I lie awake in the dark, staring at a ceiling I've memorized crack by crack.
Emma is asleep in the next room. I can hear her breathing through the thin wall—soft, uneven, comforting. Proof that at least this moment is still normal. Still safe.
My room smells like old books and clean laundry. Nothing about it feels like a battlefield.
And yet my heart won't slow down.
' If Emma is who I think she is… '
Then there's no avoiding the next thought.
' They injected her. '
Not hypothetically. Not "maybe." Vought didn't miss chances like that. In the series, Emma was dosed as a baby—tiny veins, no consent, no warning. Just a syringe and a future decided by shareholders.
Twins share a lot.
Wombs.
Blood.
Timing.
So why would they stop at one ?
The idea crawls under my skin.
That means they probably injected me too.
I sit up in bed, suddenly too aware of my own body. My hands look normal in the dark. Five fingers. No glowing veins. No twitching muscles trying to tear themselves free.
But that doesn't mean anything.
Some powers stay quiet.
Some wait.
Some bloom gently.
Others don't.
I remember the ones from the shows—the failed Supes, the children whose bodies couldn't agree with the drug. Bone where skin shouldn't be. Faces frozen in pain. Lives hidden in basements because they were "bad for the brand."
I swallow hard.
' Best case ? '
I get something subtle. Enhanced senses. Strength I can hide. Something survivable.
' Worst case ? '
I don't finish the thought.
Because the worst case isn't just about me.
If something goes wrong—if I mutate, if I lose control, if I become evidence—Vought doesn't just take me.
They take families.
They take sisters.
They erase people.
My fingers curl into the sheets.
No tests. No attention. No mistakes.
That becomes the rule.
I won't look for powers.
I won't provoke them.
I won't even hope for them.
Hope is loud. Hope gets noticed.
If something inside me wakes up, it will do so quietly—or not at all.
I lie back down, forcing my breathing to match Emma's through the wall.
Slow.
Steady.
Human.
' If I have powers, I think, they're not for glory. '
They're not for heroics.
They're not for revenge.
They're for one thing only.
' They are there to help and protect. '
She and the others
Because in this world, powers don't make you safe.
They make you valuable.
And I will do anything—anything—to make sure my sister is never treated like a product.
Even if that means becoming something terrifying in the dark…
So she never has to.