Jail was easier to break out of than Vivainne had anticipated. It had something to do with the fact that they’d undone most of their security protocols, but she also believed her power was particularly suited to this sort of work. Sneaking, evading, remaining invisible.

  She phased through the walls of the prison, senses allowing her to feel her way out while her eyes could not see. Tendrils of shadow responded to her cue like her own limbs, limbs that had transformed to become the shadows that swam through solid space. They felt their way along, sensing light when they neared an open corridor, vibrating at the sound of voices. Sights, sounds, and sensations came to Vivainne a bit as if she was sensing them underwater, removed from the information coming at her.

  Light and warm wind reached her senses. She pushed in that direction, stopping midway through the wall and staring out at the gated parking lot surrounding the police department. Where to go from here?

  She could steal a police car, though that was a fair bit more flashy than she wanted to be. Her mother might be impressed, but that wasn’t the sort of attention she wanted to bring to her mother at the moment. And that might be pushing the leniency the heroes had extended toward her.

  No, she would have to make her way across town on her own. She could use the bus, but she didn’t have her phone, her wallet, an ID. Could she sneak onto the bus?

  She pushed out of the wall, landing in a puddle on the ground before slinking from shadow to shadow to maintain her cover. It was the biggest limiter of her power that she knew of. Under direct sunlight, she couldn’t maintain her shadow form, core quivering under the weight of it. And the longer she maintained it, the more unstable it grew.

  The strain set it as she escaped onto the street. At first, a mild tension where her temple would be. Then, a shakiness that set in as she pushed further, a fluttering in her power core like an old car shaking on the highway. She could only push herself for so far and for so long before the fractures in her core started to pull open and threaten the structure of her power.

  She managed to reach a dark alley before her shadow form fell apart completely, dropping to her knees as her chest heaved. Something wet coated her hands, the entire alley covered in slime. Trash littered the space, spilling over from an overly full dumpster.

  “Fuck,” Vivainne said, pushing herself to her knees. A line of drool slipped out of the corner of her mouth, and she brushed it off with the back of her hand, grimacing at the grime across her palms. That was possibly the longest she’d ever pushed herself with her power before, at least in full transformation. Especially during the day.

  Legs shaking like she’d just run a marathon, Vivainne managed to stand. With her power out of commission, at least for the moment while it recovered, she needed to find a new way to get home.

  The bus it was.

  It took a little bit of navigating for Vivainne to find a bus that would be headed in the right direction, a bit longer to figure out a way to pay for it. She hadn’t had anything on her when going into Recompense’s house except for her watch, which meant she had no money and very few opportunities.

  She would have to talk to people.

  A few conversations later, she had enough money to get on the bus and head home. Sitting at the back of the bus, sweat beading on her neck, Vivainne finally had a chance to think about what she was going to say to her mother and how she would explain away her situation.

  She touched the hair tie holding up her ponytail, ensuring herself it was still there. There was no way for the heroes to contact her, not until she got her phone back and entered the number she’d memorized, but it was a relief that they were listening.

  Could they listen while she was in shadow form?

  She would need to ask Recompense that question, whenever she saw him next.

  When would she see them next?

  The heroes had wanted to set up regular meetups, check-ins to make sure Vivainne was okay, but she needed to be sure her mother wasn’t suspicious first. The last thing she needed was someone following her to meet up with a forty year old man at a coffee shop somewhere. Either they’d think she’d been groomed, or was in contact with the law. Either assumption was a bad one.

  The bus let her off a few blocks away from her home. The bus wasn’t exactly needed where she lived, at least not normally, not when everyone had multiple cars and maybe even a helicopter or plane somewhere. While her mother tended to keep a more low profile existence, at least at their residence, she also had multiple cars. One was Viv’s, technically, though she rarely drove it. Not much of a point, since she’d finished school a few months ago and rarely left the house unless on a task.

  Walking down the street toward their house, Vivainne couldn’t help but feel woefully exposed. Her back to the open street, and blazing sunlight, and a series of gated properties in various styles on either side of the two lane road. The sidewalk was unshaded and lined with ornamental bushes, greener and healthier than any other plant life in the scorched city. Rich people were the worst.

  Vivainne’s own home was a modern monstrosity, cold compared to Recompense’s farmhouse home. It looked like what a child would make if handed a box of glass, metal, and plastic scraps. No rounded edges or sloped surfaces, only sharp angles from the perfectly square, blocky home. It perfectly matched the look Vora was known for, and her work in the tech industry. The garish statue of a robotic hand in the front yard was just tachy, though.

  The tech was a good thing, however, considering the gate was able to simply scan Vivainne’s eyes and let her through, otherwise she’d be stuck outside without a key. Her core was still too weak to activate.

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  She trudged up to the house, a pit of dread in her stomach. She ignored it, along with her still fluttering core and its raw, fractured edges, and made her way to the front door. If her mother chose not to believe her, there was absolutely nothing she could do. So she had to bet on her own deception skills, or throw in the towel now and let it be done.

  And for all that Vivainne was, she was not a quitter.

  Vivainne stopped on the front step, sucked in a deep breath, and reached for the doorknob.

  The door swung open before she could touch it, her mother appearing from the cool interior.

  Vora was nearly identical to Vivainne in many ways, to the point Vivainne suspected that was why her mother invested so much in her. Black hair, straight as a pin, pulled back from a face as narrow and pale as Vivainne’s own. A mole sat beneath her right eye, one difference between the two of them, and she was a bit heavier and curvier than Vivainne. But that difference was more a matter of childbirth than anything else. In pictures from before giving birth to Vivainne, she could have been Viv’s twin.

  Vora’s eyes went wide at the sight before her, Vivainne in scuffed up, stained clothes, dirt on her hands and a weary expression on her face she didn’t have to fake. She hadn’t slept since the day before, and no amount of caffeine could help it.

  “Vivainne?”

  “I got out,” Viv said, jumping ahead. The words came out tired, as exhausted as she felt. The past day and a half had been exhausting, and she needed a break. Needed to get inside and sleep in her own bed, and figure out the rest of it later.

  Vora reached out, taking her daughter by the arm and pulling her inside and into a one armed hug. She should have felt disgusted. Her mother was a monster, one who had done unspeakable crimes and had abused Vivainne in the process. But she was, at the end of the day, her mother, and children were supposed to be safe with their mothers. And even though she’d never been, she longed for that comfort.

  She melted into the hug, despite a lingering anxiety deep inside, waiting for it to be over and wishing at the same time the situation was different.

  Vora pulled back, taking Vivainne by the face and lifting up her chin, too firmly to be comfortable. “What happened?”

  “The security system was better than we anticipated,” Viv said, pulling from the truth as much as possible. “I set it off before I could reach the vault.”

  “You were captured?” Vora’s eyes, a stormy gray rather than the dark, near black pupils Vivainne had, narrowed.

  Vivainne nodded once, unable to pull away from eye contact with her mother. “Yes. But I got out.”

  “What did you tell them?”

  “Nothing.”

  Vora’s jaw went tight.

  “It’s hard to interrogate shadows,” Vivainne elaborated. Against her better judgment, she reached into her core and forced it together long enough to form a ribbon of shadow around her hand.

  “You remained shadow the entire time?”

  “I couldn’t let them identify me,” Vivainne said, doing her best to remain confident. She didn’t let her gaze waver, waiting for her mother to accept her statement as the truth.

  A smile crept across her mother’s face, slowly taking place of disbelief. “Good. You did good.” She released her hold on Vivainne, allowing her to take a step back. “Did you manage to find anything?”

  “Not anything I can identify,” Vivainne said honestly. Recompense’s tech was far beyond her ability to understand, considering how bizarre super-designed tech often was. Defying the laws of what should have been possible, and often unable to be dissected. She didn’t know what her mother expected to do with the supertech. She was a genius, but that didn’t mean she could stand on the same ground as a supergenius.

  “Well.” Vora turned, leaving the entryway behind and leading the way to the kitchen. Unable to do much else, Vivainne followed her. “Not ideal, but we’ll try again once they’ve given up their search for you.”

  “They never saw my face,” Vivainne lied. Easier to do, without her mother watching.

  “Considering no heroes came knocking on my door, I assumed as much,” Vora said. “You need to be more careful next time.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “We will need to try again,” Vora said.

  “We will?” That wasn’t something she’d expected. It would make her meetings with Recompense easy, but her mother would expect her to bring tech back with her, and she doubted the hero would allow that.

  “Yes. We’re close to a breakthrough, and I need more sources to study.”

  “Perhaps there’s another tech super easier to access?”

  “That’s not what my supplier asked for.”

  Vivainne shook her head. What was her mother talking about? Since when did she have a supplier, someone who would ask for tech in exchange for… what? Wasn’t Vora studying the tech herself?

  “Supplier?” Vivainne asked, trying to phrase it as nonchalantly as possible. The heroes had said she needed to get involved, but she didn’t want to make her mother suspicious.

  “Someone I did a favor for,” Vora said, brushing it aside. “He owes me, but has goals of his own. We have a deal, to get us both what we need. But perhaps it’s time for me to study that brain and power of his instead.”

  A chill washed across Vivainne, leaving her teeth chattering. She hadn’t intended to give Vora any ideas.

  Vora poured herself a drink, golden liquid into a small glass, bubbling lightly. “How do you feel after getting caught?”

  “A bit shaken up,” Viv murmured, casting her eyes down to the table. She still needed to wash her hands, alley slime covering her palms. “I thought I’d be able to slip past the defense system.”

  “What caught you?”

  She hesitated, trying to remember what Recompense had said about his security system. “I realized there was something in the walls around the safe,” she said. “Nearly invisible, yet my shadows touched it. I tried to get around it, and, well…”

  Vora nodded, humming to the words. “I see. Did it hurt you?”

  “No, I avoided it. But I couldn’t get through it. He has a way of containing people, even when phased.”

  “Interesting,” Vora said. “Yes, we definitely need a tech super. I need to understand how their powers work.”

  “Why’s that?” Maybe if she could get her mother to voice the reason, it would be enough for the heroes to launch a full investigation.

  “You know why,” Vora said, laughing and batting at her.

  “Well, yeah, I just am still kind of confused about all of it,” Viv said, trying to find a reason to get more involved. “I know you have to study a power to understand its structure, but what do you do once you figure it out?”

  “They’re all pieces in the system,” Vora said. “Every super I study gets me a step closer to understanding how power cores are structured, and what to do about it. The way the brain interacts with the core. The neural differences between humans and metas.”

  Vivainne hummed in acknowledgement, not sure what to do with the information. It pieced into what she knew about her mother, but didn’t fully explain it. Her mother’s power interacted with power cores in a way others couldn’t, and her studies were mainly focused on the brain and neuroscience. How did the two work together?

  “What can I do to help?” She needed to get involved. She needed her mother to show her more.

  Vora raised an eyebrow appraisingly. “You want to help?”

  “I failed at getting you the tech,” Vivainne said, lacing her voice with emotion as she stared down at her hands. If she could make herself tear up, that would be incredible, but she didn’t want to mess with the video-contacts she was wearing. “I want to do better.”

  A hand landing on Vivainne’s shoulder, forcing her to control a shudder. “Don’t worry, baby. You’ll have your chance again soon.”