kaine's breathing was harder now I could sense his chest rising and falling rapidly, his void showing cracks of something that might have been fear or excitement or both.
"Establish a defensive perimeter" he ordered, his voice tight. "Subject 3-2A.1 is extremely dangerous. She's been trained and has been enhanced. Do not I repeat, do NOT attempt to engage her in close quarters. Maintain distance and use suppression fire only."
I needed to see Ember. Needed to know she was okay. The sedative was making my normal Force awareness so weak and blurry, but maybe... maybe if I focused everything I had left...
I closed my eyes and pushed my awareness toward that burning presence in the distance. Pushed through the chemical fog, through the pain, through the fear. Pushed until something inside my mind shifted and clicked into place.
And suddenly I could SEE.
Not the way I normally sensed things not just life signatures and energy patterns and force impressions. This was different. Colors. Shapes. Details. Like the world had suddenly gained a whole new dimension I'd never experienced before.
I could see the corridor where Ember was. Really see it—the gray metal walls, the harsh white lights, the red emergency strobing that painted everything in alternating shades of crimson and shadow. I could see the destroyed door, twisted metal hanging from broken hinges, sparks still falling from severed electrical conduits.
And I could see my sister.
She stood in the corridor outside her cell, and what I saw made my heart break and burn at the same time.
She was wearing medical shorts gray fabric that ended mid-thigh. But from where the shorts stopped to the rest of her body... everything was wrapped in medical bandages. Her legs, her stomach, her chest, her arms, even her head all covered in layers of white gauze that were stained in places with spots of red and yellow where wounds had bled through.
And she was wearing a mask. Not like the eyepatch she usually wore this was different, covering her nose and mouth and lower face. It was mechanical-looking, made of dark metal and composite materials with tubes and vents and filters. It looked like something from a nightmare, like something that shouldn't belong on a person.
Every time she breathed out, orange gas hissed from the vents in the mask. Thick, chemical-looking vapor that hung in the air for a moment before dissipating. Whatever they'd done to her, whatever experiments... she couldn't even breathe normal air anymore.
I watched through this strange new vision as she turned her head slightly, looking down the corridor in the direction they'd taken me. Even with most of her face covered by bandages and mask, I could sense her determination, her fury, her absolute refusal to stop.
"Doctor, doctor" she called out, her voice distorted by the mask, turning it mechanical and hollow. "Can you hear me out there?"
Dr. Kaine's void shifted beside me. "Guards, prepare to engage" he said quietly into his comm.
But Ember just kept talking, her voice carrying through the corridors with unnatural clarity. "I was just wondering do you want to see if your last experiment was a success?"
She raised her right arm slowly, deliberately, and I watched in horror and fascination as she flexed.
The air around her arm started to distort, like heat shimmer rising from heat baked metal. But this was different wronger. Space itself seemed to bend and twist around her forearm, reality warping in ways that made my new vision hurt to process.
And then small cuts started appearing on her arm.
They just... manifested. Thin lines opening in her skin through the bandages, blood beginning to well up from wounds that appeared from nothing. The bandages shredded themselves, strips of gauze falling away as more and more cuts appeared, crisscrossing her arm in geometric patterns that shouldn't exist.
But the distortion around her arm was getting sharper, more defined. I could almost see them now invisible blades made of twisted space, dozens of them floating around her forearm like a crown of cutting edges. They were so thin they were nearly invisible, just warps in the air that happened to feel sharp
"Success" Ember said, her mechanical voice flat and cold. "I'd say that's a success."
BEEP
The screech of tearing metal filled the corridor as Ember ripped the door completely open, and immediately alarms started shrieking throughout the facility. Not just the containment breach warnings from before these were different, sharper, more urgent. Lockdown protocols activating, emergency systems engaging, the whole station going into crisis mode.
BEEP!
I watched my sister stand in the ruined doorway. The bandages wrapped around her body were stained with blood and worse, the mask covering her lower face hissing orange gas with each breath. The alarms kept blaring, getting louder and louder, drowning out everything else. The sound filled my head, pushed into my skull, became everything—
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
I flinched hard, my whole body jerking as the alarm sound continued. But it was different now—not the harsh shriek of a facility lockdown but the steady, insistent beeping of my bedside alarm clock. The sound pulled at me, dragging me up from the depths of the memory like a lifeline thrown into dark water.
I groaned, rolling over in bed waking up slowly. The soft mattress beneath me was nothing like the thin pad in that cell from years ago. The warm blanket tangled around my legs was real fabric, not the scratchy institutional material I'd grown up with. As my view expanded outward as I woke more fully, the ability working differently now than it had in the dream.
Our apartment on Dromund Kaas sprawled around me in layers of familiar energy. Two floors, multiple rooms, the hangar bay below with Sera's Fury and Vex's intelligence vessel waiting like sleeping giants. The walls hummed with the building's environmental systems, and beyond them, I could sense the perpetual storm that shrouded Kaas City, its electromagnetic interference creating a background static that I'd learned to tune out.
Vex was downstairs in the kitchen, her tall frame creating that distinctive controlled presence that always made me think of steel wrapped in silk. She was awake, alert, probably already on her second or third cup of caf judging by the slight elevation in the light of her outline. Sera was with her, their life signatures close together, comfortable in each other's space. But Ember... Ember wasn't here. Hadn't been here for a month now.
The alarm kept beeping.
"Alright, alright" I muttered, reaching out and my hand found the alarm clock exactly where it always was, and I slapped the off button perhaps harder than necessary.
"Cherry!" Sera's voice called up from downstairs, carrying that particular tone that suggested she'd been waiting for me to shut off the alarm. "Time to get ready, love! Remember, we need to leave for the Sanctum in two hours, and you need to dress nicely!"