While Kade headed home to prepare for the night's sleepover, Trent Moren sat alone in his office at Rising Tide University, one of the most prestigious institutions in the state.
He was completely still.
Anyone who happened to walk in at that moment would have been unsettled by the sight. The green usually confined to Trent's irises had spread across the whites of his eyes, flooding them entirely and stripping his gaze of anything human. He stared into empty space, unblinking, as if his attention were fixed somewhere far beyond the room around him.
His eyes were dry. They had been dry for hours. The Ala flowing through his Ori sustained the perception, but it took something in return—moisture, blinking, the small human comforts that came with normal sight. He did not feel the discomfort anymore. He had stopped feeling it years ago.
He remained like that for a long while.
Then, without warning, he jolted.
The unnatural green receded, draining back into his irises as his body relaxed into stillness once more. Trent inhaled slowly, adjusted his glasses, and sat in silence for several seconds before reaching for the notebook on his desk.
He paused.
For a moment, he looked at the photograph on the corner of the desk—Kade at twelve, grinning with a gap-toothed smile, holding a fish he'd caught on a trip Trent had almost missed. Trent's hand hovered over the notebook, then moved toward the photograph.
He stopped himself.
His fingers curled back into his palm, and he reached for the notebook instead.
"No deviations yet," he said at last, voice calm and measured. "It appears I'll need to be patient."
He began to write.
If anyone had been able to look over his shoulder, they would have been shocked to see what filled the pages. Not academic notes. Not research drafts.
But a meticulous record of Kade's day.
07:14 — Subject departs residence. Gait altered. Stride length increased by 12% without corresponding change in pace.
07:42 — Subject arrives at educational facility. Heart rate elevated during interaction with peers. Noted tension with female designated T.
12:03 — Subject demonstrates enhanced auditory sensitivity. Subject reacts to external stimulus beyond standard human range.
14:56 — Subject displays physical augmentation during mandated exercise. Coach notes improved performance. Subject deflects with false modesty.
Trent wrote without hesitation, his pen moving steadily across the page. The clinical language helped. It created distance. If he thought of Kade as "Subject," he did not have to think about what he was doing to his son.
He paused again.
Subject displays emotional stability inconsistent with trauma profile. Dual interference hypothesis remains viable.
He stared at the last line for a long moment.
Then he turned the page and continued.
Kade got home in no time.
He didn't bother taking the bus anymore. At this point, he could jog faster than its top speed without even trying.
On the way back, the world pressed in on him again. Sounds stacked over each other. Colours felt sharper, more saturated. Earlier, it had been overwhelming. This time, it wasn't. He found that if he tried really hard he could tune it out. Push unwanted noise aside. Narrow his hearing to what he wanted. Pull his focus inward until only what lay directly ahead remained clear.
He practiced without really meaning to.
So much so that he barely noticed when he reached his street.
The sight of the driveway leading to the garage snapped him out of it. His parents were home. They had left together that morning, so he wasn't sure which one had returned early.
He walked up to the front door, fished his keys out of his pocket, and let himself in.
The familiar smell of food hit him immediately. A moment later, he heard his mother humming softly in the kitchen.
Perfect timing.
He headed toward the sound and stopped just inside the doorway.
Theresa Moren stood at the stove, moving with easy familiarity. Pots simmered. Ingredients were laid out neatly. She looked exactly as she always did. Busy. Focused. Normal.
Kade stood there longer than he needed to, just watching.
After the past few days, the sight grounded him. The normalcy settled something tight in his chest. It felt warm. Steady. He didn't fully understand it yet, but one thing was clear.
No matter how strange things became, he would protect this.
The thought had barely finished forming when he spoke.
"Hey, Mum. You're home early."
She startled.
Theresa turned too quickly, the pot in her hands slipping as she spun. The contents surged upward in a dangerous arc, headed straight for her face.
Her eyes widened.
For Kade, everything slowed.
The pot left her hands and he was already moving.
One moment he stood in the doorway. The next, he was beside her, arms wrapping around her shoulders as he turned his back toward the splash. The boiling contents struck him, soaking through his clothes. The pot hit the floor with a sharp clang.
He felt the heat first.
A vast, spreading warmth against his shoulder blades, his spine, the back of his neck. His body recognized it—boiling water, this is boiling water—and braced for the corresponding signal.
He waited.
One second. Two.
The warmth remained, but the signal never came. No screaming nerves. No desperate urge to pull away. Just a distant, almost curious pressure, like someone pressing a warm hand against his back.
He felt the fabric of his shirt clinging to his skin, heavy and wet. He felt the steam rising around him. But the pain—
The pain was missing.
Kade looked down at his mother, still held securely in his arms.
"Mum, are you alright?" he asked quickly. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you."
Theresa blinked, dazed. Her eyes moved from Kade to the mess on the floor, then back up at him.
"Kade?" she said slowly. "Where did you even come from? Are you hurt? Did it get on you?"
He hesitated.
Once again, he needed an explanation that didn't exist.
Kade scratched the back of his head and forced a sheepish smile.
"I just walked in and called out to you when you slipped. Guess I got lucky and pulled us both out of the splash radius."
He shifted slightly so his back—which was soaked with the contents from the pot, but otherwise without injury—stayed out of view.
Theresa frowned. Her gaze flicked to the spill, then to his shoulder, then to his face. For a moment, something sharp moved behind her eyes—a question forming, a doubt rising to the surface.
Then it smoothed over.
Her frown vanished, replaced by blank acceptance, like someone had reached into her head and turned a page.
"Oh," she said. "You startled me. Be careful next time."
She didn't ask to see his back. Didn't insist on checking for burns. She simply accepted it and began checking herself for injuries, as if her son moving faster than the eye could track and shrugging off boiling water were perfectly ordinary.
That strange feeling crept back in.
The same unease he'd felt earlier at school. When Rex and Tina had accepted his lies without hesitation.
It wasn't relief.
It felt like watching his mother become a stranger for a moment, and knowing—knowing—that something had just reached inside her and made her smaller. Made her less able to protect him, less able to question, less able to see what was right in front of her.
Kade filed the feeling away once again and joined his mother, checking her arms and shoulders for any burns. After making sure she was truly alright, he ran upstairs to change his shirt then came back down to help her clean up the mess on the floor, grabbing a towel and mopping up the spilled contents of the pot.
His shirt was dry by the time he came back down. Not just dry—normal. No redness on his skin. No tenderness. He moved his shoulder and felt nothing but the easy rotation of a joint that had never been damaged.
He should have been grateful.
He felt something closer to grief.
Once everything was back in order, he finally brought it up.
"Hey, Mum," he said casually. "Rex and Tina want to come over for a sleepover tonight. Hope that's alright."
He already knew the answer.
Rex and Tina were the only friends he'd had his entire life. Theresa had long since stopped seeing them as just his friends and more as extended family.
Sure enough, she beamed.
"Of course they can come over," she said immediately. "It's been too long since I've seen them around here. You should invite them more often. I'll go make up two rooms for them right now and get some healthy organic snacks ready."
Kade stiffened.
This was the moment he'd been dreading.
He stepped in quickly, forcing the most genuine smile he could muster while fighting the urge to grimace at the thought of his mother's definition of organic snacks.
"You know what, Mum," he said smoothly, "why don't you handle the rooms, and I'll take care of the snacks. You know—division of labour and all that."
Theresa narrowed her eyes at him, clearly suspicious. She opened her mouth, already preparing a rebuttal.
Before she could say a word, the front door opened and closed.
Footsteps followed.
Trent appeared in the doorway.
He took in the scene at a glance. Kade and Theresa standing in the kitchen. The faint signs of a recently cleaned mess. The tension in the air.
"Hello, you two," he said evenly. "What's going on?"
Before Kade could answer, Theresa spoke up.
"Kade is having his friends over tonight, and I was about to make my special organic snacks for them."
The moment the words organic and snacks left his wife's mouth, Trent's otherwise neutral expression darkened.
He glanced at Kade.
Kade met his eyes, his own face set in a grave expression.
Trent nodded, as if coming to a decision.
"Leave the snacks to the kids," he said firmly. "I need you for something right now. Let's go."
Without waiting for a response, he gently but decisively ushered a reluctant Theresa out of the kitchen. As he did, he threw a brief look over his shoulder at Kade.
Not a warning. An assessment.
Kade raised a solemn salute.
Assistance acknowledged.
Later that night, Kade stood at the entrance of his house with an expectant look on his face.
The rooms had been made up. Proper snacks had been arranged. Everything was ready. All that was left were the guests.
He glanced down the street, already hearing the distant hum of an engine long before it came into view. A few moments later, a sleek black car pulled into the driveway, headlights washing briefly over the front of the house.
Rex was at the wheel. Tina sat beside him.
Kade smiled and stepped forward to meet them as they parked and climbed out of the car. Both were dressed casually, overnight bags slung over their shoulders. Rex grinned wide as ever, giving Kade a hearty high five. Tina leaned in for a side hug.
She was stiff again.
Kade noticed it immediately. He always did. He told himself he was respecting her privacy. He told himself a lot of things.
After a few easy greetings and Rex cracking jokes about his mum's organic snacks, they headed inside. The house was quiet. His parents had already retreated to their room for the night. His mum had wanted to come out and see Rex and Tina, but she'd held herself back, understanding that teenagers needed their space.
Kade led them upstairs.
He showed Rex his room first, then turned to guide Tina to hers. Before he could say a word, Rex spoke up.
"Actually," he said casually, "I think me and Tina can share a room."
He said it with a bright smile, glancing at her.
Kade heard Tina's heartbeat hitch.
He looked at her directly. Searched her face for something—permission, reluctance, anything that would let him object without overstepping.
She met his eyes for a moment. Too long. He saw something there that didn't fit the "crush" narrative. Exhaustion, maybe. Or a plea so quiet he couldn't hear the words, only the shape of them behind her silence.
Then Rex's hand moved to the small of her back, and the moment broke.
Tina nodded. Her expression didn't change, but something in her posture settled—resigned, familiar, practiced.
Seeing that neither of them objected, Kade didn't press it. He only gave them a look and said, "Just keep it quiet. My parents are still in the house."
Rex laughed it off, and that was that.
Kade hated how easily he gave up his own space. Hated that he'd seen something wrong and let a laugh dismiss it. Hated that his house—his mother's house—had just become another place where the rules bent around Rex's convenience.
Once everything was settled, the three of them piled into Kade's room. Video games were booted up. A movie played in the background. They talked about nothing and everything, the way they always had.
It felt easy.
Familiar.
Normal.
And Kade felt the lie of it in his teeth, in his jaw, in the way he kept smiling at jokes that weren't funny anymore.
Eventually, the hour grew late and the snacks ran out. Rex stood, stretching his arms overhead.
"Man, this has been a blast," he said. "But we should probably call it."
He gave Kade a fist bump and headed for the door. Tina lingered a second longer, seated on the edge of the bed. She looked like she wanted to say something.
Then she thought better of it.
She stood and followed Rex out without a word.
Kade wished them both goodnight and shut his door behind them. He lay back on his bed, staring up at the ceiling. With his heightened hearing, he knew he'd probably catch more than he wanted to.
He put on his headphones.
It wasn't just about privacy. It was about choosing not to know. About taking the small, cowardly comfort of ignorance and wrapping it around himself like a blanket.
The music dulled the world enough for sleep to finally take him.
After the Moren household had finally wound down for the night, the master bedroom settled into quiet. Theresa lay asleep beside Trent, her soft, rhythmic snoring filling the room. Trent waited until it evened out, until he was certain she was fully asleep.
Then he moved.
He slipped out of bed with practiced care, not a sound betraying him. Crossing the room, he reached a rack near the wall and pulled on a satin robe before stepping into the hallway. He passed the closed door to Kade's room, then continued on past the room where Rex and Tina were staying, never breaking stride.
He stopped.
For just a moment, he stood outside their door. His hand rose, hovering near the handle.
He could hear them. Not words—his hearing wasn't that precise without full focus. But he could hear the quality of the silence inside. One person breathing. One person not. The creak of bedsprings under shifting weight. The soft, deliberate sound of fabric moving against fabric.
Then a whisper. Rex's voice, low and even. A single phrase, too quiet to carry meaning through the door, but clear enough in its tone.
Not a question. A command.
Trent's jaw tightened.
He lowered his hand.
He could open the door. Could intervene. Could stop whatever was happening behind it and deal with the consequences in the morning.
But he didn't.
He walked past the door and continued down the stairs. His footsteps were heavier than necessary, but he didn't slow down. He didn't look back.
The stairs creaked faintly beneath his feet as he descended.
His study welcomed him with silence.
Once inside, Trent locked the door and moved to the large mahogany desk at the centre of the room, settling into the chair behind it. He sat there for several minutes, perfectly still, eyes closed, as if listening to something no one else could hear.
Then his eyes opened.
The green that usually rested quietly in his irises flooded outward, swallowing the whites entirely. His gaze passed through the room, through the locked door, through the roof itself, stretching far beyond the confines of the house.
It found Kade.
Trent observed him where he slept, headphones still on, chest rising and falling in steady rhythm. He noted his vitals, the subtle flow of Ala through his body, the way it circulated smoothly rather than violently.
"Still stable," Trent murmured.
His focus shifted.
His awareness brushed against the room Rex and Tina were sharing.
He saw them through the walls—not clearly, not in detail, but in posture and heat and the wrongness of their arrangement. One standing. One lower. One still, one moving with the small, repetitive motions of someone performing a task they had learned to endure.
Trent's eyes widened just a fraction.
His hands tightened on the arms of his chair.
He could go back upstairs. Could break down the door. Could stop it and damn the consequences.
Instead, he reached for a notebook.
He jotted down his observations with quick, precise movements. When he finished, he leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled.
"How will he react," Trent said quietly to himself, "when he finds out about this?"
He stared at the closed door of his study. Somewhere above, a girl he had known since she was a child was being broken in his house, and he was sitting in the dark wondering what it would do to his son.
"That will be the true test."
He closed the notebook and slid it into a concealed compartment built into the side of the desk. It was unnecessary, perhaps. No one ever entered his study uninvited.
Still, caution had long since become second nature.
Trent rose from his chair, unlocked the door, and made his way back upstairs. He passed the room where Rex and Tina were staying without slowing down. He did not look at the door.
He slipped into bed beside his wife as silently as he had left it.
Within moments, the room returned to stillness.