Beatty, NV.

Alex worked to keep his hands steady as he loaded the live ammunition into his pistol while Hannah watched. He’d done it a hundred times with her and Reeve out at the shooting range, but this felt different. The gun felt heavier and lighter at the same time. Today, they were taking him along to shadow them on an assignment for the first time. He was almost seventeen now, getting closer to graduating. No one would be shooting at paper targets.

“You okay?” Hannah asked as she pocketed her small box of razor blades.

“Yeah,” he breathed, checking that the safety was on for the third time. They were in the basement, standing in front of the locked closet where they stored their weapons and ammunition. He fit the handgun into the shoulder holster they’d gotten him. It felt stiff and conspicuous.

“It’s normal to be nervous,” she said, hoisting her rifle back onto her shoulder. “Gareth and Reeve are always nervous before a mission.”

Alex grit his teeth. “That’s not comforting.”

“It should be,” she smiled. “It means no matter how competent or ready you are, or impervious in Gareth’s case, you’re still gonna get the stomach flips. So, just because you’re nervous doesn’t mean you’re not ready for this.”

He nodded and slipped on a dark grey, zip-up hoodie. After what felt like an unending trudge through lesson after lesson and twice-yearly assessment trips into LA that either left him sweaty and sore or made him feel like his brain couldn’t hold all the useless information Sol wanted in there—things seemed like they were suddenly moving too fast. Somewhere along the line, he’d gotten the hang of things, gotten good at it even, and now that was having real consequences, like him being expected to go into the city with a loaded gun. They thought he was ready.

It wasn’t that Alex didn’t want to go with them. He was excited to see what it was they did when they left on assignment. He was eager to test what he’d learned and show them he could keep up. But he was also keenly aware that all of it was pushing him closer and closer to a fate he didn’t want: being separated from the three of them to go work whatever job Sol saw fit to give him.

“Have you got an extra mag?” Hannah asked.

He patted his pocket. “Yup.”

She pursed her lips, sizing him up, then smiled. “Alright, let’s do this.”

They headed upstairs and outside where the guys were standing by the trunk of the car, talking. It seemed weird that they were all basically in street clothes. Hannah in her typical frumpy get-up, Gareth in flexible joggers and a t-shirt (his holster showing), and Reeve had opted for jeans (a huge improvement) and an untucked button down shirt. Alex was in jeans, a plain dark t-shirt, and grey hoodie. The key was to be forgettable, they said, so his fun graphic tees and bright hoodies were out—seemed a pointless effort, with his red hair and scar, but whatever.

“We good?” Reeve called, looking at Alex, as Hannah set her rifle back into the trunk.

“All set,” Hannah replied, shutting it.

Alex grinned. “Shotgun?”

Hannah laughed and gave him a light smack on the back of his head. “Nice try. You’re in the back.”

With an exaggerated pout, he opened the back door and got in. Hannah got into the passenger side and Gareth in the driver’s seat. Reeve slid in next to him, laptop bag in hand, and they got on the road.

“I wanted to go over what we’re doing so you can see the whole process,” Reeve said, opening his laptop and scooting closer so Alex could see.

He pulled up a file that profiled the target. Dr. Alan Welles. There was a series of pictures showing an older white man with thinning grey hair and heavy jowls. Alex felt a coldness in his core.

“You’re gonna kill this guy?”

The look in Reeve’s eyes wasn’t something Alex could read. It was almost sad. “Welles is head of clinical research at Novaya Pharmaceuticals’ branch in Paradise, Nevada. It’s a place where they pay people to be part of clinical trials and test out new treatments. It’s a risky way to make some fast cash. Anyway, Sol got intel that he’s been harboring an Icarus. They’re guessing that the Icarus is exchanging information for protection, and now Welles is conducting clinical trials of Sol advancements on the public.”

“How did Sol get the intel?”

“Saturn has corporate espionage people all over, so either from them or some sort of cyber surveillance.”

Alex frowned. “So is this about Pharma wanting their shit back or the Icarus thing?”

Hannah turned around in her seat. “Both, but mostly, random scientists studying knacked biology is like the exact thing Sol was set up to prevent. This asshole probably thinks he can win a Nobel prize for his big ‘discovery' and then whoops, there goes the neighborhood.”

“I thought Icarus stuff was all Neptune.”

“It is,” Reeve went on. “We’re here for the civilian. Neptune’s Retrieval folks will capture the Icarus at their residence, and we're dealing with Welles. Then, when it’s done, Cleanup comes in after us to take care of whatever research or information he may have recorded.”

“Why doesn’t one team just do it all?” It seemed very inefficient to Alex.

Reeve shrugged. “We’re specialized. Neptune Retrieval only goes after Icarus. They don’t deal with civilians. And we’re not trained to go up against other knacked people. Neptune Cleanup is strictly trained for neutralizing breaches, so they can do a full forensic clean up, take care of computers, wipe the memories of witnesses, and ensure that autopsies and police reports show what we want them to. One team can’t do all that.”

“So, Sol’s police force and their maid service are the same department?” Alex asked with a scoff.

Hannah yanked at the seatbelt ineffectively to untangle herself. “A big part of Neptune’s job is to keep us off civilian radar, and all Icarus are an exposure waiting to happen. Just an armed one.”

Alex cocked his head. “Actually, I guess that does make sense. It’s not like regular cops aren’t experts at coverups.”

Gareth snorted and grinned back at him.

“It’s not quite like that?” Hannah floated with a grimace. “But it’s not, not like that, I guess?”

“Anyway,” Reeve cut in, “With any luck, Welles will be at his home, and if not, we’ll have to stake it out.”

Alex peered at the images of a rich-ass mansion as Reeve clicked through them on his computer. “So how do we do it?”

Hannah grinned. “Here’s where it gets real boring.”

Reeve cleared his throat. “As much as it might frustrate the crap out of her, I’m the most discreet weapon we’ve got. Sometimes, we’ll set Hannah up on the roof of a building across the street as a last resort but—”

“Assholes around here plant a shit-ton of trees around their houses to block their windows,” Hannah interrupted.

Reeve gave her a look. “I was about to show him the satellite photos and ask him why you might not see any action, but okay.”

“Sorry.”

He brought them up anyway and pointed to the street. “We’ll park here. I’ll use my telepathy to check to see if he’s home, and if so, I’ll use my telepathy to take him out. It’ll look like natural causes and be completely silent.”

“Wait,” Alex frowned. “So we sit in the car, you close your eyes and look all pensive for a minute, and then we go home?”

Hannah gesticulated wildly. “Yup.”

“Then why the fuck did you bother having me bring a loaded fucking gun with me?” It was a relief and a disappointment at the same time.

“The same reason I bothered to bring mine,” Gareth laughed.

“To air it out?” he squawked, causing Hannah to crack up.

“No—” Reeve began, but Alex was having none of it.

“True or false,” he demanded. “I would get just as much field experience if we took a drive to get an ice cream as I will on this ‘mission’?”

“True,” she crowed.

“Hannah—” Reeve’s scowl deepened but he’d lost control of the entire energy of the car.

“True!” she repeated even louder.

“But at least I’d have an ice cream,” Alex added.

“Oh my God,” Reeve groaned, but there was a laugh on the edges of it too.

When their laughing started to quiet down, Gareth caught Alex’s eye in the mirror. “Seriously though, you’re getting basically the same experience as Hannah and I have on the majority of our missions. Except you don’t have to do paperwork after.”

“Actually,” Reeve started.

“Shit, man—” Gareth grumbled.

“I’m doing nothing and I have to write a report about it?” Alex wailed, really laying it on thick. Hannah was laughing so hard she wasn’t making sound anymore.

“So you can learn how to do it,” Reeve argued defensively.

“Can we please put on some music to distract me from how poorly my life is going?” Alex asked, glaring at Reeve, which elicited a squeak from Hannah.

Reeve sighed and closed his laptop as Gareth switched on the radio with a sputtering laugh. Alex bobbed his eyebrows at Reeve, who shook his head, but smiled at him reluctantly.

---

It was dark by the time they arrived in Vegas and, despite their bleak and dull plans, Alex could feel his nerves prick as Gareth navigated them to a suburban neighborhood of large homes, each with a three-car garage. They weren’t uniform, but they were close enough that Alex downgraded the target’s house from mansion to McMansion.

Gareth came to a stop in front of a home at the end of a cul-de-sac. Part of him wanted to make some smartass remark about taking notes so he didn’t forget anything, but the reality of what Reeve was about to do was setting in.

“So is he here?” Hannah asked.

Beside him, Reeve closed his eyes. “Yeah, but he’s not alone.”

“Who is it?” Alex asked.

“Does it matter? That’s even better, right?” she replied. “A witness that he just keeled over for no reason.” It didn’t feel right or better to Alex.

“Sure, lemme just get this over with so we can get out of here,” Reeve sighed.

Alex felt a chill run up his spine and he struggled with where to look.

“Alright. Let’s go.”

That was it. Alex tried to find a change in Reeve’s voice from the before to the after. It was a little lower, a little more tired-sounding, but it was easy to miss.

“I don’t know,” Hannah muttered. “You sure you don’t want to stick around for a bit so our student can get some more time in the—” She trailed off as the door to the house opened and a man stuck his head out. “What the? Reeve?”

“I’ll check.”

But Reeve didn’t get a chance to say anything else before the man in the door raised his hand and a burst of loud popping sounds made Alex jump.

Reeve hissed with a coughing groan. It wasn’t a sound Alex had ever heard him make before and he knew right away something had gone wrong.

“Did you just get shot?” Hannah yelped in disbelief. Alex blinked, confused.

Reeve only grunted and slapped his left hand over his opposite shoulder.

“Everyone out of the car,” Gareth ordered. “My side.”

Shaking, Alex opened his door and put a careful hand on Reeve’s left shoulder to urge him out, but he followed without argument, sliding across the seat to lower himself onto the pavement beside Alex.

Hannah pushed past Alex to look at Reeve and slit his sleeve open with one of the razor blades she kept in her pocket. Gareth was on one knee, his gun out. Alex, hand shaking, put his hand on his own pistol inside his hoodie.

Very quickly they’d gone from chilling in the car to crouching low on the pavement. “Is it bad?” Alex asked, voice cracking.

“I’m fine,” Reeve insisted through gritted teeth as he dug his phone out of his pocket with his darkened left hand. “Let me at least call this in before you start messing with me.”

From what Alex could see, Hannah did not take his advice.

“Hannah?” Alex pressed.

“He’ll be fine,” she assured him. “Med kit’s in the trunk,” she called. "So I'm gonna need that."

Gareth put a hand on Alex’s arm reaching inside his hoodie and shook his head. “So are the suppressors. I’ll get them.” Gareth took off for the back of the car. More pops made Alex flinch and forced his stomach into his throat, but he stayed low, eyes on Hannah peering at Reeve’s shoulder.

Reeve held the phone to his ear with his left shoulder and shouted something into the phone about coordinates and some kind of code number. Alex wanted to listen, but Gareth came back with their black mission bag and the med kit and tossed Alex a suppressor. Alex just looked at it.

“Can you do something about this fucker’s brain?” Gareth snapped at Reeve. “I’m kind of not sure this car’s going anywhere anytime soon.”

“Sorry, I’m not used to concentrating while shot,” Reeve fired back looking up at him, then angled his face back to the phone and raised his voice. “I think it’s a second Icarus. He shut me out when he felt my telepathy.” He cleared his throat. “Yes, we’ve got injuries.”

“Hey,” Gareth said to Alex, nudging him with his elbow. “Get that thing on in case you need to give these two cover without going deaf. Stay here.”

Alex’s mouth fell open. “Where are you going?”

“Worst case, to draw his fire away from you guys. I’ll be back.”

Alex shook himself and screwed the suppressor onto the barrel of his gun. There was a ringing in his ears as he watched Gareth stand up and start rushing toward the house to the sound of more gunfire. He wanted to stay. He wanted to take off down the street and go get a job at a fast food joint and be done with it. Instead, he stood and chased after Gareth before Hannah or Reeve could stop him.

Gareth had already kicked in the front door and gone inside by the time Alex made it to the house. He stared at the door and kept the pistol angled low to the ground in front of him. His tactics classes came to mind, making him turn around and take off at a slow run to get around to the back. He remembered seeing a glass patio door in the real estate listing Reeve had shown him. Pushing his way through a cluster of short, bushy palms, he hopped a waist-high iron gate to get into the patio area in the back, illuminated by lights in a kidney-shaped swimming pool.

Distracted by the sound of more shots coming from the house, he tripped over a ceramic pot and came down hard, managing to twist so as not to land on the gun. His heart thudded in his chest as he laid there breathing and assuring himself that the gun hadn’t gone off. Baring his teeth, he pushed himself up on skinned elbows and made his way past the inground pool, to the back door.

It was locked, of course. Alex tried to peer inside, but all the lights had been turned off and all he could see was his own reflection, backlit by ghostly underwater lights.

Alex, came Reeve’s mind with a force he wasn’t used to. Get the fuck back here.

Alex bounced on the balls of his feet, resolve wavering. But he’d come this far. Sorry, I can’t hear you over all the gunshots, Alex thought back.

There was a tickling sensation in Alex’s head, as if he’d gotten soda up his nose, that he recognized as Reeve’s telepathic equivalent of rolling his eyes. Alex, I’m serious.

He yanked at the door one more time, then glanced around behind him. Fuck it, he thought, though not at Reeve.

Alex switched the safety off his gun and pulled on the slide. Aiming low and bracing for the sound, Alex squeezed the trigger, firing his gun outside of their backyard for the first time. The glass shattered and his ears rang.

He hadn’t meant to shut his eyes, but his body did it anyway. When he opened them, the light from the patio could finally filter into the house, illuminating a man in his twenties, the Icarus, standing in stunned silence with a gun raised in Alex’s direction. Alex froze, thinking he was about to die. Gareth had told him to stay put, but of course he hadn’t listened. They locked eyes and the Icarus looked almost as scared as Alex felt. After a tense moment, the Icarus lowered his gun to hang by his side. He gestured with his free hand and a plume of bright flames poured forth, setting fire to the house and blocking Alex’s entry. As the curtains caught and burned, Alex took a couple steps back. His stomach was threatening to upheave his lunch, but he clenched all his muscles to keep control of his churning guts and shaking hands.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

The fire was spreading inside the house and he coughed as the smoke reached his throat. He wasn’t getting through there, so Alex retreated, heading back around to the front door. Gareth had left it open when he’d gone into the now burning house. All the damn plants alongside the house felt harder to wade through on his way back and he cursed at them, thrashing his arms. The sound of branches snapping was overwhelmingly loud in his ears.

He turned the corner to a sight that only redoubled the pounding in his chest and made him slow to a walk. A line of four people were advancing on the front door at a steady jog. They were wearing what looked like black SWAT gear, but without any insignia, and were so loaded with kevlar, straps, holsters, and black masks covering everything but their eyes, that Alex couldn’t have even guessed at their genders.

“Alex.” Hannah’s voice cut through the fog. She grabbed his arm to stop him from going any farther and pulled the gun out of his hands, sticking it in her waistband. Alex's eyes were locked on the people in black and when he finally looked at Hannah, he saw hers were too.

“Gareth—” he started, turning his head to watch the thick smoke seeping from second story windows. The agents in black had disappeared behind the doorway and didn’t seem to care that the house was on fire.

“Neptune’s got this now.” She tugged at his arm. “But we’ve got to get out of the way.”

“Reeve?”

“He’s fine.”

He let her lead him away back to their car. There were two black SUVs parked behind them now. The sound and the fire had brought neighbors out into the street, and two men and a woman in full black, but without face coverings, were sending them back into their homes.

“Who’s that?”

“That’s the Cleanup team. They’ll take care of this.”

"How'd they get here so fast?"

"They were just nearby with the other Icarus."

Reeve was sitting in the backseat with the door open while a fourth agent in black peered under a bandage on his arm with a flashlight. She seemed to be wearing the same base black uniform as the agents in the house, but without all the tactical gear. Even while Reeve was wincing, Alex saw him physically relax when the two of them showed up.

When the agent walked off just as they approached, Reeve stared at Alex hard.

“Never do that again.”

Alex shrugged. “You’re okay?”

“He just winged me. I’m serious—follow orders. The Icarus could have killed you.”

“I scared him,” he said, voice small.

Whatever they would have said next was cut off by Gareth stepping around the car to join them. His shirt was bloody and had a few holes in it. Alex’s voice caught in his throat.

“Jesus,” Hannah exclaimed.

Gareth flashed her a look that said, Really? And lifted his shirt to show that his chest didn’t have a scratch on it. Alex felt the knots in his shoulders relax at the casualness of the gesture and his unimpressed expression.

“Now you just gotta teach Reeve that,” Alex jeered.

Gareth would normally laugh at any joke that dragged Reeve, but he pointed a finger at Alex instead. “I saw you out the window by the pool. There’s still time to kill you for charging in and blame it on the Icarus.”

Alex had a snappy comeback, but clicked his mouth shut as one of the agents in pared-down black uniforms walked up to them. Reeve stood with the rest of them.

“Hi,” the agent said. His voice was hesitant and he was keeping half an eye on the road behind him. He had thick eyebrows and a long face. "Is the kid yours, or do I need to do something about that?" he asked Reeve, gesturing to his head.

Alex rolled his eyes and fought a surge of anger. He'd tried to help and now he was a kid? Who belonged to someone? And they were threatening to wipe him like one of these norms wandering out into the street in their nightclothes?

Alex opened his mouth, but Reeve's voice overpowered him.

"Alex is our foster. He's shadowing us."

"Okay, good." The agent flashed Alex a surprisingly sincere smile, saying, “Sorry,” before turning back to Reeve. "That didn't really go as planned, huh?"

Reeve hung his head dramatically. "You could say that."

“You’re sure you don’t want us to call in Pluto?”

“Positive,” Reeve nodded.

“Well,” he said, dropping his hand on the top of the car. “Even if this thing starts, we don’t want you driving it. Our team isn’t based in LA, so once we can secure the area and really start to clean, one of us will drive you back to the hotel we’re staying at. We’ll get you a room and have HQ send you up a replacement car in the morning.” He scratched at his head, nervously. “But I’m not sure how long it will be until someone can drive you—depends on how many people called the cops. And it’s against all protocol for Retrieval to give you a lift anywhere.”

“It’s fine,” Reeve said. “We can sit here. Thank you. Sorry for all the trouble.”

The agent shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. Bad intel’s not your fault.” Sirens began to wail in the distance.

One of the agents in the street raised a hand over her head to them. “Jake,” she called.

“I’ve got to field this,” he said, with an apologetic smile and joined the other agents as they walked into the street to intercept the fire engine.

Alex would have loved to see how that went down, but he was distracted by the agents in full militarized gear emerging from the house. One of them was carrying a black, body-sized duffle over one shoulder. Alex was sure it was a body bag until he saw it start to squirm and struggle. The agents set it in the trunk of their car next to a second bag, and didn’t give the four of them a second glance before getting into the car.

“That was the Icarus?” Alex asked, chafing at his arms. It was suddenly so cold.

Hannah put her arm around him. Her face flickered in the red and blue flashing lights. “Yeah. Neptune’s Black Bags have special dampeners, so once the Icarus is in there, they can’t use their knack. We’re safe now.”

“What’ll happen to him?”

Reeve sighed through his nose. “Well, they’re taking him alive, so it could be worse. They’ll bring him to LA and put him through Reintegration so he can rejoin Sol.”

They’d taught Alex about Reintegration. It was basically Sol-jail. But with some kind of “therapies” that sounded more like brainwashing—a term Reeve and Hannah had jumped down his throat about. He’d snarked about it before, but seeing the black body bags in the back of the car gave him the chills.

“Let’s wait in the car,” Hannah said, steering him away from the flashing lights. “It’s too loud out here.”

Being inside the car didn’t help much, and his eyes kept being drawn to the small holes punched through the glass of the back window. He felt his jaw shudder.

“Why am I so cold?” he whined, leaning into Hannah.

“That’s just the adrenaline,” she explained, giving him a squeeze. “It makes you sweat.”

He felt a pang of embarrassment, but she’d had no hesitation to cuddle up to him. Was this how they felt whenever they went out on a mission? It made him feel closer to them, more a part of the team and less their burden, and also filled him with dread. He tried to cover it with a joke.

“So I don’t think I need to shadow any more missions. It’ll just get Reeve killed.”

Gareth laughed, cutting the tension a bit, but only briefly.

“You’re going on more,” Reeve said after the car had gone quiet again, “but you don’t need to. Other than the whole not following orders thing, you didn’t freeze up, you thought tactically, you had control of your weapon, and you kept a cool head when threatened.”

Alex blinked. “No, I didn’t. I was fucking terrified.”

Reeve turned in the driver’s seat to look at him. “If you’re not scared when someone is shooting at you, you’re either stupid or Gareth.”

Gareth grunted. “No, I’m terrified too. Just not for myself.”

Alex tried to argue, tell them they were out of their minds, that he was only doing what anyone would do, but could only manage to swallow.

Reeve smiled in a way that was heavy with sadness. “You’re going to keep shadowing for practice, but you pulled me out of the car and got prepared to return fire when ordered, and not before. You’re not going to need extra years of catch-up training like they thought at first. Once you turn eighteen, you’re ready. You’re going to be good at this.”

Alex felt sick. He’d be seventeen next month.

---

Beatty, NV.

The last thing Alex needed, after an exhausting five hour ride home from a two day eval in LA, was to find a brood of scorpions in his bed. The small brown scorpion, who skittered as he moved the blankets, had a strangely lumpy back, covered in light-colored grub-shapes. Babies. The thing had dozens of tiny stinging babies on her back. In his bed.

Thankfully, he’d pulled back his covers instead of just slipping between the sheets, because his night could have gone in a whole different direction. Gareth took the whole sheet outside to kill the thing and then the four of them did a thorough search of his room, shaking out blankets, clothes, and shoes, to make sure there weren’t any more. Their search of Reeve’s room turned up a scorpion in his bed as well, and a third in his closet.

After a night of shouting, scrambling, and threats from Hannah to go rogue and move north, Alex was settled again in his bed, which had been fitted with new bedding and quintuple-checked for creepy crawlers. They’d pulled both beds away from the wall and even set the legs of the bed frames inside glasses and glass bowls to keep any scorpions they’d missed from climbing up. But still, no matter how tired he was, every fit of goosebumps and every tiny tickle of leg hair had Alex on edge, kicking his feet. He tossed and turned, telling himself over and over that they’d gotten them all, but it was no use. It’s not like he hadn’t had up-close encounters in the past, but he figured he must have gotten soft and spoiled because he couldn't stop seeing those spindly legs, thin needle-like pincers, and mass of babies.

Around one in the morning, he gave up. He got out of bed, mindful of where he was stepping, grabbed his pillow (which he shook out for good measure), and headed for the couch. As he trudged down the hallways, he heard the rhythmic sound of typing and saw the glow of a small lamp in the living room. Reeve was already on the couch, banging away on his laptop. His pillow was sitting on the couch beside him.

Alex stopped in the doorway. “You too?”

“We got ‘em all,” Reeve insisted without looking at him. “It’s perfectly safe to sleep in bed.”

“So what are you doing up?”

Reeve peered up at him. “I just wanted to get these couple of things done first.”

Smirking, Alex walked over to stand in front of him. “And you brought your pillow with you because…?”

He shot Alex a grim look that wrinkled his forehead. Alex found it weirdly charming. “I’m positive it’s fine,” he deadpanned.

Alex shrugged and plopped himself down on the couch next to him. Reeve shut his laptop defensively. “You can go right along to your room then. I’ll sleep in bed tomorrow.” He checked under a throw pillow for scorpions, just in case.

Reeve, bluff called, sat uncomfortably, his lips flat and thin.

Alex laughed at him. He couldn’t help himself. “You don’t gotta leave, but I’m staying.”

Reeve spared him a defeated, embarrassed look and slipped his laptop into the bag on the floor.

“What are you working on so late?”

“It’s just paperwork.” Reeve said, sliding the bag around the farside of the couch. He swore, if Reeve could give a non-answer, he would.

“Paperwork for what? You haven’t had a mission in, like, a month. Or is it about my evaluation?”

“Yeah,” Reeve said, sitting back. “It’s from your eval.”

It sounded like a lie. Reeve’s non-work laptop was just a tad more matte than his work laptop, and Alex would have bet money that the laptop in his bag wasn’t Sol-issue. But Reeve hit the recliner and scooched over, making room for Alex to join him so they could lay flatter. He didn’t need to be told twice. Alex shimmied over and stretched his legs out beside Reeve’s.

“So did they send over their write up from my eval already?” Normally, they’d look that over together when it came in, but the scorpions had really made a mess of their night. And this one had more weight to it than others. It would be his last eval while underage, so he’d taken a heap of placement exams.

“They did, yeah.” His voice was tight. “Can I turn this light off? It’s late.”

“Sure, but that doesn’t get you out of telling me what they said.”

“Understood.” He flipped the switch, throwing them into the dark.

As Reeve shifted to settle in again, Alex took the opportunity to rest his head on Reeve’s shoulder.

“So?”

“You did really well,” Reeve said, sounding a little breathy. “Your written work is still a little behind the curve, but everything else is on course or excelling.”

He wanted that to feel like an accomplishment, but it didn’t. The better he got at things, the more he wished he didn’t, so he could stay there in training forever. “Did they say where they want to place me?”

“Yeah, they’re preliminarily placing you on a Neptune track.”

Alex flinched internally and hoped Reeve hadn’t felt it. He picked his head up to stare at Reeve in the dark. “Neptune? Are you fucking kidding me?” If there was one thing that Alex wasn’t, it was a cop.

“Psychometrists traditionally end up in either Neptune or Saturn. It’s too powerful a knack for anywhere else.”

“Thanks for the fucking warning,” he spat.

Reeve breathed deep and shifted to put his arm around Alex. It should have been comforting. It should have been everything Alex wanted, but his mind was reeling.

“What part of Neptune?”

“Retrieval, most likely.”

Alex tried to picture himself in black tactical gear and a face mask and couldn’t. “I guess that would solve the problem of my scar,” he replied, thick with sarcasm.

“Your scar isn’t a problem,” Reeve said gently. Too gently.

“Fuck off,” Alex shot back, but followed it up with pressing his check back against Reeve’s shoulder. “Is it set in stone?”

“No. Nothing is. We can petition for a different placement if you want. And not everyone stays in the department they’re placed in, even if you do end up there.”

It was all becoming too real. He’d be eighteen at his next twice-yearly eval and if they deemed him ready, that’d be it. He’d “graduate” and be taken away from his family. It was all well and good to think about using the skills he’d learned while he was safe at home in Beatty, but another thing entirely to think about doing anything out in the world without Reeve, Hannah, and Gareth. He knew he could, but he didn’t want to.

Reeve hugged him then, and Alex wondered if he’d heard his thoughts. He didn’t care. He needed the hug. Reeve’s hair was damp and smelled like his shampoo, and he closed his eyes to make sure he’d remember how good this felt. Reeve released him, too soon, and a little abruptly, but kept his arm around him.

“I’m sorry this can’t be what you want it to be,” Reeve said into the top of Alex’s head. Alex wasn’t sure which part he was referring to. Staying in Beatty with them? Not becoming a cop? Reeve looking at him like anything other than a bratty younger brother?

Probably all of it. The air around him felt like quicksand.

“Let’s stop talking about it.” Alex threw his arm over Reeve’s middle and smooshed his face into Reeve’s shoulder.

“Okay.” Reeve rested his head on Alex’s. “Try to get some sleep. Love you. We all do.”

A confused jumble of emotions washed over him, and Alex, afraid he might actually cry, gulped as quietly as possible. “I love you too.”

Neither of them slept for a long time.

***