Lugar stood over him for another moment, then pulled the divorce papers from his jacket. He flung them down. The pages scattered across Mavis's broken body, some landing in the puddles of blood and rainwater.
"Enjoy your freedom, cousin," Lugar said, turning on his heel.
His footsteps faded, then silence. Just the rain and Mavis's ragged breathing.
The rain poured harder now, a deluge that turned the alley into a river of filth. The city lights of New Harbor became invisible.
Mavis lay sprawled in the narrow space between buildings, his shirt was torn and soaked through. His face was a mess of bruises, it was already swelling. Something was broken in his ribs, he could feel it with every shallow breath.
He tried to move but his arm responded, barely. Pain exploded through his side. He gasped and stopped, lying still again.
The laughter from the Sonar mansion still echoed in his ears. Although it was dstant, it felt ruel. He could see their faces behind his closed eyelids. Enid's smug smile, Charlotte walking away without a glance and Lugar's satisfied smirk.
His body trembled, though he couldn't tell if it was from cold or shock or pain. Probably all three.
The divorce papers clung to his chest, dissolving slowly in the rain. Three years of marriage, reduced to pulp.
Every breath felt like torture. It was sharp and stabbing. He tasted his blood pooling in his mouth. His face had gone numb and he couldn't feel his lips anymore.
"Is this how the Donard name dies?" he whispered to no one.
His vision blurred. The edges went dark, then cleared, then darkened again. He was floating between consciousness and something else. .
Images flashed behind his eyes. Memories he'd buried for ten years.
The Donard mansion engulfed in flames. Orange and red against the night sky, smoke billowing from every window. He'd seen it on the news, on his laptop in his dorm room halfway across the world. Screams echoing through the phone before the line went dead. His father's last words cutting off mid-sentence.
The attackers had been efficient. They'd taken documents, hard drives, anything of value. Then they'd burned it all. The estate, the legacy. Everything.
His parents, his little sister Cherry, and the staff. Everyone was gone in one night.
He'd survived only because he'd been studying abroad. He was safe in a classroom while his family burned.
The authorities called it a robbery gone wrong. Gang violence, they said. Wrong place, wrong time. They closed the case after six months.
Mavis had known better. Someone had targeted them specifically. But he'd been eighteen and traumatized, he was barely able to function. The panic attacks, the nightmares and the crippling fear that whoever killed his family would come for him next.
So he'd disappeared. He changed his name, worked minimum wage jobs under the table, and survived in the shadows, broken and powerless.
Then three years ago, Enid Sonar had found him somehow. She'd appeared at the warehouse where he worked, she looked immaculate in her designer clothes, and was completely out of place among the cardboard boxes.
"I know who you are," she'd said. "Mavis Donard. And I have a proposition."
She'd offered him Charlotte for marriage. A way back into society. She'd claimed it would restore his dignity, give him stability, help him rebuild what he'd lost.
Desperate and foolish, he'd believed her.
The Sonars had never intended to help him. They'd used him as entertainment. A servant they didn't have to pay. A punching bag for their cruelty. Charlotte hadn't even consummated their marriage. She wouldn't even touch him.
Three years of humiliation for nothing.
"I survived for this?" Mavis muttered bitterly.
He coughed and blood splattered onto the wet pavement, mixing with rain and dirt.
His body screamed at him to move, to crawl somewhere safe. He dragged himself forward inches, his fingernails scraping against concrete. Toward the streetlight at the mouth of the alley. Maybe someone would see him, maybe someone would call for help.
His wedding ring rolled from his pocket. The simple gold band clinked onto the ground, spinning once before settling in a puddle.
Mavis stared at it through blurred vision. That small circle of metal. The symbol of loyalty. Of hope. Of his pathetic belief that maybe, somehow, Charlotte would learn to care for him.
A curse. That's all it had been.
He laughed weakly. The sound turned into another coughing fit, as bitter tears mixed with rain on his face, though he barely noticed anymore.
"All that love," he whispered. "All that patience... wasted."
His vision dimmed. The streetlight seemed farther away now, not closer. He'd barely moved at all.
Lightning split the sky, and for a moment, the entire alley lit up in brilliant white light. But something was wrong. The edges of the flash were blue, unnaturally blue. Electric blue.
Mavis blinked. He was disoriented. Was he hallucinating now?
He looked down at himself. Blood pooled around his body, dark and spreading. His chest barely rose and fell as each breath came slower than the last. Shallower.
He was dying. He understood that now. In this alley. Alone. Just like he'd lived the past three years.
His eyes closed, as darkness took him.
Then, a distant mechanical voice that sounded faint, like it was coming from underwater.
[Scanning Host… Identified: Mavis Donard.]
Mavis's eyes wouldn't open. He couldn't move.
[Bloodline confirmed: Donard. Condition: Critical. Initiating emergency activation.]
The puddles around his body began to vibrate. Tiny ripples spread outward from his form. The water itself seemed to glow faintly.
A thin line of blue light crawled up his arm, tracing his veins. It looked like lightning captured beneath his skin.
His heart, which had nearly stopped, gave one hard thump, then another.
The blue glow intensified, spreading across his chest, down his legs, up his neck. The alley itself seemed to hum with energy. The rain falling around him bent slightly, as if repelled by an invisible force.
[RETRIBUTION SYSTEM INITIALIZING…]
The words appeared in his mind, bright and clear, even though his eyes remained closed.