Some moments are not about strategy or restraint.Some moments arrive when patience runs out.
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I wake to voices.
Sharp ones.
Arguments do not echo so much as they stack, one opinion colliding with another until the air itself feels crowded. I stay still, eyes closed, listening long enough to map the room by sound alone.
The voices are too close.
The dining hall is quite a distance from the living quarters, and with enough space that raised voices should dull before they reach the sleeping quarters.
These do not.
I frown, push myself upright, and slip from the room.
The corridor opens into what used to be a common sitting area. Someone has dragged tables together, chairs pulled in tight, turning it into a makeshift dining space out of convenience and impatience. Coffee cups. Bowls. Plates left where hands abandoned them mid-argument.
Seth is there.
So are the others.
He is standing with the group, one hand braced on the back of a chair, shoulders squared as he listens without interrupting. He feels me before he sees me. His head turns a fraction, eyes finding me instantly.
I stop just inside the doorway.
Our gazes lock.
I grin.
He does not smile back at first. Then his mouth twitches, just enough. A silent exchange. A promise. A warning. He turns back to the room without saying a word.
I stay where I am.
Gabriel is pacing. I can hear it in the clipped rhythm of his steps.
"We strike first," he says. "Every delay costs lives. Whatever these thing's are, wherever it's gathering, we hit it hard and we end it."
A chair scrapes.
"That's how you burn a field and miss the roots," Nathan replies, calm enough to be infuriating. "You don't dismantle a network by swinging blindly. Every structure has a center. Every group has a leader. You hunt that."
A few voices rise in agreement. Others bristle.
"And how do you propose we find them," Jamey snaps. "None of us are built for slipping into the human world and playing pretend. We stand out."
Jamey's patience snaps.
"You keep saying leader like that fixes everything," he says, voice climbing. "Even if you find them, what then. You think they'll just sit there and wait for us to knock."
Nathan opens his mouth.
Jamey does not give him the chance.
He grabs the nearest plastic bowl and hurls it.
Nathan shifts aside with a lazy step. The bowl keeps going.
I catch it.
The room stalls mid-breath.
I set the bowl down on a side table and finally step forward. "If you're going to throw things," I say mildly, "aim away from the bedrooms. Some of us were sleeping."
A few people glance at the floor. Someone clears their throat.
Gabriel turns fully toward me. "Max, we were discussing options."
"I heard," I say. "Most of them."
Nathan watches me closely now.
"For what it's worth," I continue, "burning the field won't help. You'll miss what matters."
Nathan's brow lifts a fraction.
Jamey turns on me. "You're siding with him."
"I'm agreeing with him," I reply.
He opens his mouth again.
I look at him.
He closes it.
"We find the root," I say. "Or roots. Structures do not grow without someone feeding them."
"And how," Gabriel asks, restrained but skeptical, "do you suggest we do that without sending people undercover."
I reach the table.
Seth is already there.
He places a mug into my hand without looking at me. Coffee. Exactly how I take it. As he does, he leans in and presses a brief kiss to my forehead. I pause for half a breath, then lift the mug.
I take a sip. "We won't need to go undercover."
That lands.
I do not explain.
Instead, I cross the room.
Ethan is perched on Thania's hip, fingers trying to remove an earring. Elara rests against Samantha's shoulder, eyes heavy but aware. I cup Ethan's face first, kiss his temple, then brush my lips through his curls. He breaks into a grin, instant and unfiltered.
Elara reaches for me. I take her carefully, kiss her cheek, then her brow. She leans in, small hands curling into my hair for a brief moment before I ease her back into Samantha's arms.
Only then do I move on.
Alec sits apart from the rest, quiet, watchful, his attention fixed on everything and nothing at once. I stop beside him and ruffle his hair like habit has more authority than ceremony.
He swats my hand away on reflex.
I grin.
"Come with me," I say.
He hesitates, then pushes to his feet.
I glance over my shoulder.
Seth meets my eyes.
That is all it takes.
I grab a muffin from the table, coffee in hand, and head for the door. Alec and Seth fall in behind me.
As I step into the hall, the argument resumes behind us, voices rising again as if I never interrupted at all.
I smile to myself.
We step outside into the narrow strip of quiet behind the building. Gravel crunches underfoot. Wind slides along the walls and keeps its distance.
I lean against the railing with my coffee. Alec stands a few steps away, hands in his pockets, shoulders tight like he is bracing for something that never quite arrives. Seth takes the space beside me without comment.
For a moment, no one speaks.
"How are you?" I ask finally.
Alec lets out a breath that sounds more like air escaping than an answer. "I don't know how to answer that."
"Try," I say gently.
He nods, eyes fixed on the ground. "I feel like myself. Mostly. My thoughts are mine. My emotions are mine. That part didn't change."
"But," Seth says.
Alec lifts his head. "But my lightning does things, knows things before I do."
The air shifts.
I watch his shoulders as he speaks, the way they tense, then ease, like he is testing words the way you test a bruise.
"When we were fighting," he continues, "I was pulling people out. Three at once. Maybe four. I was focused on timing. On space." His jaw tightens. "I didn't see it."
"See what?" I ask.
"The demon," he says. "It didn't come at me. It moved through things. Shadows. The side of the building. A trash bin. Like it knew where I wasn't looking."
Seth's hand curls once at his side.
Alec keeps his eyes on the floor.
"There was no warning," he says. "No buildup. One second I was whole."
His fingers slide together, rubbing at his palms as if something still clings there.
"Then it was already inside."
He draws a shallow breath.
"It felt like being splashed," he says. "Like filthy water hitting your face before you can turn away." His jaw tightens. "It gets in your hair. Your eyes. Your mouth."
His throat works.
"You spit. You choke. You wipe." His hand lifts, then drops. "None of it matters. It is already past the point you can fix."
He shifts, shoulders pulling inward.
"It did not rush," he continues. "It spread."
His hand presses flat to his chest, then drags lower, tracing a path he cannot stop remembering.
"I could feel it moving through me," he says. "Veins. Organs. Everywhere blood carries life, it carried itself."
His grip closes around my arm. Too hard. He does not notice.
"It brought its thoughts with it," he says. "Hatred. Hunger. The kind that does not need words." His breath shortens. "It knew exactly where to go."
His eyes finally lift to mine.
"My power," he says. "It went there first."
A tear slips free.
"It soaked into the lightning," he continues. "Every current. Every spark." His mouth twists. "I could feel it turning everything it touched into something wrong."
His hand trembles.
"I tried to push it out," he says. "Tried to burn it away." His voice breaks. "You cannot purge something once it has learned your shape."
Seth exhales slowly.
"I saw you afterward."
Alec looks away.
"Your body stopped responding like it belonged to you," Seth says. "You went rigid. Then you started slamming yourself into the wall."
His voice tightens.
"Again and again." He swallows. "Your lightning kept flaring and collapsing. Like it was fighting to get free and being dragged back under."
Silence presses in.
Alec loosens his grip on my arm. "I did not feel fear at first," he says quietly. "Fear came later."
His voice drops. "When I realized it knew how to stay."
Seth comes to my side. His fingers brush my arm where Alec held on, a quiet check, then still. "I knew if something happened to you," he says, eyes steady on mine, "she would never forgive me."
A corner of his mouth lifts, thin and brief.
"So I stayed out of the way."
Alec snorts softly. "You never do."
"I forced the Breath through you," Seth says. "It was fast. Clean. The demon broke." He pauses. "What came after wasn't."
Alec nods. "I turned on you."
"And I knocked you out," Seth admits. "You only woke when we crossed the portal."
Silence settles between us.
I place my hand on Alec's shoulder, steadying myself by the familiar weight beneath my palm. He flinches, then stills.
"You said you can feel them," I say. "Tell me what that means."
Alec shakes his head slowly. "That's the thing. I don't feel them. I don't sense presence or location." He hesitates. "I sense intention."
The Flame shifts within me.
"When they decide," Alec continues, "my lightning tightens. Like a storm bracing before it breaks." His brow creases. "It reacts before I do. Like it already knows."
Seth's Breath sharpens, silver threading the air, precise and controlled.
I think of the tornado. Of eyes shifting in unison. Of intent moving faster than form.
"They're linked," I say. "Not individually. Structurally."
Alec meets my gaze. "That's what it feels like."
I let my hand slide down his arm and lift his hand into mine.
His lightning responds.
It unfurls through his fingers, flowing in a smooth spiral around my wrist, then my forearm, fluid and cautious. The movement slows as it reaches my upper arm.
The Flame rises without invitation.
It brushes the lightning where it meets my skin.
The lightning recoils.
Then settles.
Seth's Breath follows, pressing forward gently. It moves through the space between us, passes over me, meets the Flame, then the lightning. The contact is deliberate but brief.
Satisfied, the Flame withdraws.
The Breath follows.
The lightning lingers a moment longer, then slips back beneath Alec's skin, quieter than before.
Alec draws in a sharp breath and turns to me sharply.
"I could feel it," he says. "Just like with the demons. I felt the Flame and Breaths intention."
He exhales slowly. "Thank you, Max." He glances at Seth and smiles. "And you, Seth."
I feel the Flame settle, calm and certain. The lightning is safe. Ordered. Changed.
Alec looks at me again, eyes steady but unsettled. "So it's not me."
"No," I say. "But it's with you."
The wind carries the sound of raised voices from inside, arguments still unfolding over things that suddenly feel smaller.
Alec straightens. "Then we find them."
I lift my mug and take a sip. "We will."
He studies my face. "You already know how."
I smile.
"Walk with me," I say.
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I set the mug down on the stone ledge.
The warmth leaves my palm. I do not look back.
Alec and Seth fall in behind me as I cross the garden, past trimmed hedges and lanterns left deliberately dark. This stretch of ground was never meant for witnesses. Gravel shifts underfoot. The air thins.
I stop where the grass gives way to packed soil.
My arm lifts.
Fingers open.
Thought presses first. Space yields.
A portal forms without sound, light folding inward like water caught in a drain. I raise my other arm and repeat the motion. A second portal opens beside it, steady and patient.
"One leads to the town," I say, eyes on Alec. "The other to where they attacked before."
Seth shifts beside me, a word held and swallowed.
"Do you feel them?"
Alec's gaze moves between the openings. Lightning stirs low along his boots, uneasy, testing.
He points.
"The town."
I step through.
They follow.
The portal seals behind us, leaving an empty school ground washed in late light. No voices. No movement. Buildings stand hollow. The pool fence glints faintly as the sun slips lower.
Alec is already moving.
We pass the bleachers. Cracked concrete. Near the pool entrance, he stops short.
"They're preparing something," he says. "For later tonight."
Seth comes to my side, eyes sweeping the grounds. "Kids come here after dark," he says quietly. "To be loud. To do stupid things."
I study the treeline and crouch low. The others mirror the motion without being told.
"Then we wait."
Time stretches thin.
Alec stiffens.
Lightning spills free, skimming the ground, bristling toward something unseen.
"Stop."
It stills at once and withdraws.
"Watch the shadows." I tell the guy's.
I open the eye.
The world snaps into place. Heat ripples through my vision and the air pulls tight around everything it touches. Laughter carries in before bodies appear, careless and bright, drifting closer from the far side of the grounds.
Shapes bloom where they should not.
One waits near the tennis court, folded into shadow. Another presses low beside a concrete bench, keeping still as the light slides past.
They hold their positions wide.
All but one.
I lift a hand and point.
"There."
One shadow clings too tightly to the base of a tree. It stretches against the light, wrong in its refusal to move.
I lower further, weight settling into my heels.
My right hand presses to the earth.
"Get it."
The Flame answers.
Gold surges beneath the soil, veins racing fast and sure. The ground ripples as if something beneath it has chosen a direction.
The Flame erupts under the tree.
It does not strike the body first.
Gold coils snap up around the demon's head, sealing its mouth before sound can form. The pressure locks tight, crushing breath, swallowing the scream before it reaches the air.
Good boy.
The rest of the Flame follows, wrapping throat, chest, limbs, dragging the demon straight down as the earth folds over it without a mark.
It fights in silence.
The soil breaks again several meters away as the Flame hauls it underground toward me, its body thrashing, claws raking dirt that gives nothing back.
I brace as it breaches.
My hand closes around its throat the instant it surfaces. The Flame tightens at my command, binding jaw and lungs together, leaving it nothing but panic to spend.
Still crouched, I plant my other hand to the ground.
Space tears open beneath us.
A portal yawns wide at my feet.
We drop.
Seth lands first, boots hitting stone in a clean, controlled step. Alec follows, falling out of the air and catching himself a heartbeat later.
I come through last, still gripping the demon by the throat. The Flame holds fast, gold locked around bone and sinew.
The demon thrashes. Its jaws snap uselessly, saliva spilling, slick and foul. It bites at the gold that seals it, smearing itself across the Flame in desperation.
The Flame recoils.
It peels back from the mouth.
The scream rips free, sudden and violent, filling the room as the demon flails.
The room reacts as one.
Chairs scrape. Breath catches. Someone swears.
Jamey stumbles back, hits a table, grabs at air that refuses to help him.
"NOPE," he yelps, skidding sideways. "That is a demon. That is a whole demon. Why is it here? Why is it here?"
He points at it, arm shaking. "We were having a discussion. A calm one. With bowls."
The demon thrashes.
Jamey stumbles back, hits a table, grabs at air that refuses to help him.
The Flame gives it a sharp shake. "Easy," I tell the Flame. "Don't kill it. I want answers."
The grip loosens.
The demon releases a shriek that rattles the air.
I slap it hard.
My hand comes away slick with translucent filth. I grimace, shake it once, violently. "No," I say flatly. "You are not inviting the rest of your mess here."
"Shut him up."
The Flame wraps around its mouth, sealing the sound away.
The demon sags, dragged to the ground, held fast in gold.
Jamey flinches so hard he nearly falls over again. "Indoor voice," he mutters. "For the love of everything."
Samuel is already there when I turn. He presses the damp cloth into my hand without a word.
I wipe my palms once. Slowly. Deliberately.
"Shields," I say. "Hide our space."
The air tightens, folding in on itself, sealing us away from everything beyond it.
I turn to Seth.
"Cage it."
Silver breath rises and curves into a wide, circular shell. It is thin, almost gentle, more presence than barrier. It waits.
I grab the demon and throw it.
It passes through the breath wall like water breaking around a body.
Then it hits the inside.
The impact snaps it backward. Claws rake at the silver curve as it lunges again, driving itself forward, only to rebound harder. Panic sets in fast.
It can move inside the cage.
It cannot get back out.
The thrashing stays silent.
I step forward, cloth still in my hand, and hook my fingers into the breath itself. The silver bends under my grip without breaking shape.
I twist.
The cage flips.
The demon slams into the far curve, body folding in on itself as it ricochets back.
I snap my arm and fling the cloth.
It strikes the demon mid-rebound, smacking wetly against its face before sliding down the curve of the cage.
"Yeah," I say. "That's more like it."
I angle my head toward Alec.
"You see him," I tell the demon. "You chose the wrong person."
My hand tightens at my side.
"You don't get to crawl through someone and leave pieces behind."
The silver breath hums, tightening its arc.
I step closer.
"Your time is up."
The demon stares back, fury burning itself thin against a wall that does not care.
"And now," I say, voice steady and absolute, "I hunt you."
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Up until now, power has been measured. What comes next is not