153 Dealings

I continued to watch Chad’s life through his own eyes, still sitting behind his thoughts like a shadow in his skull. I let the current of his memory carry me.

Marriage. It was beyond me, and the idea had been… hard to describe.

The venue was small. A plain room inside a civil office that smelled faintly of paint and recycled air. There were no flowers, no guests, no chatter. Only two chairs, a rectangular table, and an officiant who looked like he wanted to finish the paperwork before lunch. The silence was the loudest part.

Mindy stood beside Chad. She was small, a little pale, and her smile had a trembling to it, like she didn’t know if she deserved happiness. Her dress was white, but bought cheap. Chad wore a shirt that didn’t quite fit his shoulders. They both looked awkward, like two people borrowing a life they weren’t sure they were meant to live.

The officiant cleared his throat. “If both parties are ready, we can proceed.”

Chad squeezed her hand. “I’m ready.”

Mindy nodded. “Me too.”

He spoke the vows like he was afraid they would vanish if he hesitated. She spoke hers like she was afraid he would change his mind.

There were no pictures. No applause. No rings exchanged with sentimental stories. No parents crying in the back row. Mindy had none, and Chad had only a history he refused to speak of. The wedding was kept quiet because neither of them had anyone who could celebrate with them. The paparazzi would have had no interest anyway, but Chad still insisted it stay hidden. A private thing. A safe thing.

Everyone had their own story. Most often, it was about tragedy. Whether they admitted it or not.

The scene shifted. Time lurched.

I now saw Chad kneeling on the floor of a bedroom. A familiar blue crib stood in the corner. The walls were decorated with childish stickers of stars and smiling sheep. A soft mobile hung above, turning slowly. The atmosphere was quiet in a way that tasted wrong.

Mindy lay on the floor beside him. Her skin was pale. Her lips were blue. There was no breath left in her chest.

Chad tried to speak, but only a choked sound came out. His hands were shaking. He kept touching her cheek, her neck, her shoulder, as if warmth could return through desperate contact. Tears soaked his face. His voice cracked into something raw.

“Mindy. Mindy, please. Please wake up. I’m here. I’m right here.”

A man stood before him, holding an infant swaddled in a blue blanket. The child was crying, yet the man looked serene, almost bored.

Continuity.

He always looked the same. Hair brushed back, coat tied at the waist, and posture clean. As if the world around him was irrelevant noise.

Chad forced the words out. “Why? Why would you do this?”

Continuity adjusted his grip on the child so he wouldn’t drop him. “Mindy was a telepath,” he said. “Division Five cannot risk her existence. The Entity’s influence spreads through knowledge. Not direct exposure. Memory is enough. Description is enough. Recall is enough. Your wife’s mind was too open and too vulnerable. She would eventually break. When she broke, she would become a door. That is unacceptable.”

Chad shook his head, barely forming thoughts through grief. “We could have hidden my affiliation with the division. I could have left and cut contact with them. I could have—”

“You do not understand yourself,” Continuity replied. “Your kind does not cut ties cleanly. You chase comfort even when it destroys you. You would have returned in her embrace. Or she would have reached for you. Either way, she would have remembered you. She would have remembered us. That alone is lethal.”

Chad screamed. His rage drowned everything. He surged at Continuity with his bare hands, no technique, no stance, just raw, animal fury.

Continuity merely gestured, and Chad collapsed to the floor, clutching at his throat as blood poured between his fingers. The wound was not deep enough to kill, only deep enough to remind him that Continuity owned him.

Chad gasped and crawled. His blood painted a trail across the wooden floor. Mindy’s hand lay inches away from his own, just out of reach.

Continuity crouched beside him, voice steady. “Your son will live. We will place him in an orphanage. You will not see him again. You will continue your work for Division Five. You will forget this life. If you desire release, pursue vice. Pursue distraction. Pursue chemical warmth and rented affection. Do not pursue bonds. Bonds are the most convenient handles through which the Entity reaches inside a soul. You will not provide it that opening.”

Chad’s voice rasped through the blood. “I could have let her go. I would have—”

“You would not have,” Continuity replied. There was no judgment in it. Only fact.

The world of memory began to dissolve. Colors drained. Edges blurred. The room flattened. Everything was turning white.

The real Chad appeared before me, not quite his past self, not quite his present. Just the man as he was at his core. His eyes were hollow. Not angry. Just tired.

“Are you satisfied?” he asked. “You saw what you wanted. Now leave my body.”

I could have kept going. I could have followed his memories all the way to the present. I could have forced myself to swallow every year of numb labor, every order he followed, every life he took with dead eyes. But there was a point where witnessing another man's suffering stopped being meaningful and started turning into voyeurism. I didn’t need the rest.

This was the place to talk.

Chad and I stood in that formless white expanse, the echo of Mindy’s still body still hanging behind his expression. He wasn’t shaking. He wasn’t furious. He was just quiet.

After everything, that silence felt heavier than rage ever could.

I spoke first. “Did you pull?”

I didn’t have to clarify. He knew I meant the moment she died, not the first time he pulled, not the usual “pull.” I meant the new one.

He nodded. “Yes. But I can’t use it. There’s a mental block on it. Something… built in to keep it sealed.”

It was so traumatic for him, he couldn’t bring himself to use it.

I exhaled slowly. “Did you see my memories too?” It was a question with sharp teeth. I had opened the link intentionally. That meant he saw my past, my failures, and my face-to-face encounter with it. The Entity.

There was a risk here. If he had really seen the Entity through memory, that alone could be enough to infect him.

“If you saw the Entity,” I continued, “then there’s a chance you could be infected.”

Chad didn’t flinch. “Chances are low,” he said. “There’s… a method. A resistance. But it only works if you have someone like Continuity around you. I saw traces before. Notes. Implications. Never something direct like what I saw from you.”

His voice tightened. “I might be infected. Or I might not. I don’t know. But I want to take this chance anyway.”

So that was it.

I felt something uncomfortable tug in my chest. Almost amusement. Almost something else. The thought crossed my mind in a way that made me want to slap myself.

‘He’s an acquirable character, isn’t he?’

Even after all this time, even after everything I’d done and everything I’d lost, I still had the gall to think in terms of usefulness.

I almost laughed.

“What do you have in mind?” I asked.

Chad’s eyes met mine. There was no hesitation in them. No wavering. The kind of resolve that didn’t burn hot, but cold.

“I will join whatever scheme you are planning,” he said, “if you help me kill Continuity. And get me back to my son.”

That was it. A simple condition. A simple price.

I didn’t take long to answer.

“Deal.”

He didn’t smile. I didn’t either.

The white world peeled away like paper burning into light.

I felt my consciousness detach, unthread, and return to my own skull. The damp smell of the alley rushed back in. Cold pavement. The distant hum of traffic. My body, leaning against the wall. His body, standing near mine.

Amelia stared at Chad, confused, tense, still ready to intervene.

Chad exhaled.

“I’m going with him,” he said.

Amelia’s eyes widened. “What?”

Chad looked tired, but his voice was steady. “I’m joining hands with Eclipse.”

I glanced at my phone. A new notification slid across the screen. It was Bunny. ‘Five minutes until surveillance caught up with us.’

That meant I had five minutes to secure Amelia, avoid blowing my cover, and prevent this entire alleyway from becoming a failed recruitment and a future problem.

I thought quickly. I didn’t have the time or the leverage to convince her in any meaningful ideological sense. She had nullifier ratings. I could resist nullification, yes, but only as myself. If I went inside her, if I tried to force memories the way I did with Chad, my powers would burn out against her resistance.

So I turned to Chad first.

“See you at work tomorrow,” I said. My voice stayed calm, almost casual. “Act naturally. I will tell you how we proceed with Division Five once my plan is finished.”

Chad understood. He didn’t ask questions. There was no need. He left the alley swiftly, not once looking back at Amelia. He knew the surveillance timing too.

The Division Five was too secretive. Too insulated. Too confident in their machinery. I could not trust them. I would have to replace them. Still, the SRC’s resources were necessary for now. So I needed a path that allowed me to tear out the Division without drawing attention until the exact moment I needed the world to look.

“Explain!” Amelia shouted.

She had already dropped Tigress form, returning to her smaller frame. The fury stayed. Her voice cracked with it. “If no one gives me a satisfying answer, I will kill you!”

Her claws tensed. Her breathing sharpened.

I faced her fully.

“I will help you with your investigation,” I said. “I will expose the SRC for what they are. I will support your work as a detective. In return, I want your help to fight the Entity. You have five minutes to decide before surveillance resumes.”

She stepped forward and punched the wall near my head. Stone cracked. Dust fell. She kept her eyes locked on mine, searching for lies that couldn’t exist in my expression.

“What are you playing at?” she demanded. “Did you mind-control Chad?”

“No,” I answered. “I relived his memories. I let him relive mine. If you want, I can show you too. I’ll be gentle.”

She bared her teeth. “What are you smirking for, bastard!?” She punched the wall again. The wall groaned.

“What’s your angle here?” she hissed.

I allowed myself a small breath.

“Is it so unbelievable that I want to save the world?”

“No,” she said immediately. No hesitation.

I shrugged off my coat. Then my shirt. Her eyes widened.

“What are you doing!?”

She grabbed my throat. Her claws pressed against my skin. If I wanted, I could have let them sink in, but I didn’t. I phased my hand into her chest just enough for her to feel the presence of it resting against her heart. Not harming, only reminding.

Then I pushed her lightly against the wall so she wasn’t choking me or herself.

Her breath hitched.

The cracks along my chest were exposed, her eyes staring at them in confusion. It was pale with jagged lines tracing downward, like something inside me had fractured and my skin was the only thing holding it all together.

Her expression shifted from anger to something wary.

“Your heart is beating like crazy,” I said quietly. “Did you think I was going to kill you?”

She swallowed, her voice breaking once. “Y-you are too close.”

I leaned in, my lips near her ear. My voice stayed low, steady, a whisper she was forced to hear.

“You have no idea.”

I could have phased deeper. Could have forced the shared memory experience. Could have dragged her into the truth. But the memory of a certain vision stopped me. The strange dream of a future. The cracks growing. The Entity’s shadow. Uncertainty. Risk.

So instead, I asked.

“I need you. So please, play along with me.”

Keep her close. Keep her within reach. Control the variables by proximity. Better to have her at arm’s length than somewhere unpredictable.

Her eyes dropped to the cracks on my chest again. “What are those?”

“They started after I saw the Entity up close,” I said. “I can hide them with psychic manipulation or makeup, but they’re always there. Just by looking at it, reality breaks. Your body breaks. Your mind breaks. So tell me, Amelia. Are you still up for this?”

She stared straight into my eyes. No flinching. No retreat. Only judgment.

She finally spoke.

“Fine. I will help you. I will fight the Entity. I will expose the SRC.”

She stepped closer, invading my space with intent this time, not anger.

“But I want a condition.”

I held her gaze. “Name it.”

“You will give yourself up to the authorities,” she said. Her voice was steady. “You will confess your crimes. Your dealings with the SRC. Everything.”

I considered it for only a moment, and then I nodded.

“You got a deal.”