Chapter 41 One Year Ago [Prologue][Nicole Caldwell]

March 1, 2024. Friday. 11:57 a.m.

The ringtone cut through the hum of traffic as I idled at a red light, one hand gripping the wheel, the other clutching my lukewarm coffee. When I saw the caller ID flash Markend High - Homeroom, my stomach knotted. Nick. Goddammit, what now?

I put the call on speaker. “Hello, this is Nicole Caldwell.”

A shaky female voice answered, trying and failing to sound polite. “Mrs. Caldwell, this is Mrs. Reyes, Nick’s homeroom teacher. I think you need to come to the school. There… there’s been an incident.”

I sighed, already imagining the worst. “Define incident.”

“Your son punched another student. We’re keeping them separated right now. I think… Well, I think it would be best if you could—”

“Put him on the phone,” I cut in, my tone sharper than I intended.

“Mrs. Caldwell, maybe we should—”

“No. Put. Him. On. The. Phone.”

There was static, a shuffle, then that familiar voice dripping with teenage defiance. “What.”

I gritted my teeth, counting silently to three before answering. “Nicholas, you better have a good reason for this. Tell me you didn’t just—”

The line went dead.

I stared at my phone, mouth open in disbelief. “That little shit.” The words slipped out before I could stop them, loud enough that the guy in the next lane gave me a startled glance.

I tossed the phone on the passenger seat, heat simmering in my chest. It had been four years since Nick had pulled. Four years since my son’s life flipped upside down in a blur of panic, glass, and screaming. Most kids got detention for acting out; mine would have phased through a goddamn classroom wall during a fire drill, if I didn't tell him otherwise.

Since then, I’d built walls around him, around us. I worked my ass off to keep him invisible, to make sure no one connected the dots. And to do that, I joined the SRC, the Superhuman Regulation Committee. On paper, I was just another overworked columnist at a failing newspaper firm. In reality, I was an agent, a fixer, someone who smoothed over operational kinks and cleaned up messes no one in the public was supposed to see.

The SRC was the world’s safety net, or so they claimed. They regulated everything… who could register, who could operate, and who got “retired.” They had dossiers on every cape alive and dead, and they buried secrets deeper than mass graves. The training they gave me wasn’t optional; it was a matter of survival. I learned how to mask Nick’s intangibility since then, and how to train him so he wouldn’t accidentally out himself every time he had a bad day.

Because in this world, being superhuman wasn’t some shining gift. It was a curse with a price tag.

The public didn’t trust superhumans, not even the government-sponsored capes, the Vanguard and the Watch. Oh, they smiled for cameras, posed with rescued kids, plastered their chiseled jaws on billboards with “Protect and Serve” in bold letters. But underneath the PR gloss, the fear festered. If it weren’t for the calculated narratives the SRC fed the media, if it weren’t for the backroom deals no one dared acknowledge, the divide between supers and civilians would’ve split open long ago.

And that divide? It wasn’t new. It stretched back centuries, maybe longer. History had its patterns: people with power took what they wanted, those without power bled, and when the scales tipped too far, the world burned. World War I. World War II. Both were triggered by escalating superhuman conflicts that no one likes to talk about in history books, from everyday civilians experiencing mass pulls to genocidal tyrants who practically perfected slavery.

Every war, every upheaval, traced back to the mundane 'pulling' under pressure and turning cities into graveyards.

The thought clawed at me as I turned down Birch Avenue, the late morning sun sharp in my eyes. Maybe that was why the stress had been gnawing at me, day after day, leaving me raw and brittle. I didn’t like to admit it, not even to myself, but the bottle in the kitchen cabinet had become less of a companion and more of a crutch. One drink to take the edge off. Then two. Then… well.

I tightened my grip on the steering wheel. This city, this world, was a cage, and we were all rats scrambling in the dark. The light ahead turned green, and I eased forward, my mind already rehearsing the lecture I’d give Nick when I got to the school. Then I saw him. A figure was standing in the middle of the road, like he’d been dropped there by mistake. My foot slammed the brake, tires screaming.

The car jerked hard right. Metal crunched, water burst in a white arc, my coffee spilled, and the world exploded in a roar of shattering glass and hissing spray as I hit the fire hydrant.

The airbag punched me square in the chest.

“Motherfucker… What the…”

It was blood, warm and slick, trickling down my temple and into my eye. I blinked against the sting, vision hazy, the smell of smoke and gasoline thick in the air.

That was when he appeared.

Right there, in the passenger seat, like he’d always been sitting there, like the universe had carved out a space for him. Long dark hair fell over his bare shoulders, sharp lines of muscle catching the glow of the cracked dashboard lights. His eyes… God. They were wrong. Inverted — sclera black as tar, pupils glowing white.

Crow.

The leader of the Murder of Crows. One of the three kings of Markend’s underworld.

My breath hitched, my fingers trembling against the blood-slick steering wheel. Fear crawled its way up my spine, cold and merciless. “What are you doing here?” My other hand fumbled to the glove compartment, jerking it open, finding the cold weight of my sidearm. Training took over. I raised it, aimed at his chest, and squeezed the trigger.

The bullet went straight through him.

Crow tilted his head, almost amused. “Unfortunately,” he said, his voice deep and soft, “I was never here.”

I froze, the gun clattering from my hand. My pulse spiked as I clawed at the seatbelt, nails slipping, hands numb and useless. It was like my body wasn’t my own, like my brain was screaming orders that my limbs refused to follow.

Hypnosis. Of course.

Crow was rumored to have a Hypnosis-2 rating, and despite my mental conditioning and my resistance training, I’d always known this was inevitable. I’d been face-to-face with him more times than I cared to count, always thinking I was careful, always thinking I had control.

I’d been wrong.

Considering how often I let him close, there was no telling how deep his influence had burrowed into me.

Crow leaned closer, the ghost of a smile playing on his lips. “For a woman, you sure got balls of steel. That’s why I liked you so much.”

The words burned like acid. My assignment with the SRC had been simple: infiltrate the Murder of Crows, keep tabs on their operations, and feed intel back to the Committee. And I had done that. I had seduced him, played the part, thinking I was the one in control. But in that moment, with my body betraying me, I realized I’d been a puppet all along.

His gaze didn’t waver as he said, “It took me two years of hard work to set up my pieces to deal with Royal once and for all, ensuring Pride’s massacre. How did you do it, Nicole?”

My mouth opened, but the words tangled in my throat. “I… I d-don’t know… I just reported everything I knew t-to the SRC…”

Crow’s smile sharpened, cutting through me like a blade. “You lie very well, Nicole. But you can’t lie to me. I suggest you tell me what I want to hear, or knowledge of your son’s superhuman abilities will spread across the internet by morning. You see, Pride reacted too quickly, while I walked the proper steps, avoided direct SRC interference… even interfered with your communications.”

The threat hollowed me out. My son. My Nick. The one thing I swore to protect, the reason I worked double shifts, the reason I bled for the SRC. The fear of him being found out, of being turned into a weapon or a bargaining chip, had been my nightmare for four years. I’d seen what the world did to kids like him. Both heroes and villains chewed them up and spit them out.

My voice cracked. “I’ll talk. It’s… It’s the hacker. BunnyBlade.”

His brows arched slightly. “The freelancer?”

I nodded, every muscle rigid with terror. “That’s just a front. In reality, he’s Pride’s exclusive hacker. I… I had a direct line to him, and—”

“And that’s how they learned of the trap I so meticulously prepared.”

The quiet fury in his tone was enough to make my stomach lurch. I had no illusions about my fate. No one crossed Crow and lived to tell the tale. But for Nick… I couldn’t give up. Not yet.

“My son deserves a quiet life,” I whispered, my voice trembling but steady enough to hold my plea.

Crow’s eyes softened just a fraction, a cruel mimicry of kindness. “You know me, Nicole. I am a man of my word. Information about your son’s superhuman abilities will be suppressed, hidden, covered up—”

A shaky breath of relief slipped out before I could stop it.

“—but,” Crow continued, his tone turning sharp as broken glass, “I will just reveal to the world that his mother was an SRC agent… and his father, an unregistered super. The perfect cocktail to make his life a living hell. And when the boy tilts, when life grinds him down to nothing, I’ll be there. I’ll swoop in and offer him salvation.”

My heartbeat went wild, slamming against my ribs.

“I am going to cherish him,” Crow said, leaning close, his breath ghosting against my cheek, “like my own son.”

Something inside me broke. I wanted to beg. To scream. To fight. But my body didn’t listen. Instead, my hand moved of its own accord, dragging the unopened bottle of liquor from the passenger-side compartment. My fingers fumbled with the cap, then I was drinking and gulping burning liquid searing down my throat, bitter and cruel.

Crow’s smirk was razor-thin. “This is going to be tonight’s headline: SRC agent with alcohol problems drives recklessly, dies in crash. Husband an unregistered super. Leaves delinquent son an orphan. And you know the best part?” His smile widened. “The SRC will do the cleanup for me.”

Tears blurred my vision as he began to fade, his form dissipating into nothing, leaving behind the echo of his voice and the stench of smoke. The engine hissed, then caught fire, blooming under the hood. Heat surged against my legs as I fought uselessly against the seatbelt pinning me in place. Nick’s face filled my mind. My baby. My boy.

I’m sorry, Nick.

The explosion swallowed me whole.

I wished, God, I wished, I’d been a better mother.