Chapter Six
Gray
The riot stretched before Gray like the aftermath of a broken dam, crashing through New Athens’s neat streets, tearing apart anything in its path.Gray had been preparing for a moment like this his entire life, though he’d never let himself imagine what it might truly look like.He’d always believed that if he ever reached the point of unleashing, of dropping the control he’d clung to for ten relentless years, it would be in a battlefield or a lab, somewhere clinical or unseen—somewhere where the consequences fell only on him.
But instead it happened here, in the center of New Athens City, on a night full of smoke and fear, with the streets he’d sworn to protect crumbling under the weight of what Helena Pierce had orchestrated.
Fires climbed the edges of buildings like desperate hands reaching for escape.Glass glittered across the pavement as though the city had shattered its own reflection.The crowds’ movements were frantic and confused, forming and breaking patterns of aggression the way storms churned thunderheads.
Hannah remained just behind him, close enough for him to feel her presence brushing against the edges of his awareness.It was a living, breathing counterpoint to the chaos.The incomplete bond between them tugged and steadied him even before she touched him.Knowing she was there made it possible to move forward.
So he did.
He stepped calmly into the center of the riot, not rushing, not bracing, but walking with a deliberate steadiness that cut through the discord around him.People didn’t notice at first.They were too caught in their own spirals of panic and righteous fury, striking out at shadows because they needed an enemy, and Protogenus had handed them one.A rock hit his shoulder and bounced off without so much as a sting.Another grazed his jaw.He didn’t break stride.
The first gunshot was sharper than the others sounds, slicing through the air like a needle.The bullet never reached him.The electrical field rising around his body liquefied the metal before it touched him, dropping molten residue to the ground with a soft hiss.More shots followed, all dissolving in the same effortless way, until the crowd realized something was wrong.Eyes snapped toward him, expressions shifting from anger to uncertainty to fear faster than they could process any of it.
By the time he reached the heart of the square, absolute silence stretched across the nearest onlookers, a silence that rippled outward in uneven waves.
He felt their fear as tangibly as he felt the heat from the fires.A familiar, heavy pressure wrapped around his ribs and squeezed.It was nothing new.People had always feared Pollux variants.He’d spent a decade molding himself into the kind of man who wouldn’t feed that fear, who wouldn’t give them a reason to look at him the way they looked at the others.
But that version of Gray couldn’t save them now.
He drew in a slow breath, let it expand his lungs until his chest felt tight, and released the word he’d been holding back.
“Stop.”
The sound amplified through the charged air, deepening and resonating until it filled the entire boulevard with a force that made windows shiver in their frames.Those closest to him flinched.Others simply stared, frozen.
It wasn’t enough.
They needed to see what he truly was, and what he chose not to be.
So he let the power rise.
Lightning burst from his body in a vertical column that shot into the sky, so bright that several people shielded their eyes.The clouds responded instantly, gathering and swirling as though they recognized him, as though the storm remembered its favored son.Blue-white electricity arced across the heavens in long, branching streaks, turning the air sharp and luminous.
Thunder rolled through the city with enough force to rattle the bones of the closest buildings.
And for the first time in years, Gray didn’t hold the storm back.
The fear in the crowd deepened.Some backed away.Others collapsed to their knees.But none of that mattered.What mattered was that he controlled every volt.He directed it upward, not outward, refusing to let a single spark land where it could harm someone.
Then the lightning bent to his will.
He pushed the storm higher, shaping the arcs into enormous letters across the sky.It required, the kind of control only a Pollux variant with years of suppression could have developed.Sweat beaded at his temples, but he didn’t waver.
Above them, carved in crackling arcs of electric blue, the words formed:
We protect you.
The crowd gasped, a ripple of stunned energy moving through their ranks.
