#redacted jet

Somehow, the thing was bigger and scarier when fully formed than it had been when intangible. A day ago, you couldn’t imagine anything in the world scarier than the half-translucent, skeletal figure that had sucked the life out of you in the dark and cold. Now, you were finding that your imagination had its limits. 

It was a scrawny thing, despite the fact it had had a fresh meal in the form of a powerful, empowered kid. That would be enough to fatten anybody up, but it remained gaunt, smoke like skin stretched over the notches of its elongated rib cage. It towered over you, The top of its rounded head capping out over the tree line. The sapling oaks didn’t provide much cover, but it somehow formed itself to the shadows, its long, clawed fingers curling around one tree’s trunks, its spine bending into an unnatural ‘ s’ shape to duck its other half behind another. 

You had asked Cam if these things used to be people. You couldn’t imagine that anymore. This wasn’t human. This wasn’t some lost soul, confused and stumbling through a world it couldn’t make sense of. This was a creature, a monster, a thing waiting for its next meal to stumble across its unfortunate path, and you wouldn’t let anything make a meal out of you. 

It hadn’t noticed you. Your core ached with effort, but you remained cloaked, remained hidden from its acute senses a yard off from it’s position. If you timed it right, you could dispatch of it without it ever even noticing you. 

You didn’t know why, but it was fire you called on when deciding how to handle this. Heat curled around your fingers, an unnatural magic for your body, just this side of too hot for you to control. Your core strummed uneasily as you gathered a spark between your fingers and let it grow. It was bright and hot and loud, and you pushed your cloak out to make sure it was concealed. Your head pounded, but a ball of fire the size of your fist bobbed above your right palm, ready to be used. 

“Don’t let anyone dampen your light,” your mom had said to you. She’d taught you all of the fire magic that your core would allow, and pushed you to blow past your limits and use more. “ People are going to underestimate you. Never let them trample you before you’ve even gotten the chance to show just how incredible you are.” 

You’d managed to hold your own in an elementals class when you attended D.A.M.N.. It was nearly unheard of for a stealth to be able to utilize other forms of magic, given how specialized your core was. You were, as always, the exception to the rule. 

When the heat began to overtake you and you felt the skin of your palm burn and bubble under your heat, your mother’s heat, you let it loose. The fire moved where you wanted at great speed, cut through your cloak, and found its home in the shade’s chest. It scrambled back from its hiding spot, a high, ear-ringing screech cutting across the park. You stumbled back, your face flush with victory as its long body met the ground, curling around the point of impact. 

Everything went still. You moved forward, your cloak falling away, unprompted. Your core was exhausted already, and that particular choice of offensive magic didn’t do you any favors. You’d be surprised if you could muster the strength for a simple dampening for the next few days. That was fine. Your work was done. 

You nudged the shade with your boot and watched its strange, disproportionate features up close. You could see your mother’s face somewhere in its gaping mouth, its empty sockets, the hollow, serene pose of its body. Tears pressed, unbidden, against your eyes. You sniffled and stepped back. 

Not fast enough, apparently. The shade moved so fast you couldn’t track its movements. You had enough time to wonder if they had any relation to vampires before its claws carved into you. 

You’d been hurt on the job before. Magic was hard to control, especially in a combat scenario. You’d been caught by friendly fire once, an electro energetic who couldn’t quite contain their lightning when in a large, open space during training. That was the incident that made you start wearing rubber-soled shoes, and put you on heart medication. A packless, panicking shifter had caught your arm in their teeth while you were assisting on a case a few days after the Quinn incident. They were a kid, humanborn, and most likely in an inordinate amount of pain after being shot at by their father, who assumed, reasonably, that a bear had managed to get inside his teenage child’s bedroom. You’d received an apology card at your desk a few days later, long after the bone-crushing bite wound had been healed. The kid was doing alright, in contact with the Talbot pack, and being supported by their parents. 

Both of those incidents had been painful. But this was something else entirely. Its claws were razor sharp and cut through you with no resistance. The swipe was long, curving from the flat of your stomach up your chest, your neck, your face. Your vision went red and dark on the left side. The burn of it seared every inch of you. The pain was impossible, impossible to feel, impossible to contain. You howled like a wounded dog. 

Your back met the ground as the shade rose, burned and broken but still kicking. You managed to suck in a breath before one freakish hand found your throat, the other circling around your right thigh and squeezing until you felt something crunch. 

You were tapped. You had no magic left in you. You’d been going for days and days and then used an unnatural form of magic like an idiot. You were such an idiot. 

You’d never told Milo you were sorry. 

You opened your mouth to protest, to cry out, to curse this stupid fucking shade to death, but all that rose out of you was hot, copper blood. It filled in the space between your teeth, the hollow of your cheeks, slicked the underside of your tongue. You reached desperately for your core and found nothing. You were so cold, so tired, so in over your fucking head. Your dad was right. Cam was right. Collins, Jet, Milo. Everybody had been telling you for weeks; you couldn’t handle this. You weren’t equipped to take this on alone. Everybody around you had been able to see it. Everybody except for you. 

You remembered, inexplicably, the screaming matches your parents got into late at night when your mom came home banged up or wrung dry. Your dad would beg her to quit, to put her family first, to at least let other people at D.U.M.P. help her. 

“Your children are going to grow up without their mother!” He had screamed one night. You were curled in on yourself at the top of the stairs. You were so little, so frightened by the idea of it. When your mother walked up to kiss you goodnight, good morning, good-whatever-it-was-at-this-point, she found you there, panicked and hyperventilating. 

“I’m not going anywhere, baby,” she had whispered into the crown of your head as she held you, “don’t let anybody tell you otherwise. Don’t let anybody tell you what you can and cannot do. If they try, just prove them wrong.” 

You’d been repeating that in your head since you were seven-years-old like a promise, like a prayer. 

And she was wrong. And now your dad was going to lose another person he loved to this stupid job, to their own stubbornness and idiocy. 

Something sparked inside of you. You needed to tell your dad that he was right. You needed to tell Dr. Collins that he didn’t deserve the shit you’d said to him. You needed to tell Jet where he could shove this deadly, meaningless job. You needed to tell Cam ‘ thank you’ for trying to help you, even as you fought him tooth and nail. 

You needed to tell Milo how sorry you were, how right he was to worry, how you’d be honored in another life to be called his mate. 

Heat pooled in your hands. You core stuttered, threads plucking an uneasy, familiar tune. 

“Mom,” you whispered, more movement than sound. Her core was always so bright, nearly tangible. You stretched out your fingers and took hold of it. Fire lit up around you, blotted out what was left of your vision. 

Davey Shaw was a quiet, shy man who had the unfortunate habit of running himself ragged for others. It was something you could empathize with, but having that attention pushed to yourself was uncomfortable. After that initial healing session, Davey slept for twelve hours. His core was exhausted from the amount of healing magic he’d poured into you. You didn’t even know shifters could be healers. The fact that he had managed to heal as much damage as he had was either a testament to his considerable power and skill or proof that he was going to get himself killed trying to help others. Perhaps a bit of both, 

After emerging from the upstairs bedroom, looking ragged and still exhausted, he banished Milo to go get some rest and assessed you gently in the momentary privacy of his living room. He let you ask questions as he worked, rotating each of your joints, checking the scars, prodding your chest to make sure it was still intact. 

“How do you know Milo?”

“Old friends.”

“Where did you learn to heal?”

“D.A.M.N..”

“Did Dr. Collins teach you?”

“Yes, actually. I took four or five classes with him.”

“Did you like him?”

“He was… unconvinced of my ability, but ultimately an excellent teacher.” 

“Man, you’d think… because of…”

“Actually, that’s why he was hesitant to recommend me as a paramedic. He knows how his magic is limited, so he knows how mine is too.”

“You’re a paramedic?”

“Part time.” 

Davey’s bedside manner seemed to rely on his patient. He answered each of your questions, some more thoroughly than others, but all honestly. You didn’t know how you could tell that. Maybe it was just something about him. 

After affirming to himself that your lung wasn’t going to collapse in the next few minutes, he helped you stand. You had your forearms rested atop his, your grip shaking and unsteady. He muttered words of encouragement, corrected your posture, told you how to hold your weight. 

“You’re really good at this.” You winced, gazing straight ahead like he’d told you. It put you in the unfortunate position of essentially ogling his chest. You struggled not to let that be your most prominent thought.

“Thank you.” You stared up at him expectantly. Davey caught your eye for a moment before pursing his lips and nodding. “More words.” He breathed, as though to himself. “My father was in a car accident a few years ago,” he explained softly. He shifted so you rocked your weight back and forth, wincing every time you rested over your right leg. “I managed his recovery.” 

“He’s okay now?” 

“Mostly.” Davey nodded. “He has some chronic pain in his leg. He has good days and bad days, but mostly, yes, he’s fine.” 

“Will I…” you pursed your lips against the question. It felt silly, childish. You didn’t want to appear weak in front of him. But then again, you were unable to stand without help, half blind, and your guts were currently rearranging themselves inside of you. You didn’t really have a choice but to appear weak. You leaned into it. “Will I be okay?”

Davey took a deep breath, rocked you back and forth a few more times before helping you lower back down onto the couch. His dark eyes found yours and held on. You didn’t dare look away. 

“You’re going to be different.” He said. “And you’re going to have to live with that.” 

Davey dug out a cane from his medical supply cupboard. It was silver and clinical, and he adjusted it down from its highest setting to its lowest. With one hand in his and the other braced over the cane, you managed to stand. He showed you how to use it, that you had to brace it on the opposite side as your injured leg, which felt unnatural to you at first, and how to swing it along with your stride. In the solitude of Davey’s living room, you took your first, unsteady steps on your own. 

Two days later, when you gained enough energy to be uncomfortable with continuing to take Davey and his mate’s hospitality, you relented. It was time to deal with the fall out of your bad decisions. You started with the easiest one of the bunch. You didn’t care what Jet thought of your little excursion, and you didn’t care to appease his emotions in regards to your behavior. He was your Captain, and not blameless in all of this, as Milo reminded you readily. He was the one who sent you half cocked into Rebane territory after one of the most dangerous rogue vampires in the last century. He was the one who sent you after this shade alone in the first fucking place. You were sure, with conduct like that, he’d make Commissioner before the year was out. 

As evening rolled around, Milo retrieved one of his cars and picked you up. Davey’s mate produced a set of their own clothes for you. They fit better than Davey’s, and their simple, professional style was appreciated. Davey and Milo hovered over you as you walked- limped- to the car. You let Milo catch your arm when he grew nervous, and threaded your fingers into his. You didn’t need his steady form to hold you up, but he needed to know that you wouldn’t fall out under his nose. You could give that to him.

You did not, however, let him follow you inside. He opened the car door for you, help you stand, and stared up at the imposing, dark building like it was the enemy. 

“Stay out here, please.” You asked, you ordered. 

“And let you go in alone? Sweetness, I’ve got your back.” 

“I know.” You nodded. “But I don’t think I can do this in front of you.” 

Jet’s office was still lit up by the time you made it through security and made it to your bullpen’s floor. You were grateful that the floor was mostly empty. A few of your peers glanced up at your arrival, their eyes hungry on your cane, your gate, the scar marring your face. 

“Jesus Christ,” Jet breathed when he got a look at you. For a guy with little care for your wellbeing before this moment, he jumped quickly to pull out a chair for you. His face ghosted white as he took you in, his mouth agape and unsure. For the first time since it happened, you were glad the shade had left such visible marks on you. It served Jet right, having to look at what he’d, in part, done to you. 

“I quit.” You said, unceremoniously. Jet balked at you, halfway through reaching for a thick file that you assumed was yours. 

“I’m sorry-”

“Thank you.” You shifted and pulled out the loose-leaf notebook paper on which you’d scrawled your resignation letter. Jet snatched it from your hand, reading it over before scowling over his desk at you. “I have a few questions first.” 

“So do I.” Jet seethed. 

“I’ll start.” You raised your hand and inspected your nails, which Milo had taken the time to clean and cut while you were unconscious. Prissy, pompous little prince. “How long did it take for backup to arrive?” You tried for all of the world to seem unbothered, although you knew your current condition was working against you. Jet sighed and scrubbed a hand over his haggard face. He looked tired. 

“Forty-five minutes.” He reported numbly. You nodded. 

“If I hadn’t been found before they arrived, I would have died.” 

“If you had waited for backup before engaging you wouldn’t have been in the situation to begin with.” 

“If I had waited forty-five minutes for backup, half of D.A.M.N.’s student population  would have been that thing’s dessert.” You snapped, more passionately than you’d intended. You took a deep, steadying breath. You’d blown your cover, showed your hand. You had to regain your composure. “I know that my decisions in all of this have not been sound. I know that I’ve alienated and isolated, that I’ve pushed away what little help was afforded to me, but that is exactly what the culture of the Department breeds.” 

“Hold on-”

“I’m not finished!” You raised your voice to Jet for the first time. His mouth clicked shut in shock. “You are running a system that all feeds off of delusions of individual success and grandeur. You cut resources from investigators not meeting casework quotas, hand easy, safe work to the people with actual experience and allocate deadly cases to the rookies with no partners and no support. Oh, but backup is just a short, forty-five minute wait away!” 

“That is a wildly bad faith view of our practices, Investigator.” Jet interjected as soon as he could. 

“You sent me after a dangerous, fifty-year-old vampire on my first fucking day!” 

Silence hung in the office. Jet scowled at you over his stacks of files. Finally, he broke. 

“Is there anything else?”

“Yeah.” You nodded. “That kid in the park. Has his next of kin been informed?” 

“No.” Jet blinked, thrown off by your change in tone. “We’ve only just found his name. You know how it is with the homeless.” 

“People experiencing homelessness.” You corrected. “Christ, Jet at least attend the sensitivity training you assign.” 

“Lasko. Moore.” Jet ground out between gritted teeth. 

“The contact for his next of kin?” You asked expectantly. 

“You are no longer a Department employee.” Jet retorted. “I can’t disclose that information.” 

“You’re lucky I don’t sue D.U.M.P. for my injuries and report your incompetence to the Ruling Council.” 

“You have no case.” 

“You wanna take that risk?” Stalemate. Jet held your eye for a long, tense moment before glancing away. One benefit to your fucked up face, it seemed. People couldn’t challenge you for long. Jet sighed, scribbled down a name and number on a spare sticky note, and handed it over. 

“Since you’re blackmailing me, what else can I do for you, Investigator?” He spat the word like it was an insult and it felt like one.

“Actually,” you grinned, snatching the cane from where it rested against Jet’s desk. “You could leave my clearance active for an hour or so.” You stood with some effort and fished your badge from your pocket and threw it down on a teetering stack of papers in front of him. You lumbered towards the door at as fast a pace as you could manage. Just as you crossed the threshold, you painfully twisted back to catch Jet within your limited vision. “I hope things do change, Jet. I don’t want anybody else dead. And I don’t want you to have to live with it.” 

Now to the harder ones. You moved through the Department halls slowly, the click of your cane the only noise in the sleek, empty space. You ran the tips of your fingers across the papered walls, catching against framed pictures of former department heads and deceased D.U.M.P. employees. If you looked hard enough, you could probably find your mother’s portraits somewhere. 

She used to bring you to work with her during the summers, while your siblings went to daycare or camp. She would sit you at her desk, hand you a little yellow legal pad and a pen. You would play Investigator, gather clues to your nonsensical cases, interrogate her obliging coworkers, and you’d always, always win. It was always something you could win. That was the spark, you thought. You’d never wanted to do- to be- anything else. You didn’t know what you were now. And you didn’t know if what you had been was anything like you’d thought it would be, was anything you could even recognize. 

Collins was in his office alone, the lights dimmed and the infirmary all but empty. When he looked up at you, his eyes flashed with fear before settling into shock. 

“Jesus Christ!” He barked. 

“That’s what they keep calling me.” You tried for a joke that didn’t land. He shot up from his chair and pulled you towards it, sitting you down with no room for protest. 

“What the fuck did you do?” 

“Went up against a shade. Alone.” You said shakily. Collins had gone into doctor mode, checking over you the exact same way Davey had that morning. 

“You’re an idiot.” Collins snapped. His magic sparked and raced through you, searching, observing. 

“I am.” You nodded. “I’m… I’m really sorry, Doc. I lashed out at you in the middle of a fucking self destructive spiral.” 

“I know.” Collins growled. “I’ve had one or two of my own, which is why I tried to intervene.” He looked up at you after a moment, his face softening. “But… given how I’ve treated folks who’ve tried to help me? I should have seen it coming.” His silver eyes flitted around your face for a moment before giving you a single, curt nod. “This healing was sloppy. Can I?” 

He indicated towards the gauze taped over your eye. You swallowed heavily, but nodded. Gingerly, he peeled the medical tape back and bent out of your vision to examine it. 

“Lord have mercy.” 

“He did the best he could.” You said, defensively. “I was out there for at least half an hour before anybody got to me.”

“You’re lucky to be alive.” Collins grumbled. He tutted before discarding your old gauze and walking out to the infirmary. He pointed a single finger at you as you attempted to rise and follow him, holding you in your spot. He returned a moment later with an armful of medical supplies and a fresh pair of gloves on. He redressed your eye, pulled up your pant leg to ease on a knee brace that would help support your weight, smeared a cold, translucent ointment over as much of your scars as he could reach. 

“You went to D.A.M.N.?” He asked after a considerable, somewhat uncomfortable silence. You nodded. “Then you know where the healing school is.” Another nod. “My office is on the first floor. I’m there Tuesdays and Thursdays for office hours, after dark, obviously. Come see me once a week and we’ll see about these scars.” 

“What?” You breathed.

“I can’t promise anything,” Collins snapped his gloves off. “But we can try to reduce your scar tissue, maybe work on that leg too.” 

“You don’t have to do that.” You felt like you might cry. 

“I’m a healer.” Collins dismissed you easily. You imagined that he a lot, went above and beyond, gave more than he had to, more than he strictly could. You two also had that in common. 

It was dark out, but Cam was right where you expected to find him; perched on the bench you shared every day, no food in sight, staring up at the light polluted, starless sky. 

“Hey,” you all but whispered as you approached. His large, star-filled eyes found you and filled with something between guilt and concern. 

“Hey.” He replied. 

He didn’t attempt to help you sit, just waited patiently for you to settle next to him. 

“What are you doing out here?” You asked. 

“Stargazing.” He kept his eyes on the sky, searching through Dahlia’s early-autumn cloud cover for any hint of light. 

“There aren’t any.” 

Cam leaned into you. He was on your blind side, but the warmth he gave off was enough to telegraph his movements before he made them. His shoulder bumped into yours. 

“We can’t see them.” He said softly. “But they’re still there.” 

By the time the two of you were done talking, you were calmer than you had been for weeks. Months, maybe. He walked you back out to the parking lot, and you held his arm instead of the cane. Milo was waiting where you’d left him, leaning against his sinfully expensive sports car, his phone to his ear. You didn’t catch his conversation, but you did catch the line of tension that disappeared from his features as he laid eyes on you. 

“All done?” He asked. You nodded. “You okay?” 

“Yeah.” You said. Cam handed the cane back, his hand hovering over the small of your back as you regained your balance. “Milo, this is Camelopardalis.” 

“Cam.” He corrected, extending his hand for Milo to shake. 

“Camelopardalis.” Milo mimicked back perfectly. “Milo Rebane.” 

“My friend has fallen in with royalty.” Cam smiled down at you, somewhere between impress and horror. 

“I ain’t so high and mighty.” Milo smiled. So he did have a self deprecating bone in his body, little as it might be. “I have heard that you did everything you could to help them out. I appreciate that.” 

“It was simply the right thing to do.” Cam replied easily. 

“I don’t make it easy.” You said. Cam looked down at you, a smile pulling at the corner of his lips. Something like pity quirked his features. Or maybe it was fondness. 

“I’m under strict orders to get this one back in bed before the night is out.” Milo reached towards Cam for another handshake. Cam reciprocated and bent to meet your eye. He squeezed your free hand tight, like he didn’t want to let go. 

“You have my number.” He said. “I expect you to use it, or I’ll track you down, royal boyfriend or no.” 

A blush creeped up your neck as Milo laughed. You shoved Cam’s shoulder, but there was no strength, no malice behind it. 

The engine of Milo’s stupid fucking sports car hummed through your entire body, sending waves of pain up and down your leg. Milo drove gently, avoiding potholes, taking turns slowly. His hand twitched on the gear shift, as though longing to touch, but not willing to. You fished your phone out of your pocket and clicked through to your emergency contacts. 

Before you pressed the call button, you took Milo’s hand in yours. 

“Hey!” Your dad nearly shouted. “I’ve been calling you for two days!” Tears welled up in your eyes at the sound of his voice. You sniffled pathetically and you could feel Milo’s eyes on you, even if you couldn’t see him. 

“I know.” You said. You felt your guts shifting inside of you. You thought you might vomit. A tear slid down your cheek before you could stop it. You couldn’t let go of Milo’s hand to wipe it away. “I’m really sorry, Dad. I fucked up. Really bad.” 

“Okay!” All of the anger was gone from your dad’s voice. “Okay, kiddo. Whatever it is, we can deal with it.” 

Over the drive between D.U.M.P.’s headquarters and Milo’s mansion, you laid it all out for him. You detailed your case, what exactly a shade was, the kids it was draining. You explained your spiral, your thought process, the stupid decisions you kept making. You told him, baring some of the gory bits, about the attack. The dead kid- Lasko, you reminded yourself to say his name, to remember it, for someone to remember it- how terrifying the fully formed shade was. Your injuries. 

He cried. You shook with the effort to keep your own tears in. He had earned this. He had fought tooth and nail against your self-destructive habits. He had earned the chance to let it out. 

“You’re gonna be okay?” He asked after taking a moment to collect himself. Davey Shaw’s words shook around in your head. 

Hey, Dad. Just checking in. 

Hey kiddo! It’s been a few weeks. Honestly, I was starting to get worried. 

Sorry. Work. I’ve been busy. 

But safe, right?

Yeah.

Because you promised me you would be when you took this job.

I know, Dad. I promise I can handle whatever DUMP throws at me. 

So could your mother.

Dad. 

I’m sorry. I just worry. You got her strength and tenacity, but you also got her bullheadedness. And I’m sorry to say that’s what got her killed. I worry because I know you won’t reach out for help when you need it.

Then what do you call this?

Do you need help? Kiddo, if you’re in trouble, just say the word. I will DESCEND!!

I’m fine, Dad. Just wanted to say I love you.

You locked your phone before his frantic typing could culminate into a panicked reply and pointedly ignored the insistent buzz of your phone in your coat pocket. That had been more of a tell than you’d intended, but the thought of walking into this kind of trouble without telling him made your throat close with grief. You didn’t say ‘I love you’ often, and you didn’t say it without reason. 

Your mom used to say it liberally. She said it when she woke you up for school in the morning, when tucking you into bed, when you made her laugh, when you broke her heart. She had a lot of late nights, and you never slept when she was away. You would pretend to when she snuck into your room in the wee hours of the night or morning. She would bend over you, smelling like sweat and blood and expended magic. You stayed still and silent as she pressed her thin, shaking lips to the crown of your head and whispered it into you;

“I love you, I love you, I love you…” 

Like a promise. Like a prayer. 

Your chest ached with the absence of her. 

By the time you found it again, the shade had become fully corporeal. Dahlia was a great town for it, full of powerful, magical people, and stupid, stupid college kids who would brush off its after effects as a bad hangover. 

It was actually a rather clever method, how you found it. You got access to D.A.M.N.’s clinic records through less than legal means, thanks to a friend of a friend who didn’t ask questions when fifty bucks were involved. You tracked the shade’s effects through a half dozen students, found a few of them who also folded at the offer of another fifty bucks and found out their frequent haunts. You formed a geo profile (something you’d learned in the Academy but had never had occasion to use, much less with a proper paper map and pins) and triangulated an area where the shade was most likely to be. 

Now, you had an area of about three city blocks to patrol, you were dodging non-stop calls from both your father and Jet, and you were flat broke from all of your very illegal bribes. 

You were considering becoming a private eye. If this was how effective you were with no oversight, you’d have finished this case up in a matter of days. 

Although, you weren’t actually sure how many days it had been. You weren’t exactly sleeping regularly. 

When you cornered it, it was in a little park just off of college town. It was barely a park, really, more of a very large median. It was a stretch of poorly maintained grass, a smattering of small, young trees, and exactly three benches. On one of said benches, there was a crumpled form, curled over one of the arm rests of hostile design, obscured by layers and layers of ratty clothing. When you spotted them, you cloaked without even thinking. Your magic fell over you like a blanket and smothered out a handful of the sensory indicators around you. That was the downside of cloaking, afterall. Your senses weren’t entirely stolen, just dampened. But in your line of work, that could be the difference between life and death. 

The closer you got, the more you convinced yourself that the figure was just someone trying to sleep in a dry, semi safe place. The rounded armrests that cut up the bench were designed to deter this, but something digging into you only worked so long when you were bone tired. You didn’t think it would do much to you at the moment. 

You placed one hand on their shoulder and slowly, as though not to startle them, rolled it back to reveal their face and chest. 

He wasn’t sleeping. You knew as soon as you saw his skin, dewy and gray, that he was dead. Two, ratty jackets pulled back to reveal a slim frame and a drawn, boyish face. As you disturbed him, his body let loose the torrent of blood that his crumpled rib cage was holding in. It spilled, still hot, over your shoes. 

He was young. Barely eighteen, if that. Thick glasses, dusty hair, a smattering of freckles across his nose. Everything he had on him was packed into a well-loved, bright green Jansport backpack. He was a kid, just a kid. 

He had been empowered. You didn’t know how you knew, but you did. It was some sort of absence, you thought, some emptiness where he had once been so full. Your threads strummed uneasily towards him, but found no reply. 

He looked so small, curled in on himself on that park bench. 

Your mom had looked small too. She was an exceedingly lively woman, and a fire elemental so powerful that she had struggled to contain her heat even when not impacted by her emotions. Her aura felt visible at times, tangible, like you could wrap your chubby toddler fingers around her power and pull.

It was a closed-casket funeral. The shifter that had killed her very nearly tore her apart. Your father had her buried in a white button up, slacks, something your older brother had snagged from her closet without thinking. You figured that your dad wanted it over with, wanted her in the ground. He had to identify the body. You remembered sitting in the waiting room while he went in to see her. You could hear his wails through the walls. You’d be surprised if anybody in the hospital, anybody in Dahlia, anybody in the world was saved from his screams. 

The doctors did everything medically possible, but there was only so much one could do to make such a mangled corpse look normal, look human. There were thick, medical staples stitching her demure features into another face entirely, lopsided and strange. You had stared at her in the visitation room, tearless, for half an hour before some well-meaning relative or another pulled you away. Your brother and sister had refused to look at her, your father couldn’t stop sobbing long enough to do it, but you couldn’t look away. There was something enticing about it, looking at her and trying to find all of the bits that were missing, to decipher the riddle of her glued-shut eyelids, the hollow, serene pose of her always moving, always working body. There was something powerful about her. Even her corpse held an echo of it. 

You numbly retrieved your phone from your coat pocket and found Jet’s contact. He answered on the first ring and let out a string of protests and admonishments that he must have started long before your call came through, judging by the hoarse quality of his voice. 

“I’ve got a body.” You said, reported. The Investigator overstock you, forcing out the emotion that threatened to topple you and replacing it with the familiar cadence of your crisis training. You felt for his pulse, found nothing. You sent a static shock of magic into him to see if pain or stimulus would rouse him. It did not. 

“What are you talking about?” Jet snapped. “You need-” 

“I’m in the park off Jackson.” You interrupted. “I’ve got a body. Slashed, but not a shifter.” You knew what it looked like when a shifter killed. “I need a unit out here immediately. The shade is corporeal.”

“Investigator,” Jet balked, “you are not cleared for duty. Dr. Collins is calling for a psych eval. Do not tell me you’re still working your case.” 

“Well, I don’t like to lie to superiors.” You sighed. You stood and forced yourself to turn away from the kid- the body, you reminded yourself- taking in your surroundings. It was dark. Shades could hide in the shadows nearly as well as you could. You re-upped cloak, let your magic ripple through your clothes, your phone, muffle the sound of your voice and heartbeat. “Regardless of my clearance, this thing has killed and I intend to finish my work.”

“You’re in over your head.” Jet snapped. “And if you don’t disengage and report back to HQ immediately-”

“Jet, I’m in the heart of college town right now!” you seethed through gritted teeth, “If I leave it, it’s going to cut down a dozen college students before anybody bothers to deal with it. Send backup or don’t. I’m not letting it kill anybody else.” 

You were shaking with rage or panic, which you didn’t know. You turned on your heel, towards the scant tree line, and started walking. The only evidence of you was the bloody footprints you left in the grass. 

You pulled up Milo’s contact in your phone. You typed out your dad’s phone number and sent it without allowing yourself to overthink it. 

That’s my dad’s number. If anybody happens to me, please don’t let him be the one to identify my body.