Interlude 1.1

Content warnings: child abuse, gunshot wound, implied suicidal ideation (detail below; skip if you prefer surprises)

• A character reflects on her abusive father’s actions. He is depicted shooting her and then disowning her.

• It is implied that a character no longer has the will to live.

~.~

Morgan took a deep breath, her hand lingering on the door handle. Her back still ached, though Mateen had healed the worst of her spinal injuries, and her left arm was still in a sling to protect the broken collarbone. She was in no condition to be having this conversation, and yet...

Carlo had recognized her in the prison, which meant that other guards probably had, too. It was only a matter of time before the news reached her father.

Morgan swallowed and opened the door.

Her father was waiting at his desk, hands folded, and there was not a hint of surprise in his eyes as he looked at his daughter. He had been expecting her.

“So,” he began. “I hear you’ve been involved in… questionable activities.” Morgan gritted her teeth, schooling her expression into a neutral one.

“I was blackmailed,” she ground out.

“Yes,” her dad replied. “So I’m told.” He shuffled through the papers on his desk. “I am willing to overlook this transgression as long as you uphold our contract. One more step out of line, however, and we will have to have an… unpleasant conversation.”

His voice was clinical, detached—it reminded her of Haku. Morgan clenched her fist tighter. She was tired of this man having power over her, tired of the nights spent nursing bruises from the men her father hired to keep her in line, tired of digging bullets out of her skin in the bathroom because her father wouldn’t pay for medical care, tired of hiding her powers. Yes, Morgan was so, so tired.

A cold breeze blew through the room.

Morgan had already packed up her stuff. She’d withdrawn enough cash to last, and she’d cut every tie to her father that she could. This was the last step.

“I’m breaking the contract,” Morgan said hoarsely. Her voice came out shakier than she would have liked. That and the sling on her left arm made her feel weak, and she shrank under her father’s gaze.

“You’re nothing without me,” her father snapped. “Nothing but a freak and an embarrassment. You think you can live without me? You are nothing, and if you go through with this I will make sure you die as nothing.”

Morgan didn’t doubt it. But she was done with this life.

“That wasn’t a question,” she said coolly. “I’m leaving, whether you like it or not.”

Morgan turned to leave, and then she realized her mistake—she’d left her back wide open.

A gunshot.

At the last second, Morgan redirected the bullet with a strong gust of wind, and it landed in her left shoulder instead of her heart. She clamped her teeth around a scream of pain.

“Hmph. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t have a daughter anymore,” her father said coldly. “Don’t come crawling back to me desperately when you can’t live in the real world.” He slid his pistol back into a drawer in his desk.

“Don’t worry,” Morgan snarled, gripping her bloody shoulder with her other hand. “I won’t.” Every movement sent a wave of pain through her body, but it was either jostle her broken collarbone or leave the shoulder to bleed out.

With one last look at her father’s stupid smirk, Morgan stormed out of the room.

~.~

Peter awoke with a start. He could still feel phantom pains radiating through his shoulder, as if he’d been the one who’d gotten shot. Which, well—it wouldn’t have been a new experience for Peter. He sat up slowly, rolling his shoulder to work feeling back into the joint. As he did so, his phone started to buzz on the nightstand next to him, and Peter opened the group chat with more than a little curiosity.

Lian: oh god morgan are you all right?

Juli: you really think morgan is all right after *that*

Lian: 😢

Karyme: I think that what we just saw took place at least a couple of days ago

Rae: Shit. Does anyone know where Morgan is?

Peter put his phone down. It continued to buzz, but Peter figured it would be more of the same. It wasn’t like he wanted Morgan to die, per se, but he didn’t care enough to try and track her down in this hellscape of a city. After all, what was done was done.

Peter slid out of bed. It was early in the morning, sure, but he had a lot of work to do: bank accounts to close out, sublease papers to sign, Company executives to threaten, and then he wanted to check in on the gang he’d been a part of before the whole prison break thing. It was going to be a long day.

~.~

Lian stepped through the rift with more than a little trepidation. After the prison break, Mateen had explained that the orange crystals Haku had given them—the ones that allowed them to speak telepathically to each other—could also be used to enter the Ennead’s secret dimension at will. He’d called the place the “pocket dimension.”

Swirling rainbow fog greeted Lian as they stepped into the foyer. The colors seemed more vibrant than the last time Lian had been here, when the group had been recovering after the prison break. With one last look around, they took a deep breath and made a beeline for the infirmary.

There was no guarantee that they’d find Morgan there, but they had to try.

As it turned out, Lian didn’t even make it past the kitchen. Morgan was sitting at the dining table, cup of coffee in hand. She appeared to be reading some kind of journal.

“Morgan!” Lian called out. They jogged into the kitchen and took a seat across from Morgan. “Are you okay? This morning, we saw—”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Morgan said through gritted teeth. Lian frowned. That was fair, but bottling it up wouldn’t do much good. Still, Lian was not going to force Morgan to speak up.

“Okay.” Lian inspected Morgan’s shoulder. Her shirt wasn’t covered in blood, or anything, and Morgan looked fine, so maybe… maybe it was okay. “Whatcha reading?”

“A journal,” Morgan grunted. Lian’s frown deepened. Morgan really wasn’t one for conversation, huh.

“Have you eaten?” Lian asked. It was still early in the morning, so the answer to that question could very well be no. “I can make us pancakes! It must be hard to cook with one hand.”

“...Fine.” Morgan didn’t look up from the journal once throughout this whole exchange, but Lian didn’t take it personally. Instead, they rose to their feet, walked over to the kitchen, and started looking for ingredients.

“There’s not much here, is there?” Lian mused, pulling milk, eggs, and butter out of the fridge. Aside from those three ingredients and a container of leftover Chinese takeout, there wasn’t much else in the fridge. They rifled around the pantry next. Again, it was bare except for the exact ingredients Lian needed. Luckily, the kitchen had a wide array of dishes and cooking implements, and Lian was able to find a pan that served their purpose.

The silence stretched on as Lian started mixing the pancake batter, and they found themself humming songs from High School Musical as they worked. Pancake batter sizzled as they spooned it onto the hot pan. They had already finished making the first round of pancakes when Morgan finally spoke.

“...Did you know?” Lian almost jumped in surprise. “The Necromancer was one of them.”

“Huh?” Lian transferred the pancakes to a plate as they listened to Morgan. “What do you mean?”

“The Ennead trained him,” Morgan said thinly. “Took care of him. Raised him as one of their own. And then, after all that, he betrayed them.” Morgan’s voice was laced with thinly-veiled anger. “I don’t like these fuckers, but…” She trailed off. Lian turned off the stove.

“Where did you learn that?” Lian asked, syrup in one hand and pancakes in the other. They sat down across from Morgan. “Was that in the journal you’re reading?”

“Not this one,” Morgan said, shaking their head. “But there’s—there’s a whole set of journals out in the living room, and each one details every major event in the immortals’ lives. It’s… a lot.”

Morgan slid the journal across the table so Lian could see.

Don't know how, but the bastard fucking did it. He got to all of them: Jinal, Minerva, Kai, Silpa, Ven, Ridwan, Felix. It's just me and Mateen now. Mateen gave me xis soul so I could try to put a stop to Max's rampage. If I fail... I don't know what Max will do. That's not a timeline I have access to. I left the laptop and everything just in case he kills me, too. I hate to put such a heavy burden on Ilia, but if that's what it takes…

Lian swallowed and turned the page, but the journal was blank after that. This was the last entry—Haku’s final thoughts before The Necromancer had imprisoned the immortals for good. Lian let out a slow breath through their nose.

“Not exactly light reading material,” Morgan said wryly.

“Yeah,” Lian mumbled. They took a bite of their pancakes, but the bitter taste in their mouth made it taste like sawdust. “Speaking of Ilia… is she okay? Mateen left her in the infirmary, right?”

“She’s been unconscious since I got here,” Morgan replied. “At some point, she started glowing, and then it got dangerous for me to get too close.”

“Oh.” Lian shrugged, chalking that up to more immortal weirdness. They pushed a plate of pancakes over to Morgan. “You should eat.” Morgan made a face, but after a bit, she slowly took a bite, and then another. Lian smiled as Morgan began to eat in earnest, and then went back to their own pancake stack.

For a few minutes, the two ate in uneasy silence. Then, Morgan spoke.

“Thanks,” she mumbled. “You didn’t have to do this.” Lian rolled their eyes.

“You don’t need to keep acting like a martyr,” they said firmly. “Leave that to the immortals.” Morgan snorted.

“Yeah, okay.” The beginnings of a smile began to show on Morgan’s face. “I can do that.”

~.~

“You have wings.” Auster looked at Joshua, his mouth agape. “You—you have wings.”

“Yes,” Joshua said wryly. “I do.” It was something he’d neglected to mention in his letters to Auster for fear of scaring away his childhood friend—and also because he’d wanted to keep Auster out of harm’s way.

“Um. Right. Come in, I guess,” Auster said sheepishly. A slight flush rose in his cheeks as he stepped out of the way, allowing Joshua and Joel into his apartment. Joel bounded through the door, eyes alight with excitement as he plopped down on the couch. Joshua softly closed the door behind him.

“Hey, you’re watching the game, too?” Joel gestured towards the TV, which was playing the latest soccer match. “Who’s winning, anyway? I missed half the game on our way over here.”

“Um.” Auster seemed overwhelmed by Joel’s chatter. He shoved his hands into his sweatshirt pocket. “I think Liverpool was winning.”

“Oh, cool!” Joel busied himself with the TV, leaving Joshua and Auster standing awkwardly in the entryway.

“Thanks for letting us stay over,” Joshua said quietly, glancing over at Joel. He let his duffle bag fall off his shoulders, landing at his feet with a thud. “I know you don’t have much space, so this really means a lot.”

“No, don’t worry about it,” Auster said quickly, leading Joshua further into the apartment.

“Do you want something to drink?”

“Coffee, if you have any,” Joshua replied, pinching the bridge of his nose. He could feel a headache coming on, and he hadn’t even started looking at his work for the day. Auster nodded and walked into the kitchen to start the coffee machine. His back was to Joshua when he asked his next question.

“You don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to, but… what’s going on? You seemed really panicked over the phone, and then, when I tried to call back, it said the number was dead.”

For a second, as Joshua stared at Auster’s back, he contemplated lying to Auster. It was better to keep his childhood friend out of the bullshit concerning the immortals and the Soul Stealers. But…

Joshua swallowed. If he was going to endanger Auster with his presence, then Auster deserved to know the truth.

“Well,” Joshua said wearily. “I hope you like long stories.”

~.~

Dani groaned as she was shaken from the throes of sleep. As dreams went, it was a pleasant one, at least. Now that Dani had actually met Joshua, though, it felt weird to be dreaming about his life. It was easier when the dreams had been about strangers.

Dani was snapped out of his thoughts by the buzz of his phone. He took one look at the screen, saw that the text messages were from the group chat, and immediately tossed the device to the side. Lian had insisted that they made a group chat after the prison break, just in case, but the chat was mostly memes and messing around. And, well, Dani would have been fine with that any other day, but not today.

Dani shook her drowsiness away and hopped out of bed. She’d been putting this off far too long. Her gaze landed on the pistol sitting on her nightstand, and she frowned. Hopefully, after today, she’d never have to use the gun again.

No, that was wishful thinking. After all, very few people quit the mafia and made it out alive.

Dani would have to watch her back for the rest of her life. She glanced at her phone again, and the ghost of a smile crossed her face. At the very least, maybe she wouldn’t be watching her back alone.

~.~

I owe you an apology, perhaps more than this letter can convey. I want to make amends, if possible, and I figure the least I can do is provide an explanation of why I reached out to you last month.

Haku lifted their pen with a sigh. They had been putting off writing this letter all day, but it had to be done. Even if the mortals had heard bits and pieces of the story from the others, Haku owed it to them to tell the whole story from beginning to end.

Felix told me that you know the truth about where your power comes from. I'll be honest—gifting powers to random people was completely my idea. It was the only path I could find to a timeline where Max doesn’t force mortals into eternal servitude. Does that justify my actions? No. But hopefully it sheds some light on why we would attempt something so dangerous and stupid.

For a second, Haku wondered if this letter was an exercise in futility. They weren’t seeking forgiveness. They weren’t trying to make things right. They didn’t care if the mortals hated them. So why even write an apology letter to begin with?

And then there was the decision to blackmail you. That was wrong, regardless of how desperate I may have been. For that I can only offer my most sincere apologies, along with a promise to never repeat that particular maneuver.

Haku bit their lip. It had been a month since the prison break, but writing this letter was still every bit as painful as if the event had been yesterday. They hated exposing themself like this—hated the vulnerability. Still, it was only fair to be transparent with the people who had saved their life.

I’ll confess this much: I thought I would be able to guide you through the prison—I really did—but I overestimated my own capabilities. In reality, had I been left in captivity even a little longer, Max would have succeeded in taking my soul, and then his powers would be without limits.

Haku chanced a look in Ilia’s direction. The young woman was still unconscious, still writhing painfully in her sleep as the future vision set in. It was natural at this juncture for her to be in a coma—every single one of Karai’s chosen went into such a state as Yaran’s curse fully settled in. In fact, a month wasn’t even a particularly long time, as far as curse comas went.

If Haku owed anyone an apology, it was Ilia.

In any case, I am writing this letter to inform you that I am alive, so if you would like to come yell at me in person, you may do so at your leisure. I do owe you a reward, after all.

Sincerely,

H.M.

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