Page 2

An hour later, I stood in a gas station bathroom, staring at my reflection in the cracked mirror. The fluorescent light buzzed overhead, the sound grating against my enhanced hearing. Water dripped from my face, running rivulets through the grime and blood I'd attempted to wash away.

My face was the same but not. Cheekbones sharper, eyes deeper set.

Hair longer than I'd worn it before, curling against my collar.

But the most significant change wasn't physical—it was the expression.

Or rather, the lack of one. My eyes held no warmth, no emotion, just watchful assessment like a predator cataloging potential threats.

I tried to smile, the gesture mechanical. Muscles pulled my lips into the appropriate shape, but the effect was unsettling rather than reassuring. The smile of someone who had forgotten how but was attempting to mimic it from memory.

“Cade Cross,” I said to my reflection, testing the name. It felt both familiar and foreign on my tongue, like clothing that no longer quite fit.

Alone in the confined space, I lifted my shirt to examine the mark.

It sat over my heart, precisely where it had always been, but changed.

The scar tissue had darkened, the edges more defined, as if it had been recently branded rather than carried since childhood.

The skin around it was feverish to the touch, pulsing with its own internal rhythm.

I pressed a finger against it experimentally. Pain flared, sharp and clarifying, radiating outward in tendrils that reached to my fingertips, my spine, my skull. With the pain came a flash of something else—power. Raw and dangerous, curled beneath my skin like a serpent waiting to strike.

I inhaled sharply, dropping my hand. The mark was more than a brand now. It was a conduit for something I didn't fully understand but instinctively recognized as not entirely my own. Something that had filled the hollow spaces where my humanity should be.

I needed to test its limits, to understand what I had become. But not here. Not now. First, I needed to find Sean.

The thought of Sean brought no emotional response, just a recognition of something that had once existed. The knowledge that Sean would have resources, information, weapons. Useful. Necessary.

The lack of feeling should have been troubling. It wasn't.

The date on a discarded newspaper stopped me cold. Six months. I'd been gone six months. The revelation should have been shocking, terrifying. Instead, I processed it with detached interest.

Six months of what for Sean? For Sterling? Had they searched for me? Mourned me? Moved on? The questions formed without emotional context, simple data points to be gathered.

The hollowness inside me made these calculations simple, uncluttered by emotional responses that would have complicated the equation before. Fear, hope, grief, joy—all absent, leaving only clear, cold logic. A benefit, perhaps. An adaptation to whatever I had become.

Another flash hit me without warning.

Heat and sulfur and screaming, my own voice raw with agony as something carved into me, reshaping me from the inside out. A voice like broken glass: You're mine now, boy. My masterpiece.

I gasped, gripping the edge of the sink as the vision receded, leaving me cold and clammy with sweat. My heart hammered against my ribs, the only indication of distress my body still seemed capable of producing.

I straightened, forcing the thought away. Focus on practicalities. Next steps. Survival. The mark settled, cooling against my skin as if approving my priorities.

In the mirror, for just a moment, my eyes flickered with something that wasn't entirely human—a flash of orange-gold like embers catching light. Gone so quickly I might have imagined it, except I knew better. Another adaptation. Another change to catalog and control.

Outside the gas station, I considered my options with methodical thoroughness. I could disappear, forge new identity documents, build a life disconnected from my previous existence. The skills were there, automatic and intact despite everything else I'd lost.

Sterling would have resources. Sean would have information about the supernatural landscape. Together, they represented my best chance of understanding what had happened.

The decision made, I set my course. Sterling's house first—closer, and the man was less likely to shoot me on sight. Then Sean, once I had more information, more context, more control over whatever I had brought back with me.

I started walking, my stride longer and more confident now as my body continued relearning its capabilities.

The night enfolded me, shadows seeming to reach for me with eager fingers before retreating.

The city sprawled before me, familiar yet newly strange, like a photograph I recognized but couldn't remember taking.

Somewhere in the darkness behind me, something watched. Something that had followed me back, or perhaps had never left. I felt its presence like a cold spot between my shoulder blades but didn't turn to look. Acknowledging it would give it power I wasn't prepared to grant.

The city at night transformed into something primal, stripped of daytime pretensions.

Street corners became territories, alleys turned to hunting grounds, the unending drone of traffic like the growl of some massive beast. I moved through this concrete wilderness with the heightened awareness of someone who knew he was both predator and prey.

My route took me through neighborhoods that grew progressively more residential, the density of humanity thinning as I left Manhattan behind.

Each step brought me closer to finding a way to contact Sterling, to the first test of my return.

How would Sterling react? With joy? With suspicion? With a shotgun loaded with salt rounds?

All valid responses. I would accept any of them with the same detached calm that seemed to be my default state now.

Street lights cast my shadow in elongated patterns before me, sometimes one shadow, sometimes more, as if the darkness itself couldn't quite decide what shape I should take. I moved without fatigue, my body functioning despite the trauma it had endured. Another adaptation. Another change to note.

Three men emerged from an alley ahead, their body language screaming predator to my heightened senses. Switchblades glinted in the diffuse city glow. Their stances widened, blocking the sidewalk in the practiced formation of experienced muggers.

“Wallet. Phone. Now,” the centermost one demanded, blade extended.

I stopped, assessing. Three opponents. Armed but untrained. Likely under the influence of something that made their movements slightly uncoordinated. Not supernatural. Just human predators who had chosen the wrong prey.

The mark on my chest warmed, eager for violence.

“I don't have either,” I replied, my voice still rough from disuse but steadier now. “Let me pass.”

The leader laughed, the sound sharp with chemical courage. “Guess we'll take your jacket then. And those boots. Nice boots.”

They closed in, confident in their numerical advantage, in the weapons they held, in the routine nature of this transaction. They didn't recognize what stood before them.

The first knife thrust came fast but telegraphed. I sidestepped with unnatural speed, my hand closing around the attacker's wrist. Bone snapped with minimal pressure. The man screamed, the sound oddly satisfying to some deep, newly awakened part of my mind.

The second attacker hesitated, witnessing his friend's arm bent at an angle nature never intended. The third, braver or stupider, lunged forward with his own blade.

I moved again, the world seeming to slow around me. My body responded with mechanical exactness, neutralizing the threat with brutal skill. No wasted motion. No hesitation. No mercy.

It ended in seconds. Three bodies on the ground, not dead but wishing they were. I stood over them, breathing steady, unmarked by the encounter. I felt nothing—no fear, no anger, no satisfaction. Just a cold acknowledgment of obstacles removed.

The mark on my chest pulsed once, twice, as if disappointed by the brevity of the violence. I ignored it, stepping over the groaning men and continuing my journey without a backward glance.

Dawn threatened the horizon when I found what I was looking for—a 24-hour convenience store with a payphone outside, a rarity in the digital age. I stood before it, considering my options. I had no coins, no card, nothing to make a call with.

The store clerk watched me warily through the window, a hand likely hovering near the silent alarm button.

I entered anyway, moving with deliberate calm to appear less threatening. The fluorescent lights hummed overhead, casting everything in harsh, unforgiving clarity.

“Need to use your phone,” I said to the clerk, not bothering to phrase it as a question.

The man behind the counter—young, nervous, working the graveyard shift to pay for college—hesitated, eyes darting to my bloodstained collar, to my too-intense gaze. “Store policy says?—”

“Emergency,” I interrupted. Not pleading. Stating fact.

Something in my expression must have convinced the clerk. Or perhaps it was simply the path of least resistance. The young man slid a cordless phone across the counter, then stepped back, maintaining distance.

“One call,” he said, voice higher than normal. “Make it quick.”

I fumbled through my tattered clothes, fingers shaking.

I didn't expect to find anything, but the weight in my pocket stopped me cold, my phone.

It shouldn't be here. I didn't remember keeping it, but when I pulled it out, the screen flickered to life, cracked but functional.

My hands were so unsteady I almost dropped it.

It made no logical sense. How had my phone survived Hell? Why would it be in my pocket now? The questions formed and dissolved, unimportant compared to the opportunity it presented.

I stared at the screen. Missed calls. Messages. All old. The date confirmed what the newspaper had told me—six months gone. Six months of my life erased, or stretched into something unrecognizable in the pit.

I swallowed, throat dry. The decision was clear—call Sterling first. The older hunter was steadier, less likely to react with pure emotion. Would have more resources immediately at hand.

I swiped to Sterling's contact, hesitating. My thumb hovered over the call button. What if Sterling didn't answer? What if he did?

The clerk was watching me nervously, clearly regretting his generosity. I forced myself to focus, to complete this simple task that suddenly felt monumental.

I pressed the button. The phone rang. Once. Twice. Three times. My breathing was uneven, fingers gripping the device too tightly. Then—Sterling's voice, gruff and wary: “Who the hell is this?”

I opened my mouth, but no words came out. Static crackled between us. The simple act of speech temporarily beyond me in the face of this first real connection to my former life.

Finally, I forced out two words: “It's me.”

A beat of silence. Then—Sterling's sharp inhale. “No. No, that's not possible.” The line went dead.

I stared at the phone, a sick weight curling in my gut. I had expected disbelief. Had prepared for it. But the flat rejection still landed like a physical blow, reverberating through the empty spaces inside me.

The clerk was still watching me, hand definitely hovering near the alarm now. I pocketed my phone, nodded once in thanks, and left before the situation could escalate.

Outside, the sky was lightening to steel gray, the city stirring to reluctant wakefulness around me. I had no money, no resources beyond my own body, and now confirmation that my return would not be easily accepted.