Chapter 55 Leap of Faith

I stood at the rooftop, the cold wind of Markend cutting through my hoodie, biting against my skin as if to remind me that I still had a pulse. The city stretched below, veins of neon threading through the darkness, and yet the streets seemed quieter than usual, as if the city itself sensed what I was about to do. The oxygen tank strapped to my back felt heavier than it should have, like a quiet reminder that this entire idea was more gamble than plan.

I’d thought it through from every calculation, every theory, every stupid little contingency, and yet my hands still trembled, slick with imaginary sweat that chilled under the night air. Fear sat sharp in my gut, twisting, threatening to send me back down the stairwell, pretending none of this was real. If it had been Silver’s turn instead of Onyx sleeping in the bedroom, she would have sensed it instantly, dragged me back by the collar, and given me that sharp, disappointed look that always made me feel like a child whenever she was angry.

But she wasn’t here.

I’d left a message for them. It was short, practical, and the kind of text someone reads after the fact and realizes it’s a goodbye note. If this didn’t work, they’d know I’d died doing something reckless. Or maybe stupid. Probably both.

The idea had come to me hours ago, sparked by that case file buried deep in the SRC archives, one no one but people like Mom ever really paid attention to. It detailed two intangibles interacting, like they existed in the same plane of unreality and canceled out their own impossibility. It had been dense reading, the kind of scientific theory that made my brain bleed, but the gist stuck with me: intangibility wasn’t omnipotent. It had limits.

Density. Composition. Resonance. Whatever word you wanted to call it, there was something about matter and its relationship to my power that explained why I couldn’t breathe intangible air. Why I could phase through steel without resistance, but choke to death if I stayed too long in an intangible state.

Not all intangibles worked the same way. Some burned to death because fire remained real to them. Others suffocated on poison gas that passed through me harmlessly. Every ability had rules, loopholes, and conditions no one could see unless they looked hard enough. The tech the SRC developed from the weapons, the cuffs, and the precision tools used to pin down intangibles was all designed around those unseen laws.

But this wasn’t just about theory anymore.

I adjusted the mask strapped around my mouth, tightened the valves, and exhaled once, steadying my nerves. I’d tried this before, years ago, under Mom’s supervision. Back then, the oxygen tank had been useless. When I phased, my organs, my muscles, everything biological went out of sync, and the oxygen might as well have been water in my lungs. I’d almost blacked out. Mom had screamed at me for a week.

But now… now, I was stronger and sharper.

If two intangible objects could interact, then what stopped me from phasing the oxygen with me, syncing it to the same unreal frequency as my body? What stopped me from breathing, even when I was a ghost?

I drew in a breath, went intangible, and waited.

The world shimmered around me, colors bleeding together, edges becoming meaningless. My lungs seized at first, instinct panicking at the absence of air, but then, the faint hiss of oxygen filled me, and my chest expanded. It was like drinking liquid lightning, sharp and alive, and for one moment, I thought it was working perfectly.

Then the headache hit, white-hot behind my eyes, a burst of pressure like my skull was cracking from the inside. My nose bled instantly, the copper tang sharp on my tongue.

I ripped the mask away, stumbled, and laughed, breathless and shaking. It worked. Not perfectly, not yet, but enough to know it wasn’t just some fever dream of an idea.

I stared down at the alleyway below. The drop wasn’t long enough to kill me, considering I could cancel fall damage, but that wasn’t the point.

“I know you’re watching me, Crow,” I muttered, voice steady now, even though my pulse hammered like a war drum. “Don’t worry. I won’t go that far away. Just need a little bit of… me time.”

Pulling my hood up, I stepped closer to the edge, the city yawning open beneath me like a hungry mouth.

And then, with every ounce of fear burning to adrenaline, I leapt.

Everything slowed the moment I jumped. The city above shrank away, its glow bleeding into the horizon as gravity claimed me. The air screamed past my ears, but I didn’t hear it, not really. My mind had narrowed down to the rhythm of my breathing, the hiss of the oxygen mask, and the rapid countdown echoing in my head. Five seconds. Four. Three.

Before I hit ground zero, I phased.

The world folded into silence as I sank, deeper and deeper, Markend’s streets vanishing like they’d never existed. Darkness swallowed me whole, and I let it, letting gravity drag me through bedrock, steel, and the endless strata beneath. I didn’t want Crow tracing me. No shoreline, no backtracking. Just a blind, vertical drop.

One hundred meters. Two hundred. Three. My internal count blurred into the chaotic thrum of my heart. If my math was off, if I stopped too soon or too late, this gamble would turn into a grave.

I clenched my fists, teeth grinding, and snapped off my intangibility.

The ground roared against me, a violent pressure like an invisible hand trying to crush me back to the surface. My body jerked forward, slammed upward as though spat out by the planet itself. My vision spun, but I kept breathing through the mask, each gulp of air mechanical and shallow.

Then pain hit, sharp and immediate. My ribs felt like they were cracking inward, the weight of the world compressing me from every direction. The oxygen mask hissed louder, but I couldn’t see and couldn’t orient myself. Every nerve screamed as if I’d been shoved into a steel press.

There was light. Dim at first, growing brighter until the crushing black shifted to a shimmering blue.

I didn’t even have time to process it before a sharp crack rang out behind me. My oxygen tank detonated under the pressure, the explosion muffled but terrifyingly close. Reflex took over. I phased, felt shards of metal slide harmlessly through me.

But the moment I re-materialized, the strain caught up. My intangibility flickered like a dying lightbulb and shut off completely.

And then the ocean swallowed me.

Saltwater rushed into my lungs, searing them raw. My chest convulsed as I coughed underwater, the futile reflex only dragging more liquid down. I kicked hard, clawing toward where I thought the surface was, my arms and legs flailing against a current that didn’t care if I lived or died.

No air. No light. No sound except the pounding of my heart and the dull, suffocating roar of the deep.

It was a miracle.

I broke through the surface, coughing up seawater, hacking and choking as night air burned my throat raw. The stars stretched endlessly above me, sharp pinpricks of silver in the black sky, beautiful and cruel. I gasped for air, lungs spasming, but the relief was short-lived.

The sea wasn’t calm. Waves crashed over me, dragging me under, spinning me in icy violence. Every movement hurt. My limbs felt like they were filled with wet sand, too heavy and too slow. I tried to float, to swim, but the water didn’t care.

I stared up, fighting to keep my eyes open, stars blurring together as exhaustion dragged me down.

Was this it?

I had a good run, I thought dimly, my thoughts splintering into fragments. Murderer. Ghost. Fool. At least I’d had one thing… one win. Losing my virginity before dying. Pathetic, maybe, but in that moment, it felt like a strange sort of victory.

My arms stopped listening to me. My legs, too. The cold seeped in, biting deeper than the fear, deeper than the pain.

The last thing I saw before the dark took me was the stars. Beautiful. Distant. Indifferent.

Mom… I’m going to see you soon.

I lost consciousness, followed by nothingness.

…

..

.

I woke to movement, my body swaying with a rhythmic creak and splash. My chest burned like it had been scraped raw, and each breath felt jagged, but real air filled my lungs again.

Light cut through the haze of my vision. Rough hands pressed against my chest, a wet, shaking voice mumbling something in between pushes.

My body jerked, water spilling from my throat as I coughed violently, gagging on seawater and bile.

When my eyes finally focused, I saw an older man, face creased by sun and sea, gray hair plastered wet against his weathered forehead. Relief broke across his features as he let out a ragged laugh.

“Oh, boy,” he said, voice thick, trembling between shock and relief. “Oh, boy, I thought you dead!”

I had no idea how long I’d been out. When I finally opened my eyes, the sky was blinding, sunlight stabbing into my retinas until everything turned into a blurry haze of white and gold. My throat still burned with seawater, my body stiff and weak, but at least I was alive.

The boat swayed gently beneath me, the rhythmic lapping of waves strangely calming after the chaos of the night. I pushed myself upright, my muscles protesting with sharp, angry aches. My voice cracked as I croaked out, “What… what’s the date today?”

The man at the edge of the small fishing boat didn’t even look up from the tangled nets in his hands. “March thirteen,” he said casually, the rasp in his voice carrying over the soft hiss of the surf. “Thursday.”

My mind stuttered. March 13. I’d been under for hours. My stomach twisted at the thought, but I pushed it down and focused on the next question.

“Where’s Deadend?”

That got his attention. The man’s head jerked up, his sharp brown eyes locking onto mine with a mix of disbelief and irritation. “Boy,” he said slowly, like I’d just confessed to drinking seawater for breakfast, “you crazy or just stupid? Deadend’s three islands away.”

Now that I could finally see him clearly, I realized he didn’t look as old as I first thought. Maybe late forties, early fifties at most. His hair was thick but streaked with gray, his face weathered from years at sea but sharp and alive. He studied me for a long moment, his gaze tracing over me like I was some strange catch dragged up from the depths.

“Ungrateful kid,” he muttered under his breath before straightening, his tone louder, sharper now. “So what are you, huh? Runaway cape? Looking for a second chance here at the City-States?”

I shook my head, still coughing the taste of salt from my mouth. “No. I’m neither an immigrant nor a refugee,” I said, voice rough. “And I’m not a cape.”

“The name’s John,” he said, ignoring my denial entirely as he tightened a rope around the side of the boat. Then he jabbed a finger at me, his expression unreadable. “And yes, you are. Look at yourself… the firmness in your muscles, the way you’re sitting upright after floating in open water all night without so much as a hint of hypothermia. And you’re alive.” His tone sharpened, almost accusatory. “Who even asks for Deadend first thing after waking up? Either you’re a runaway cape, a runaway slave, or better yet, a runaway slave cape.”

I winced. The words stung, though I couldn’t say why. Maybe because they hit too close to home in ways I didn’t want to admit.

“I’m not running away from anything,” I said, my voice steady even though it sounded like a lie to my own ears.

John didn’t push, just gave me a long look before moving to a storage box at the stern. He pulled out a folded bundle of clothes, worn but clean, and tossed them in my direction.

“Dry clothes,” he said simply. “Can’t have you freezing to death after all that work pulling you out.”

I caught them, my fingers clumsy against the fabric, still trembling from exhaustion. “Who are you, really?” I asked, unable to keep the edge of suspicion from my voice.

He smirked, like the question amused him. “I already told you,” he said with a shrug, his eyes drifting toward the endless stretch of ocean. “I’m John.”