189 Deny Your Feelings
189 Deny Your Feelings
“You are starting to annoy me, Nicole.” I didn’t bother softening my tone. The words came out flat, stripped of patience, carrying the edge I’d been holding back since she showed up uninvited. I expected deflection or mockery, something familiar.
She only smiled faintly and shook her head. “You’re not going anywhere,” she said, her voice calm in a way that immediately put me on edge.
That was when I felt it. The sensation crept along my spine like cold fingertips, the unmistakable pressure of being watched from too many angles at once. I lifted my gaze and scanned the street, the rooftops, the dead space between buildings, and my breath slowed despite myself. Crows had appeared everywhere, lining the edges of the world as if they had always been there, black feathers glistening under the dim light. They watched in perfect stillness, eyes reflecting something deeper than animal instinct.
Umbrakinesis.
The realization settled in my gut like spoiled food. I didn’t remember Nicole ever recovering her powers, much less manifesting something like this. She had never wielded shadow, and this wasn’t just shadow manipulation anyway. This was Crow’s signature power, the kind that seeped into the environment rather than announcing itself.
I looked back at her, unimpressed on the surface even as my thoughts raced. “Is that supposed to scare me?” I asked, keeping my voice steady.
The annoyance hit me harder than I expected, flaring hot at the back of my head and radiating outward. It was irrational and sharp, the kind that begged for violence just to silence it. A part of me wanted to hurt her badly for provoking me like this, for dredging up things she knew I hated thinking about. Rationality forced that urge back down, reminding me that I couldn’t do that to her, no matter how much I wanted to in that moment.
Still, the question lingered. Why was she doing this now?
I reached out with my mind, slipping into the familiar mental posture that let me brush against thoughts and intent. I met resistance instantly, firm and unyielding, like pressing my palm against reinforced glass. She had blocked me cleanly, without effort, and the ease of it told me everything I needed to know. Her psychic abilities weren’t dulled or rusty. They were equal to mine.
“I’ve got an appointment with a friend,” I said after a moment, forcing the irritation out of my voice. “So you should just go.”
I stepped past her, angling toward the bike on the sidewalk. I was already calculating my route out of the area when her hand closed around mine. I phased on reflex, letting my fingers slip through her grip as if they were smoke, and kept moving without looking back.
She grabbed me again.
This time, her touch didn’t slide off. The contact sank in, heavy and grounding, emotions bleeding through the point of connection and anchoring me in place. I stopped and frowned down at her hand wrapped around mine, feeling the empathic feedback locking me into solidity.
“That shouldn’t work,” I muttered, irritation giving way to genuine confusion.
“I learned it from you,” Nicole said, her tone casual, as if she were talking about a bad habit she’d picked up.
“How?” I let my Empathy brush against her emotional state instead, searching for falsehood or hesitation. There was none. She was serious, focused, and disturbingly sincere. That realization disappointed me more than anything else she had done so far.
If she had her powers back, and to this extent, then she was active again. Back on the cape scene, back in the cycle I’d fought to kick her out of. The way she had spoken earlier, the familiarity in her voice when she mentioned the two capes I had just killed, suddenly made sense. They hadn’t been strangers to her.
“What was your relationship with them?” I asked quietly, watching her face. “The two capes I just killed.”
Her smile widened just a fraction. “Colleagues,” she answered without hesitation.
I moved before the silence could stretch. Stepping behind her leg, I swept it out from under her in one clean motion, aiming to put her down fast. She reacted instantly, clinging to my arm and shifting her weight to redirect the fall. Using my momentum, she tried to throw me over her shoulder, but I locked one leg in place and stomped down hard on the other. The counter broke her balance, and I drove her into the ground, slamming her onto her back with controlled force.
I followed her down, my knee pinning her as my fist cocked back. The jab flew straight toward her face, stopping a millimeter from her skin as the air displaced against her cheek. I held it there, close enough for her to feel the threat without crossing the line I was deliberately not crossing.
“If you’re here to kill me,” I said, my voice low and unwavering as I stared down at her, “you should give up that notion immediately, because there was no out-murdering Eclipse.”
“You don’t know that,” Nicole said quietly, her voice nearly drowned by the rain.
She reached for my hand again, not pulling this time, just holding it out as if offering something fragile rather than demanding anything from me. Her fingers closed around mine with a careful gentleness that made my chest tighten against my will. Her eyes stayed on me, wet and shining, and even though the rain hid it well enough, I felt the torment rolling off her in slow, restrained waves.
I swallowed and looked away for half a second before forcing myself to meet her gaze again. “What do you want, Nicole?” I asked, my voice low and edged with exhaustion rather than anger.
She didn’t answer right away. Her thumb brushed against my knuckles, a small motion that carried far too much familiarity. “I just wanted to confirm my feelings,” she said finally. “I needed to know if they were still real.”
I let out a bitter breath and laughed humorlessly, rain dripping from my hair onto my collar. “Wasn’t it obvious enough already?” I muttered. “I fucking hate you—”
She didn’t let me finish. Nicole pulled, her hand sliding to the back of my head with deliberate care, fingers threading into my hair as she pulled me down. Our lips met softly, not rushed, not aggressive, and the sudden intimacy stole the rest of the sentence straight out of my mouth.
I should have pushed her away. I should have said something sharp or cruel. Instead, I stayed there, frozen, and then I kissed her back without even realizing when the decision happened. Our mouths moved together slowly, and the rain faded into nothing as memories flooded my mind uninvited.
Deadend surfaced first in my mind, that broken place where everything had started. I could almost hear Silver’s voice again, teasing and warm, and see Onyx standing just behind her with that quiet, watchful smile. I remembered the first time we kissed back when we had our own place, when the future hadn’t felt like a threat. Then came the despair, sharp and suffocating, when I lost one of them, followed by the hollow devastation of losing both. I remembered wandering the lawless afterward, talking to imaginary versions of them, knowing they weren’t real and clinging to them anyway.
I pulled back just enough to breathe, my forehead resting against Nicole’s. “You shouldn’t have done that,” I said quietly, even as my hands tightened at her sides.
Her lips brushed mine again, softer this time. “You didn’t stop me,” she replied. “You never do when it actually matters.”
Something snapped and reformed inside me at the same time. The empathic bond I thought had long since broken flickered back to life, thin and red, stretching between our hearts like a fragile thread. I felt her relief, her fear, her longing all at once, and I knew she felt mine too before the connection faded again, leaving the echo behind.
Police sirens wailed suddenly in the distance, sharp and urgent, pulling me back into the present. I cursed under my breath. “We can’t stay here.”
Nicole nodded immediately. “I know.”
I wrapped my arms around her without another word and phased us together, the world dissolving into shadow before reforming in a distant back alley. Rain hit us again as reality snapped back into place. She let go of me slowly, studying my face with an unsettling certainty.
“You look like you’re about to hit me,” she said calmly.
I grabbed her and slammed her against the wall anyway, bricks biting into her back as I glared down at her. “You don’t get to do this,” I growled. “You don’t get to tear open things I buried for a reason. Why can’t you just leave me alone?”
She smirked despite the position, rainwater running down her cheek. “Then why are you shaking?” she asked softly. “You know I can’t just leave you alone, when you are such a mess.”
She kissed me again, harder this time, and whatever control I had left evaporated. I kissed her back just as violently, teeth clashing slightly, anger and want bleeding together until neither made sense on its own.
We crossed lines after that without pretending otherwise. Under the rain, half-hidden by darkness, we came together desperately, moving farther and farther away from the crime scene I had left behind. The city became a blur of shadows and wet concrete, my memorized escape routes guiding us instinctively as if my body knew exactly where to go even while my mind burned.
When we finally reached Nicole’s apartment, the door barely closed behind us before we were on each other again. Words slipped in and out between gasps and laughter, confessions muttered and half-swallowed, consent reaffirmed again and again even as things grew rougher. It wasn’t pretty or gentle, but it was honest, filled with years of suppressed emotion finally given space to exist. The empathic feedback and psychic resonance amplified everything, making every touch heavier, every reaction impossible to ignore.
Later, as the storm continued outside and the city felt impossibly far away, Nicole leaned in close, her lips brushing my ear as she smiled.
“You can still go rougher, hotshot,” she whispered.
The rest was history, or at least that was the easiest way to frame it without tearing myself apart. I was loved, and she was loved, and somewhere in the chaos of rain and guilt and memory, we loved. It felt like an irresistible drug, something warm and ruinous that slipped past every defense I had ever built. I liked to blame my power for hijacking my conscious decisions, or my lack of self-control in that moment even with my Enhancer rating keeping my mind sharp.
No excuse held up for long, though, because the truth was simpler and far more damning. I had been powerless against them.
I opened my eyes slowly and stared at the ceiling, my thoughts taking a second longer than usual to line up. I was naked, the cool air prickling against my skin as reality caught up to me. I shifted slightly and looked down, realizing the woman in my arm was naked too, both of us sprawled on the floor like we’d collapsed mid-existence.
The awkwardness hit me all at once, so overwhelming that if I could still sweat, I would have been drenched.
I rubbed my face with both hands and let out a shaky breath. I had just rocked the world with the woman I’d named after my mom, effectively cheated on my girlfriend, and probably left enough evidence behind to write a confession letter for the police. Running away from a crime scene while raising the commotion we did, probably didn’t help my case either. When I summed it all up in my head, there was only one honest conclusion.
“I’m trash,” I muttered.
“Shit,” I said louder as I stood up, the word tearing itself out of my chest. “I’m the worst fucking asshole…”
I grabbed Nicole carefully and helped her onto the sofa, pulling my suit coat from the floor to cover her as best I could. Morning light filtered in through the window, pale and unforgiving, confirming that the night was well and truly over. I glanced around the apartment and grimaced at the state we’d left it in, furniture out of place and remnants of chaos scattered everywhere.
Then I heard crying.
I froze and turned toward the sound, my heart skipping as I saw a silver-haired woman sitting beside the sofa. She wore a business suit that looked painfully familiar, her hands covering her face as she sobbed openly. “I’m so happy for you,” she cried, her voice breaking. “For both of you.”
I stared at her, my mind grinding to a halt. “Silver?” I asked hoarsely.
She looked up, tears streaking her cheeks, and smiled at me like she always had. Before I could say anything else, a loud clink came from the kitchen followed by a cheer.
“Woohoo, we won, bitch,” a voice called out.
A dark-haired woman in a biker jacket leaned against the counter, raising a bottle in mock celebration. She grinned at me with sharp familiarity. “Took you long enough.”
“Onyx,” I whispered.
Confusion washed over me in heavy waves. I remembered them dying, not once but twice. First to Crow, and then again by my own hands when I forced myself to let them go and move on. I had believed, sincerely, that I’d done it, that I’d finally moved forward. And yet there they were, alive and whole in a way that made my chest ache. Despite everything, I was glad they were back.
I shook my head slowly, pressing my fingers into my temples. “This is a hallucination, right?” I asked. “Because you’re supposed to be dead. You should both be dead.”
Silver stood and walked toward me, her expression gentle and unwavering. “It seems we were part of the power all along,” she said softly. “And now there’s no getting rid of us.” She smiled as if that was the simplest thing in the world.
Before I could respond, Onyx crossed the room, crouched in front of me, and tilted her head as she looked me over with blatant curiosity. Her eyes dropped briefly, and she hummed in amusement. “Huh,” she said. “Looks like it’s gotten bigger.”
I sighed deeply and looked away, already exhausted. “Please behave,” I said under my breath.
Classic old Onyx.
“Missed me much?” asked Onyx with a grin.
I closed my eyes and focused inward, extending my psychic senses with practiced care. The structure revealed itself quickly, threads of power looping and overlapping in a configuration I hadn’t encountered before. Silver and Onyx were no longer anchored to a single mind or body. They were tethered to both Nicole and me simultaneously, bound by empathy and memory rather than flesh. The realization sat heavy in my chest, equal parts awe and dread.
“What? Is there a problem?” asked Silver as she walked besides me.
I opened my eyes and took in the apartment properly for the first time. It looked like a storm had passed through and decided to stay, stains where they didn’t belong, furniture shifted, objects overturned and abandoned wherever gravity had claimed them.
“No, there’s no problem at all…”
I exhaled slowly and bent down, lifting Amelia carefully into my arms. She stirred but didn’t wake as I carried her to her bedroom, laying her down gently and tucking her in with a care I hadn’t expected to feel. I stood there for a moment longer than necessary, then turned away.
I pulled my suit back on and smoothed it with a controlled pulse of electrokinesis, the fabric responding obediently. It was high-tech, built to endure far worse than a night like this. I left the porcelain mask on the table and set about cleaning, moving methodically through the mess, erasing traces of chaos one by one. Silver and Onyx watched from the sidelines, silent for once.
Onyx broke it eventually, her tone far too pleased. “I gotta say, I really liked how creative you two got. I liked the way you used the spatula and the cucumber.”
Silver’s face flushed instantly, color rising all the way to her ears. “Onyx,” she hissed, mortified.
I would have been just as red if not for my Enhancer ratings keeping my emotions from boiling over completely. I kept my focus on the task at hand and said nothing.
There was too much on my mind anyway. I had always told myself I didn’t want Nicole, Silver, or Onyx back in my life. That belief had felt solid, necessary even. I wanted to preserve my memories of Silver and Onyx as they were, untouched by new pain, and protect Nicole in the only way I knew how. Distance had seemed like the only solution.
I stopped what I was doing and looked at them. “How did Nicole find me?” I asked quietly.
Silver answered without hesitation. “She started killing your assassins the day her organization requested her for a job,” she said. “The job was you.”
Onyx crossed her arms, clearly proud. “You should’ve seen her,” she added. “She’s terrifying now. She lived through your memories back when you fought the Nth Contract, before you let us go. Every fear, every strategy, every mistake.”
Silver nodded. “Her powers grew drastically then, and they kept growing after she joined Funeral Homes.”
The name settled into place like a missing puzzle piece. “So that’s what they’re called,” I muttered. “If she lived through my memories,” I continued, “then she should understand why I’m doing this.”
I picked up the porcelain mask and slid it over my face, the familiar weight grounding me instantly.
“What are you doing?” Silver asked, her voice tight.
“The right thing,” I replied.
Onyx snorted. “I’ll just wake Nicole up and let her put you in your place.”
I suppressed her with a sharp psychic command, cutting her off mid-thought. She vanished instantly, her presence snuffed out like a candle. I turned to Silver, meeting her gaze. “You have to understand.”
Her eyes glistened, hurt flashing across her face. “No,” she said softly. “I don’t.”
“I’m going to block you both from empathy,” I said, forcing the words out. “You won’t be able to find me anymore.”
I reached for the empathic bond, trying to tear it away, but it held firm, unyielding. Silver shook her head. “You want this too,” she said.
I paused at the door and looked back at her. “Tell Nicole to leave me alone,” I said before phasing through the door and into the hallway beyond. I was quietly grateful when Silver didn’t follow.
Outside, I took out my phone and stared at the screen, scrolling past a flood of missed calls. I tapped one and put it to my ear.
George answered immediately. “You missed the appointment,” he said. “We were supposed to check your power ratings.”
“Delay it,” I replied.
There was a pause. “Why?”
“I have to get rid of Funeral Homes first,” I said. By uprooting them at the source, I could deny Nicole whatever resources she thought she could use in her futile attempt to find me.