Chapter 686 | Being a Hero Kind of Blows

Chapter 686: 686 | Being a Hero Kind of Blows

I took the stairs down without answering, because answering would have required acknowledging that something had shifted in the math, and I was not ready to carry that number yet.

The restaurant smelled like duck and burned laminate. Grandma Lin had already removed the ruined table and replaced it with a folding card table that looked like it had been stored in the basement since the Clinton administration. She stood at the counter cutting something that was definitely not scallions, and when I passed, she pointed her knife at my boots and said something in Cantonese that made the remaining construction worker choke on his beer.

"I don’t speak Cantonese," I said.

She pointed at my boots again, then at the door, then made a walking motion with two fingers.

"I’m going," I said. "Thank you for not stabbing me with the cleaver."

The knife moved in a small circle that suggested this remained an option for future visits.

Outside, Halverson Avenue had gone gold in the late afternoon light. The old man at the barbershop was gone, his chair empty and his newspaper folded on the seat. Route 31 would be at the corner in eight minutes if the schedule held, and from there, it was Central Station, then Route 14, then the checkpoint, then the WARDEN pillar with its passive concern about my caffeine intake, and then campus.

I walked the six blocks to the bus stop and did not look toward Ninth Street.

The blue building was somewhere south of here. Dralun was walking beside a woman he had caught falling from a balcony seventeen years ago and dropped, and a little girl whose hands could melt laminate was holding two of his fingers and carrying a pink pastry box, and somewhere in the space between them was a story that had nothing to do with me.

My job was the raccoon report. My job was the lattes and the points and the nephew boots. My job was to show up, observe, document, and not get anyone killed, including myself.

The bus arrived three minutes late. The driver was not the grey-haired one who gave me hard-boiled eggs. This one did not look up from his phone as I tapped through the reader and found a seat near the back.

The crack in the vinyl pinched my thigh on the first pothole. I let it.

Central Station was crowded with commuters heading home from The Strand, their suits pressed and their shoes clean and their lives neatly compartmentalized into districts that did not touch. I transferred to Route 14 and sat in the front seat again, watching the river slide past as the bus climbed toward the checkpoint.

My phone buzzed.

Sloane: You’re coming back early.

It was not a question. The bond had probably told her the moment I stepped on the first bus, a ping in her chest that said I was moving in her direction instead of away from it.

Me: Dralun got distracted by a woman from high school and a six-year-old with heat powers. Figured I’d let him handle it.

Sloane: A woman from high school?

Me: Long story. Involves a prom, a balcony, and a lot of egg tarts.

Sloane: That’s not a story, that’s a riddle.

Me: I’ll explain at dinner.

Sloane: You’re buying dinner.

Me: I’m always buying dinner.

Sloane: Good. You’re learning.

The checkpoint Heroes waved me through without scanning. The WARDEN pillar noted my return in its flat, mechanical tone and suggested I hydrate, which I ignored because the pillar had been suggesting I hydrate since I moved in and I had never once taken its advice.

The walk from the gate to the dorms took seven minutes, and by the time I pushed through the common room door, the sun had dropped behind the Athena Wing and the shadows were long across the modular couch, stretching toward the vending machines in the corner.

Nobody was in the common room. Caden’s door was closed, which meant he was either sleeping or editing video or doing both simultaneously, a talent he had demonstrated multiple times and refused to explain. Percy’s door was open a crack, and I could see the glow of his laptop and hear him muttering to himself about pattern recognition thresholds in a tone that suggested he was winning an argument with his own brain.

I took the stairs to my floor and unlocked Room 205.

The photograph was still face-down on my desk where I had left it this morning.

I left it that way.

The shower ran hot for eleven minutes, which was four minutes longer than the dorm guidelines recommended and exactly as long as I needed to stop thinking about garter straps and the way a kitchen table had burned in a pattern my Spectral Reach should not have been able to produce.

I stood there, letting the water run down my back, trying to process the gold residue that had appeared on a picture frame that had been sitting untouched on a shelf in the Fitzgerald estate for nine years.

The water pressure was decent. The temperature held steady, consistent and reliable in the way all Halloran infrastructure was designed to be.

Neither of those things were helping me untangle the knot of questions forming in my head, so I stayed under the spray until the eleven minutes elapsed and the hot water began its inevitable slide toward lukewarm.

When I finally stepped out, dried off, and pulled on a clean shirt and sweatpants, my phone screen lit up with three notifications.

The first was from Diane. A single text confirming the gala date and reminding me that formal attire was required, non-negotiable, and that she had already gone ahead and scheduled a fitting appointment for both me and Sloane next week. The message ended with a honey that somehow carried the exact weight of an order disguised as a suggestion.

The second was from Felicity. A single pink heart emoji, followed immediately by a knife emoji, followed by a question mark. I stared at it for a second, ran the translation protocol, and interpreted it as her checking whether I had survived the day intact and whether I was available to be threatened affectionately at some point in the near future.

The third was from a number I did not recognize but had saved to contacts two nights ago.

Lamia: midnight. same roof. there’s a music box that belongs to a kid whose mom pawned it for groceries. you in?

I stared at the message for about thirty seconds.

Being a hero kind of blows.