I sat there, watching Evelyn fumble over her words.

“You... what?” she stammered, disbelief heavy in her voice.

“I triggered.”

“But… there’s like, what, a point one per cent chance of that happening? Didn’t mom have a compound trigger? Doesn’t that make it almost impossible for any of us to become Paranormals?”

I sighed, drawing my knees closer to my chest. “Technically, it’s point zero-nine per cent, but that’s beside the point,” I paused, choosing my next words carefully. “Three years ago, Amelia and I saw a counsellor. They assured us the odds of me inheriting Mom’s Meta-Gene were next to impossible. They said we could have kids, live a normal life... That I was just a regular person like anyone else. But this isn’t guesswork anymore, Evelyn. The fact that I triggered means I have the gene. I’m a Paranormal. A third-gen.”

Evelyn frowned, her brows knitting together. “Do you know the fertility rate between a Third-gen and a normie?” I asked.

“How should I know—"

“It’s zero, Evelyn. Zero.”

She frowned. “That doesn’t prove anything.”

I turned to her, feeling the exhaustion creeping up again. “What?”

“That doesn’t prove anything and you know it! We thought none of us could trigger, but here you are. So who’s to say Chloe isn’t yours, even if her mother is a normie? For all you know, Amelia could have the Meta-Gene too. It’s undetectable until someone triggers.”

“It doesn’t work that way, Evelyn. We checked her genealogy before we got married. No one in her family has ever triggered, not once.”

“And that still proves nothing, Chris!” she shot back. “It’s like... like you’re trying to find a reason—"

“Don’t say that.”

“Why shouldn’t I? You’re looking for an excuse to abandon your daughter.”

“You don’t understand,” I shook my head. “I know she’s not mine.”

“How?” Her voice cracked with anger. “And stop talking about her like that. She has a name! A name you made me pick it out, you prick!”

Chris’s shoulders slumped, his words barely audible. “Chloe isn’t my daughter.”

“Have you even done a paternity test?”

“No, Evelyn.”

“Then you’re being ridiculous! How can you be so sure?”

Silence settled between us, thick and suffocating. My mind spun with words I couldn’t bring myself to say. How could she ever understand?

“I’m waiting,” Evelyn’s voice cut through the quiet, her anger barely restrained.

“This is pointless,” I muttered, switching off the TV. The sudden silence felt too sharp, too loud.

“I’m talking to you!” she snapped.

“Your things are in the storage cabinet,” I said, still staring at the blank wall. “You should leave, Evelyn.”

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

I heard her stand there, frozen in place, her breath catching. Then the sound of her footsteps filled the room, each one stabbing deeper, but I didn’t turn around. I couldn’t. The storage cabinet creaked open, then there was a crash as something shattered. A moment later, the door slammed shut so hard the walls shook.

I sat there for a long time after she left, alone with my thoughts. The weight of everything bore down on me harder than ever, suffocating. Eventually, I dragged myself up and stepped out onto the balcony, staring at the city lights flickering far below.

Exhausted.

----------------------------------------

The next morning, I woke up to sunlight stabbing through my eyelids. Groaning, I blinked them open to find the cat sitting on my chest, staring down at me. “You again?” I muttered, shooing it off. It stretched lazily and sat by the door, waiting for me to open it. I reached for the phone but found the drawer empty. In the kitchen, when I retrieved the device from where it was hidden, the digits 9:14 glowed back at me. I was late. Very Late.

Shit.

I got the broom and swept the broken ceramic left in the wake of Evelyn’s anger from last night. When that was done, I emptied two cans of ground beef into a bowl, threw some cheese on top, salt, pepper. The microwave hummed, indifferent, five minutes of waiting.

Afterwards, I peeled off yesterday's clothes and stepped into the shower. Out in five. Towel around the waist, toothbrush hanging from my mouth. Dressed in three. The beef was still warm when I scooped some out for the cat, told it not to make a mess. I sealed the rest of it in Tupperware, before gathering my effects and locking up.

Out the door, down the hall. The elevator smelled like old sweat and grime, but at least it worked. Roadman hummed to life as I stepped out of the building.

"Ayo, Bigman. You OK?" the car asked.

"Yeah. Just forgot my phone. Slept through the alarm."

“Thought you got shanked or somethin'. Bless. Where we headin'? Homebase or patrol?"

I shook my head. "Patrol. But we have to pick up the new kid first. What’s his name again?"

"The blonde one with them naff-lookin' specs? Andrew Lopez. Kid's dodgy as hell."

That got a chuckle out of me. "What do you mean?"

Roadman took a turn, the city rolling by, awake. Noisy. "Oi, you mean you ain’t noticed? Man’s got no drip, none at all. That's bare sus, fam. How can a yute his age have no drip? Psycho…"

"Now you're just being mean."

"Nah, I'm bein' honest."

I chuckled again. "Just don't bully the kid, alright?"

"Sure thing, boss."

Twelve minutes later were reached our destination. The station loomed up ahead, a foreboding silhouette, stark against the perpetual smog. The multitude of helipads and massive antenna arrays that littered its tip were hidden away just above thin, low-hanging clouds. It was large, significantly larger than most stations from other districts. It had to be given it was designed to manage a population peaking at nearly twelve million this year.

Andrew stepped out of the station as we approached. He looked green, too eager. Not surprising. They always did, fresh out the academy.

"Morning, sir!" The boy greeted.

"Get in," I said, leaning back into the car. He did. We drove off and began our patrol.

The radio crackled three minutes later. Domestic dispute. A couple’s spat on the brink of turning violent. By the time we got there, they’d already made up. I gave them the usual warning, knowing they wouldn’t listen. Roadman logged them for surveillance, just in case they got physical next time.

The day dragged on. Lost kids, fender-benders, even a cat stuck on a ledge fifty meters up the side of a building. Fire department took that one, though it left me wondering how something so dumb could survive so long in this district.

Near the end of the shift, the radio came alive again. Protest downtown. Bank entrance blocked. NMSM group, the new commies, preaching their sermon of equality which, under careful scrutiny, made little sense. I sighed as I reached for the radio. "Dispatch, this is Bravo-6. En route. ETA four minutes."

"NMSM, sir?" Andrew asked as Roadman changed lanes to get us to the site of the incident.

"Yup," I grunted. "Stupid commies."

Andrew shifted beside me. "Commies, sir?"

I raised an eyebrow as I turned to face him. "You’ve been living under a rock, kid? No More Superiorities Movement? They are communists. You know that, right?"

He hesitated. "I thought they were socialists."

I laughed. "Tomato, tomato. What’s the difference?"

The kid didn’t have an answer for that, and I didn’t expect him to. Some lessons you had to learn the hard way. The world would teach him soon enough. The commies didn’t matter though. They might be the new thing all the useful idiots were excited about.

But like all trends, they too would eventually fade away into obscurity.