Grey Zone- The Apartment.
The silence always felt suffocating in the aftermath of Nyx's departure. To Darren, it felt like a cold hand sliding out from the shadows, pressing against his windpipe and stealing the very air from his lungs. It was how he felt every morning trapped in the quiet of a body that felt like a cage.
Hearing Nyx huff and puff her way in and out of the house was both funny and heartbreaking. To the world, she was a warrior, to him, she was the clumsiest girl he had ever known. Strong? Yes. But she moved through their cramped apartment like a whirlwind in a glass shop.
Darren, who was eighteen, looked sixteen at most to any outsider. His skin was pale not the translucent, glow Nyx possessed, but a sickly, indoor pallor. His hair, dark as a raven's wing, frequently fell over his bluish eyes, a striking feature that often drew double-takes from onlookers.
Though he had grown nearly as tall as his sister, he lacked her solid, athletic build. May often joked that they had switched souls in the womb, Nyx got the titan's body, and Darren got the god like mind.
To Darren, his ability was no gift. It was a liability. He was born with a physique so frail that his telepathy acted like a parasitic vine, draining his life force to power his psychic reach. It was a cruel irony Nyx, with strength beyond imagination, had never manifested a Rank, while Darren was an anomaly a high frequency mind in a low frequency vessel.
He felt the weight of her secret every day. She thought she was hiding her life at the fight club, but Darren was the smartest kid in the Grey Zone. Perhaps, if they were privileged enough to live in the Yellow or Green Zones, he would still be the smartest in the country.
Reaching into the darkest corner of his desk drawer, he pulled out a crumpled admission letter. It was an invitation to the Elite Academy in the Green Zone the "Emerald City" of the Nobles. If Nyx found out, she would take even more dangerous jobs to pay the tuition. He couldn't let that happen.
Instead, he turned to his "station" a rig of salvaged tech and hijacked signals. In the digital shadows, Darren wasn't a frail boy, he was a ghost who could breach classified files for a hefty price. But how could he explain the sudden influx of credits to a sister who thought he was just a student?
The Club- The Pit.
Downstairs, in the bowels of the club, the air was thick with the scent of old blood and cheap disinfectant. Nyx stood with her feet apart and hands behind her back, fighting a silent war against the biting pain in her right shoulder.
She listened as Dreg the club manager whose name matched his personality laid out the terms. Dreg was a man who smelled of sour tobacco and desperation, his eyes always darting around looking for a way to rig the system.
"You will have to loose your match tonight" He said casually.
Nyx stiffened. "Sir? I think I misheard you. Did you say lose?"
"The club needs money, Shadow. It hasn't been doing well lately."
Nyx clenched her fists behind her back. "I don't lose, Dreg. Everyone knows that. Last night was a fluke I was momentarily distracted. It won't happen again."
"Exactly, girl! Everyone knows you don't lose, so all the smart money is on you. But when I saw you take that hit last night... an idea came to me. If the 'Invincible Shadow' falls, the house cleans out every gambler in the Zone."
"That wouldn't be fair to the people who trust me," Nyx argued, her mind flashing to May's lecture. She was already an illegal fighter, she didn't want to be a liar, too.
"Fair?" Dreg laughed, a sound like gravel in a blender. "Here's the carrot, girl. The Higher Ups the Nobles who fund this place want you to go down. You do it, and you get a six month supply of your brother's suppressants. Clean, pharmaceutical grade. Not that black market trash you usually buy."
Nyx's breath hitched. Six months. Six months of Darren being safe. Six months of him not screaming in his sleep.
"And the stick?" she whispered.
Dreg slid a file across the table. Nyx read the number and felt the air turn to lead. If she refused, she would owe a debt that could never be paid in ten lifetimes. In the Grey Zone the 'Dead Zone' as the Nobles called it the government didn't exist. There was only the debt and the people who came to collect it.
"Okay," Nyx said, her voice sounding like it belonged to someone else. "I accept."
She walked out of the office on legs that felt like jelly. She made her way upstairs toward the coffee shop, where the twins were focused on icing a cake. Seeing their rosy, happy faces made her heart skip a beat. If she went through with this, if she became a target, would they be hurt too?
She backed away before they could see her, her own shadow stretching long and dark behind her in the morning sun.