NOW.

STAR CITY

✷

IN THE RUIN AND RUBBLE where a monumental research facility once stood two years ago, Malachi sits under a perpetually overcast sky, letting a cigarette burn down to the filter. If he closes his eyes and inhales the smoke, he can still picture how it all came crashing down.

A long time ago, Velocity Labs could've been considered the pinnacle of scientific research, and now it is in unsalvageable pieces left idle like a scrap yard. A long time ago, Velocity Labs was his home. He feels along the scars encircling his neck, traces a finger along the burn marks left behind by electric shock collars, a necklace of his own missteps. They are far from pleasant, but they provide shelter. Before that, he had nothing. Is nothing. It is Sergio, who built Vigilare from the ground up, and bestowed upon him this power. And Velocity Labs has given him something tangible. Something worth holding onto.

Which is why he needs to find her. To bring her back. Mercy does not make the man Sergio Castello is, and Sloane is too expensive of an investment to let slip away. What he offers, instead, is a second chance. Or a tighter leash.

Malachi touches a hand to the bump at the base of his skull, the thin scar still fresh, concealing the kill-switch implant. If they want to assimilate into the crowd, they can't wear the collars. Though it's inert at the moment, each time he's reminded of it, he can't help but feel the burn of its presence, a smoking gun. Without the protective measures—the power suppressors, the shock collars—Malachi understands that his existence is a threat. Which leaves Sergio with this drastic, invasive measure. And leaves Malachi with no choice. Their original power suppressors had a limited range of activation, and so, they needed something far more feasible to control from Vigilare headquarters. As such, the chips planted in their spines double as both a tracker and a kill-switch, rigged to blow his head clean off his shoulders if he so much as put a toe out of line.

The surgery itself was painless, but the ridged scar sears with resentment, a bitter sting even though the physical collar is no longer there. Somehow, this feels much worse.

Step out of line, and die. Bring Sloane back, or die.

At the last minute, he watches the embers at the lit end of the cigarette devour the paper, the acrid smell of smoke clinging to his leather jacket like a lingering lover, until the heat begins to scorch his fingers. He brings the cigarette up to eye level and, closing his free hand into a fist, extinguishes the flame, and then it's out like a light. Dead.

Doctor Patmos says it isn't that he can control the flame. Each time he tries to put it back, the cigarette remains cold. Rather, it is the absence of heat that he instills. That's what death is. The absence of anything that sustains life. Heat is the primary factor.

A beat passes. Behind him, a scuff of boots against the gravel draws his attention.

"It'll be dark soon, Mal," a quiet, ruined voice hisses.

Flicking the cold cigarette to the ground, Malachi turns to face Camellia.

Strands of wiry blonde hair slip from the loose braid hanging over her shoulder. His eyes latch onto the angry purple scarring around her throat, the permanent bruising in the shape of veins seeking outward, lightning-like fractals he'd come to learn were Lichtenberg figures. The shock collars were used on her most. At one point, Camellia could hardly speak for a month straight from the damage the charge had wreaked upon her ravaged vocal chords.

She blinks her big, bug-like eyes at him when she catches him looking.

Self-consciously, she tugs the hair tie off and lets her hair loose. It falls around her shoulders in a sickly pale curtain, obscuring her neck. Around her head, a small swarm of flies hum in anguish as she holds up a hand to still them. The irony isn't lost on him. Between the three of them, she's the hypochondriac, the one who showers at least twice a day, and yet, her personal entourage of vermin swarm her at every moment. Rats squeak and skitter at her feet, flies draw lazy circles around her head, and an emaciated, dishrag of a fox slinks around her legs, flea-bitten and filthy. Something about bio-electricity, chemical signals and persuasion. Put together with her slight, bony frame, wishbone limbs and doll-like features, haunted and haunting, Malachi can't quite acclimatise to the rotten tableau.

Flicking the cigarette to the ground, Malachi stands. "We will. Be patient, Cammie."

Camellia ducks her head down.

"Seth!" Malachi bellows, sweeping his gaze around the debris, this graveyard of their past. "Seth, get your fat ass out here!"

A groan resonates somewhere to the left and a boy who seems barely there rises from the dust, all lank but no size, all skin and bone but no substance. His ribcage juts through his black shirt as he arches his back and stretches his thin arms over his head. Beneath him, the chunk of concrete he'd been draped over for the past couple hours seems undisturbed. For someone who inhaled three burgers in one sitting last night, the weight doesn't show on him.

Malachi hasn't gathered much else about the twins' past. Camellia is vague and evasive by nature and, when pressed about this particular topic, seems to shrink into herself and close off. On top of that, Seth's blunt refusal to reveal anything personal hardly helps. No one seems successful in excavating any information out of the two of them. But Malachi doesn't need, nor want, a sob story. What he needs is their particular subset of skills.

Seth's gaunt face contorts into a scowl. "What? We've been back here dozens of times, and there's still no sign of Sloane, alright? I told you, she's a dead end, dude."

A long time ago, Velocity Labs had been their home, too. Until it'd been ripped apart. A long time ago, they were meant to commandeer the end of the world, the four of them, the modern horsemen of the apocalypse. Until they were three. Nomads wandering the barren planes in search of some impossible Jerusalem.

"We'll find her," says Malachi.

"What if we don't?" Seth challenges, lifting a brow.

"I see her in my dreams, sometimes," Camellia says, out of the blue, her voice a raspy breeze, but the words are tar-heavy, the cobwebs of her nightmares a thin veil fluttering over her unblinking eyes. Fixed on the horizon, the space between herself and the glistering cityscape, her stare is vacant, shadows writhing over her pale face. The sun's already setting, and there isn't much else they can do except keep coming back here. Back to where it all began. Camellia turns to Malachi. "You think it means something?"

"What's she doing in your dreams?" Malachi asks, his tone gentle. In the pocket of his leather jacket, his fists are tight, his nails staking into the heel of his palm.

Camellia blinks, her beady eyes unsettling. "She comes to me."

"Then it means nothing," Seth scoffs dismissively, the scorn in his tone scathing. "We should focus on finding another to replace her."

"You'll be wasting resources," Camellia points out. "Vigilare won't have that."

"Fuck what Vigilare thinks. And fuck Sergio to absolute hell for setting us on this wild goose chase," Seth grunts. "They're all wasting time."

Vigilare might have been a vessel for Sergio's efforts, a label more glossed over by the authorities than what it actually was. A political campaign. A business structure. An empire. What need did he have for the numerous metahuman children plucked from the country's darkest corners besides monetary gain? Malachi hasn't forgotten his scars, nor has he forgotten that before they were Sergio's soldiers, they were his pawns. They have not forgotten the endless hours spent on the surgical table, their spines drilled through for bone marrow, their organs harvested for tissue, their blood drawn by the pint. Despite the captivity and the torture, they possess the one thing Sergio Castello needs.

There is power in you, the likes of which you did not deserve, Sergio had said to him, once. You metahumans, you spoonfed-scum, you god-given errors. Men have fought wars, have been searching the heavens and the earth for an ounce of this impossible power since the beginning of time, and yet, here you are, born to it. No reason, no logic. What have you done to earn such a right? I've been inclined to ask. But science does not reward. Science simply is. You were naturally selected to possess an advantage. Which begs the question—why were you chosen?

What becomes the rest of us?

In the game of power, Sergio Castello holds a governing seat at the table. What he wants is more than power. What he wants is godhood.

"Seth," Camellia whispers, her tone cautionary, wary eyes darting to Malachi, who stands facing the gate, his head tilted upward, looking up at the overcast sky, unmoving and unmoved by Seth's outburst. "Stop it."

"Cammie, I don't give a rat's ass who that asshole is to Mal," Seth sighs, frustrated, kicking at the ground and launching a chunk of debris into the distance. "I'm fucking exhausted. I'm hungry. I feel disgusting. I want to go home and sleep for three days. And the only reason why Sergio won't replace Sloane—which we all know would be the easier option, by the way—is pride. Because he can't stand that one of his pets has escaped the cage."

Around them, the air warps and sags, and the more worked up Seth gets, the heavier Malachi's limbs seem to grow. Camellia presses the heels of her palms against her eyes, and sinks to her knees, the flies around her head dropping to the ground one by one. Seth doesn't seem to notice or care, agitation knitting tension into his dark brows.

"What's so special about metal manipulation? Absolutely nothing. There are hundreds of other metahumans out there with half as much strength and firepower in their pinky fingers. Fact is, we don't need Sloane. We never needed her. So why are we here, grovelling in this fucking scrapyard, besides wasting time?"

As darkness blots the corners of his vision, the ground swaying beneath him, Malachi shuts his eyes and presses his fingers to his temples. A cold snap runs through his chest, reverberating through muscle and bone. In seconds, his pulse drops and his heart slows, and despite the mid-summer humidity, his blood turns to slush. A sharp clarity slices through the thick sludge blanketing his senses. Finally returning to himself, Malachi plants a hand against Seth's back. A chill shudders through him as he nudges the dial on Seth's core temperature. Just enough to alleviate his aggravation, just enough that the effects of Seth's ability begin to ebb. Camellia blinks up at her brother, and rises slowly to her feet again, dusting dirt off the front of her green cargo pants.

It takes a moment for Seth to register Malachi's touch, but the moment he does, he jerks out of reach, and slings him a nasty glower. "Alright, alright, I'm cool. Back off. I just think we deserve to know why we're doing what we're doing."

"You're right," Malachi says, a bitter grit to his tone, his eyes flashing, the darkness around them festering, the two-year-forged anger within his gut broiling. He ignores Seth's direct jab at Sergio because all it is is noise, and to some extent, Seth is right. Sergio can't let Sloane go. Can't let her slip through the cracks, not out of sentiment, but because she is, legally, Vigilare property, and a very expensive company investment. But the bone Malachi has to pick with Sloane is much more personal. "She left us for dead."

The night Sloane had shoved the knives in their backs remains a fresh wound they can't scratch, and the itch is there, greedy and demanding as ever, twisting some kind of dial inside of him. In periphery, Malachi sees Camellia shudder violently, meets Seth's wary look as he wraps his reedy arms tight around himself from the sudden drop in temperature.

"She destroyed our home and abandoned ship. Then she left us here, to worry about our place in the dirt. But we need her. Our survival depends on it. If she knows what's good for her, she'll know hers does, too."

AUTHOR'S NOTE.
new things coming!