Levi closed his eyes, then opened them. An earnest smile touched his cheeks, his eyelids dipping a little, shame playing over his face. “I’m sorry about—about earlier, Fira. I panicked. I’ve been ability hunted before when people misunderstood. I didn’t want to go through that again. But I—you’re not—”

“Stuff it. You’re probably lying anyways.”

Levi shut his mouth. He nodded a tiny bit, eyebrows lifting.

She sighed. She waved her rear hand. “I get it. You got scared, you panicked. I already know you’re crazy. That was on me. Shouldn’t have let my guard down.”

Levi tipped his head back and forth. “It was mostly on me. Don’t cut me too much slack.”

Fira ignored him. “Tell me what you know. About that guy. The one who blasted you. Why aren’t you scared? Explain that.”

“Well, did you hear about the Outbreak coming toward Central City? That was me,” Levi started.

Fira startled. She shook her head. “What?”

“Yeah, so uh, you know. I woke up back in that field, as shithead Blasterman was deciding to abandon his post and leave Old Town to be overrun. I decided that wasn’t going to happen, and redirected the Outbreak to the city instead, so he’d have to do his damn job.”

“Wait, but—how’s that equate to him not wanting us dead?” Fira asked, lost.

“I was getting to that! The point is, he didn’t, you know, want me dead, or you dead. He just wanted to not have to do his job. I mouthed off, so I got the eyes, but you? He didn’t care. He let you walk away—”

“He took potshots at me!” Fira protested.

“Yeah, okay, yeah, but—really?”

“Really!”

“Whatever. The point is, he might have taken potshots at you, but he didn’t actually want you dead. If he did, you’d, well, you’d be dead. I got the beams for being an asshole. You were just some punk kid he wanted to run off. And that’s it. He probably didn’t give you another thought once you were out of his sight. You’re just another punk—”

“He tried to kill me!”

Levi put his hands up calmingly. “I get it. I do. I mean, he tried to kill you. That’s a big deal for you! That’s, you know, that’s your whole life! You’re freaked out, and you should be! But for him, that was a Tuesday afternoon!”

“Wednesday.”

“Wednesday afternoon! It was nothing! Just another boring-ass day on the job,” Levi said, shrugging.

“Attempted murder is—”

“I know you aren’t used to Central City. I know. I get it. But trust me, this is par for the course. If you get out of an encounter with supers and you don’t get at least one death threat, you’re doing well. Trust me when I say that Blasterman spent about one neuron on threatening your life, and then never spent another thought cycle on it again. I doubt he even remembers your gear.”

Fira shook her head. “That’s—there’s no way. He almost killed me, and he won’t even remember me?”

“That’s show business, baby! Super business. Whatever.”

“What about the police? What about…”

Levi shrugged. “What, are you going to report it? Admit that you’re the one Blasterman almost killed? He’ll remember you then, and best case, he comes back to finish the job. Worst case…supers have a lot of options when it comes to fucking over someone’s life. You don’t want to roll those dice.”

Fira bit her lip. She shook her head again. “It just…it can’t be like this. Can it? Won’t the people protest?”

“Sure, they can protest. The supers can blast the protesters’ heads in, though, and then no one protests any more. Absolute power, man. Absolute corruption. It’s just the way things are.”

“And nobody has a problem with that?” Fira asked, fury burning in her eyes.

“A lot of people have problems with that. A lot of people get labeled villains. And that’s if they’re lucky enough to have the power to fight back. The ones who don’t, well. They end up as dead as you thought I was.”

Fira frowned. “Then…are all supers…”

“Nah. There’s good ones mixed in. That’s the shittiest part: some of them are legitimately good people, trying to do the right thing. But if you come across a super in the dead of night, I’d run the other way. If one out of fifty is good, the odds are against you. And even that one who’s ‘good’ is complicit in the crimes of the other supers—turning a blind eye, at best.”

After a moment, he shrugged. “But what the hell. I mean, they’re just as bound by the powers that be as the rest of us are. Can’t hold all supers accountable for their crimes, so let’s focus on the big ones, right? Live and let live on the little guys. They’re struggling just like the rest of us. Just doing what it takes to survive. Sometimes, looking the other way is the only way to make it to tomorrow.”

“You sure didn’t say that about ‘little guy’ Jet Engine,” Fira said, snorting.

“The ones actively assisting Alpha and-or committing crimes can get fucked,” Levi said firmly.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

“Reasonable,” Fira muttered, half to herself. A moment later, she lifted her hand. “Alright. Get out.”

“Whoa, hey! Really?”

“Really. Get out. You almost strangled me. Get the fuck out of my hotel room,” Fira said, lighting a fire in her back palm.

“I’m sorry, Fira, can I use your shower please? Just shower real quick?”

“You can take a flame bath,” Fira offered, as the fire surged in her hand.

“You’re gonna set off the fire alarms.”

“Are you going to make me?”

Hands up, Levi backed toward the door. “It was a mistake, Fira, I’m not going to do it again, I promise—”

“Would you trust you?”

Levi paused. “No…?”

She nodded at the door. “Get out.”

Ducking his head, Levi left.

--

The lights glittered in the rundown suburban house, hinting at the barest signs of life. Levi barged in the front door with a sigh. “Maury, I fucked up.”

“Business as usual, then.” Back to him, Maury attended to her range, flame flickering in its grimy guts. A spatula scraped over a skillet, and something sizzled as it flipped.

“More than usual. I fucked up, big time,” Levi grumbled, coming into the kitchen. He thumped down on the counter, elbows against the laminated fake granite.

“Fine, I’ll bite. What’d you do?” she asked dutifully, glancing over her shoulder.

He took a deep breath. “Fira might have found out.”

“About…?”

“About my powers.”

“Oh.” Maury peered into the skillet, checking on the cooking chicken breast.

Levi frowned. “Oh?”

“I mean, she was bound to eventually. Most people who stick around you for more than a week or so eventually figure it out.”

“But…” Levi sighed dramatically. “I thought about killing her, but then I didn’t. I don’t know if that was the right choice.”

“The law says it was,” Maury deadpanned.

“Fuck the law.”

“Hmm.”

Levi pursed his lips, annoyed at the lack of reaction. “Mauryyyy.”

“What?”

“I think…Fira might have been in a bad situation. When I choked her—”

“You strangled her?” Maury asked, whipping around.

“Only a little. That’s not the point! Look. When I choked her out a little tiny bit—”

“Still a problem.”

“—she kicked me out, but then she immediately let me back in.”

“Lucky for you.”

“And then she said it was her fault.”

At that, Maury’s mouth shut. She grunted.

Levi leaned his head on his shoulder, looking at Maury from the corner of his eyes. “It felt like…it felt like she was used to it. Like she’d already been abused. Like she was used to, you know, her brain working backwards and making it so that it was her fault when someone hurt her, even though it wasn’t her fault at all.”

“It’s possible. Her brother ran away from home, right?” Maury muttered, turning back to her chicken.

He shook his head. “Right. But she’s so normal and naïve and nice, you know? I didn’t think of it until now.”

Maury shrugged. “Some people are really good at faking normal. And being naïve could be the result of someone deliberately restricting her information about the world, rather than the result of a sheltered upbringing.”

“Mmm.” Levi leaned his head the other way, eyelids dipping, then snapped his eyes up to look at Maury. “So that’s why I didn’t kill her.”

“Explain?” Maury asked, eyebrows raised but her eyes on the skillet. She gave it a toss, flipping the chicken again.

Levi nodded. “I thought to myself, what if her brother didn’t run to Central City because he foresaw something happening here? Instead, what if he ran away from something bad that was going to happen at home? And based on how protective Fira is of him, and how she’s willing to come this far to find him…isn’t it possible that he foresaw Fira’s death, and ran to the city because he saw it as the only way to get her out of a shitty situation alive? She’s so protective that he knew she’d come after him, whether he foresaw it or not.”

Maury froze. She nodded, slowly, looking over at Levi. “Makes sense. Makes a lot of sense, actually.”

“Right. So killing Fira would fuck it all up. The precog would immediately vanish. If I want to find him, I have to keep her alive. And in fact, Fira’s the best bait to catch him in the world. As long as I stick near her, he’ll show up eventually.”

Levi leaned forward, bridging his fingertips together. “But if he ran to Central City to draw Fira away from a bad situation, the question becomes, who outside Central City is so powerful that the only proper deterrence against their absolute control is Alpha?”

“Damn,” Maury muttered. She turned off the skillet and slid the chicken onto a plate. “You want some?”

“Nah, I had dinner,” Levi said, pushing off the counter to move to the side and make room for her.

Holding the plate, she leaned against the counter, thinking. “A hunter or super with enough power that Alpha is the only deterrent…that’s not a lot of folks. And one that also has two kids…they might’ve hidden that fact, but there’ll still be rumors. I’ll look into it.”

“Thanks.” Levi rested his head on his hands and sighed.

“What now?” Maury asked, tired.

“I just…I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t mean to touch her. I just…before I knew what was happening…” He rubbed his face, then looked up at her. “I don’t want to perpetuate this cycle. I want it to stop with me. I’m trying so hard. But…”

“Trying ain’t worth shit. This isn’t horseshoes or hand grenades. Close isn’t good enough,” Maury said firmly.

Levi sighed and laid flat on the table. “It’s hard. It’s so hard. I don’t want to hurt the people who are nice to me. But…”

“But you might kill her?”

From the table, he waved a hand. “This and that are two different things.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Levi…”

“You know what I mean.”

“I do know what you mean.” She glanced at her plate, then at him. “You managed with Kella, didn’t you? Didn’t hurt her.”

“How do you know?” he asked, a challenge in his voice.

Maury shrugged. “I was watching.”

He snorted, half a laugh, half bitter. “Ready to jump in if things went sideways?”

She gave him a look. Her brows raised.

“Yeah. Fair. I don’t blame you. Reasonable choice,” he muttered, then shook his head. “But that was all fake. I was pretending. Pretending to be normal. Killing myself with every breath, so I could keep on living that life. It was stifling. By the end, I was drowning. There was nothing but another day of the same torture to look forward to. Another day of putting a fucking smile on my face and pretending it was all okay. Another day of choking down the world’s bullshit to make fifteen bucks an hour, if I was lucky.

“I’m so tired of it. Tired of pretending to be normal. I just want to be me, but I’m too fucked up. No one wants me to be who I am. They want me to be…nothing. No one. Normal.”

“No one ever wants us to be who we are. Biggest damn lie of the century.” Maury crossed the room and set her plate down, pulling out a chair. “Listen, Levi. All you can do, is your best. Don’t hurt anyone you don’t mean to. If anger grips you, walk away instead. Don’t say anything. Don’t do anything. You’ll just regret it later, anyways.”

“I know. I know. I just…” He sighed.

“You were hurt, so you want to hurt others. Hurt people hurt people, yadda yadda. That’s just human nature. But you can be better than that, Levi. I know you can.”

“Mmm…me? I don’t know about that,” he said, with half a laugh, but the smile looked pained.

“We’re not laughing, Levi. It’s okay to cry, sometimes.” She settled in beside him.

He looked up at her. “I—"

“—dear lord!” Maury flinched back, her face contorting in pain.

“What?” Levi asked, startled.

“You! You stink! God, Levi! Jeez,” Maury said, waving her hand in front of her face.

Levi sniffed his armpits. “It’s not that bad.”

“Honey. If I was Fira, I’d kick you out for stinking alone, forget the aggravated assault. The heart-to-heart can wait. Go take a damn shower. Now. Before I murder you.”

Shaking his head, Levi pushed up. “Fine, fine. I’m going, okay? I’m going!”

“Go! Get!” Maury waved after him, holding her chicken close to her chest. “God, boy. Ruining my dinner.”