Gabriel slipped in through the window like a breeze—silent, light, and far too casual for someone who had just spent an hour dismantling a rogue M.A.W. swarm. His boots touched down on the carpet with barely a whisper. He dove behind the couch in one smooth motion, rolled once, and slid along the floor until he reached his bedroom door. Only after closing it behind him did he exhale.

  Gear off. Civilian mode on.

  He twirled his black cloak with a flourish, letting it fly onto the coat rack where it settled between two jackets—strategically draped so that no one would see the reinforced lining. His mask skidded across his desk with a soft clack before landing neatly in its hidden compartment. The rest of his gear disappeared into the concealed box under his bed.

  A few strands of blond hair fell into his eyes, wild from wind and speed, but it suited him. He ran a hand through it once, grabbed a loose black collared shirt, and shrugged it on. Comfortable. Light. Normal.

  He gave his room a quick glance—still too neat, too unlived-in. That would change eventually. For now, it made covering his tracks easier.

  He snagged the deck of playing cards from his desk and strolled into the living area, humming under his breath, every inch the picture of a student returning from an uneventful afternoon.

  At least, until he smelled it.

  He froze mid step.

  Smoke. Metal. That faint, cold, electric tang that clung to M.A.W. anomalies.

  He leaned forward, hands tucked behind his back, surveying the floor with exaggerated casualness. His room’s window didn’t open wide enough for him to climb through—meaning he had crossed the living room earlier, carrying traces of the fight with him.

  He clicked his tongue softly. “Oh my,” he murmured. “This certainly won’t do.”

  He stepped into the kitchen and retrieved the box of baking soda he kept on standby. Odor neutralization was an art—and one he had perfected.

  He shook the box, tapped out some into a spoon, and began sprinkling it across the carpet. A small patch here. Another near the coffee table. A longer line by the window. Then another. And another.

  Within minutes, the living room looked like it had been dusted by a confused winter storm—thin layers of white powder everywhere, uneven, messy, some piles forming miniature snowdrifts of evidence he absolutely did not want anyone to see.

  He realized—in mild horror—that he had made it worse.

  He had just started debating whether he could vacuum it all up before anyone came home when the lock on the main door clicked.

  Gabriel froze.

  She wasn’t supposed to be back this early.

  His eyes darted over the disaster zone he had created. There was no time to hide it. No time to clean it. No time to invent anything remotely convincing. He straightened slowly, spine stiffening with the doomed dignity of a man walking to his execution.

  Well, he thought bleakly. Guess I’ll just… improvise.

  The door clicked open.

  In stepped a young woman—light blond hair, neat bangs, piercing violet eyes that took in every detail with surgical precision. A tidy braid framed one side of her face, tied with a black ribbon pinned neatly into place. Her clothes were immaculate as always. Her posture perfect.

  And the moment her gaze swept over the room—and then landed on him—her expression shifted.

  Irritation. Disdain. Disbelief.

  Gabriel smiled brightly, forcing his voice into an overly cheerful register to mask the quiet panic piercing through him.

  “Hello, Alyne! You’re back early today.”

  Alyne stared, unimpressed. “What,” she asked flatly, “are you doing?”

  Gabriel beamed harder, waving the spoon like a conductor’s baton. “Why, just performing a little exorcism, of course! Haven’t you heard? This building is said to be haunted.”

  Alyne’s eye twitched. Irritation sharpened. “You made a mess over a superstition?”

  Gabriel gasped dramatically, hand to his chest. “A superstition? Alyne, please. Vengeful spirits are very real. One was haunting the furniture. I saw it last night. At three a.m.”

  Silence.

  Alyne did not blink. Did not move. Did not offer him even the mercy of exasperation. She just stared. Cool. Flat. Utterly judgmental.

  Gabriel maintained his smile. Internally, he begged the universe to let her buy the story—the more absurd it was, the less likely she’d suspect what he was really covering up.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Alyne finally exhaled sharply through her nose.

  “Clean it up.”

  Then she turned on her heel, walked to her room, and shut the door with a crisp finality that didn’t even attempt to hide her irritation.

  The apartment fell silent.

  Gabriel lingered for a moment, staring at the closed door. A faint, unwelcome twinge stirred in his chest—nothing huge, nothing dramatic, but just enough to sting.

  Alyne didn’t like him.

  Not in the way she disliked chaos in general. With her, order and logic were everything. And Gabriel… well, Gabriel was a swirling hurricane of unpredictability even on the days he wasn’t hiding vigilante activities.

  This wasn’t the first time she had walked in on one of his bizarre clean ups or strange explanations. Many of them had been damage control. But many others… had simply been him.

  He tore his eyes away from her door, pushing the thought aside. Turning back to the mess, he clapped his hands together once, lightly, as if rallying his own morale.

  “Well then,” he said softly to himself with a sigh, “time to clean up this mess.”

  ~~~

  Later that evening, Gabriel stepped out of his room, the soft click of the door barely audible over the faint sound of news chatter drifting from the living room. He had cleaned up every trace of the earlier disaster—vacuumed twice, fluffed the carpet fibers, even opened the windows to let in fresh air. The apartment looked normal again. Calm. Organized.

  It was the perfect time, he decided, to reward himself with food. Maybe pecan pie. Something sweet, warm, and comforting.

  But as he padded toward the kitchen, he noticed Alyne sitting stiffly on the couch, laptop open on her knees. The glow of the screen reflected sharply against her eyes. The news anchor’s voice murmured through the room, low and tense.

  Gabriel slowed, curiosity tugging him closer.

  He leaned subtly over the back of the couch. The broadcast replayed footage of a battle—his battle—earlier that afternoon. The Dusk Hound slicing through a swarm of M.A.W. anomalies with practiced brutality, each motion a blur of shadow and precision.

  Alyne watched with arms crossed, her expression carved into something severe.

  She clicked her tongue. “Figures. Sloppy.”

  Gabriel blinked, tilting his head. “Sloppy?” he echoed lightly. “In what way?”

  Alyne didn’t look at him. “Vigilantes show up and swing their weapons around like they’re fixing everything,” she said, voice cool and sharp. “But they never address the actual problem. They think being powerful puts them above the law.”

  Gabriel kept his tone gentle, almost teasing. “Well… if the Dusk Hound hadn’t shown up, the entire district might’ve been compromised.”

  Alyne’s gaze hardened. “Then that’s a government failure. The Sentari should’ve been deployed immediately. If the city keeps relying on vigilantes, that means our system is broken. And if vigilantes keep getting away with this, they’ll only get bolder.”

  Her fingers drummed once against the laptop casing, a sharp, restless tap that didn’t match her usual composure. Gabriel noticed—of course he noticed. She was the picture of control on most days, her emotions neatly contained behind logic and clipped phrasing. But something in the footage bothered her.

  He watched her eyes flick over the replay—frame by frame—as though she were dissecting the Dusk Hound’s movements not for flaws in technique, but for something deeper. Something personal.

  Finally, she spoke again, voice lower this time, threaded with something brittle.

  “He always shows up too late.” Her jaw tensed. “Or too early. Or in the wrong place. Vigilantes like him make a mess and leave everyone else to clean it up.”

  Gabriel raised an eyebrow, keeping his tone soft. “That’s… a very specific complaint.”

  She let out a tight breath, still not looking at him. “The Sentari have protocols. Chains of command. Accountability. Vigilantes have none of that. And he—” her voice hitched a fraction, almost imperceptibly, “—he’s the worst of them.”

  The bitterness in her words drew Gabriel in despite himself. He leaned slightly closer over the back of the couch. “You really dislike him that much?”

  Alyne’s gaze darkened, her voice folding in on itself.

  “Hate,” she corrected quietly. “I hate the Dusk Hound.”

  The words hit harder than they should have.

  Gabriel masked the sting with a pleasant smile. “Oh? That seems a bit harsh.”

  This time, Alyne did look at him. It wasn’t anger in her eyes—it was something older. Heavier. Like the memory of a wound she never allowed to heal.

  She shut her laptop with a crisp, decisive snap. The sound sliced through the room.

  “You want to know why?” she said, her voice dropping to a chilling whisper. “Because I’ll never forgive him.”

  She stood, expression shadowed in a way he had never seen before.

  “He killed my father.”

  Gabriel’s breath stilled.

  The room felt suddenly small. Too bright. Too quiet.

  Before he could form any response—any excuse, any gentle redirect—Alyne turned away, her ribbon swinging sharply behind her. She walked to her room and closed the door with a soft but decisive click.

  Gabriel stood alone in the silence, staring at the empty space Alyne had left behind. The weight of her words settled across his chest like someone had set a boulder there—quiet, immovable, suffocating.

  It took him a moment, but then the pieces fell together with painful, merciless clarity.

  Of course.

  He’d killed many people over the years—too many to count. Some missions blurred into each other, reduced to instinct and necessity. Others stuck with him in flashes, fragmented memories he tried not to touch.

  But there was always one that hurt the most.

  Selwyn Miroir.

  An English professor with a laugh that filled entire rooms, gentle humor, a habit of annotating books with ridiculous doodles in the margins. He had been patient with Gabriel’s occasional absences, never questioned the vague excuses, always saving a seat in the back row for him. Gabriel had looked forward to his classes—quiet refuge between missions.

  Then, one night, during a Dusk Hound operation, everything shattered.

  Selwyn had been infected by the M.A.W.

  Gabriel had found him half conscious, barely able to stand, the first signs of neural decay already hollowing out his eyes. The moment he showed up, Selwyn had recognized him instantly.

  And he had begged him to do what needed to be done.

  There was no going back once the M.A.W. got into someone’s mind, and Selwyn had trusted him enough to choose him at the end. But the guilt never left. If he had arrived even five minutes earlier… if he had predicted the outbreak… if he had been better—maybe there would have been a chance.

  Maybe Selwyn wouldn’t have died.

  And Alyne Miroir had been his daughter.

  He’d always thought she looked familiar. That sharp quiet. Those violet eyes. The determination etched into every line of her posture.

  She didn’t know the details. All she knew was that the Dusk Hound killed her father. So she hated him, hated the vigilante, hated the mask.

  And—Gabriel realized with a slow, sinking ache—she hated the normal him too.

  So in other words… she hates me.

  The thought lodged itself deep, sharp enough to hurt every time he breathed. He swallowed hard, a strange ache tightening his throat. The irony of it—the cruel, tragic symmetry—was so intense he almost didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry.

  Instead, he forced a bright smile onto his face, smoothed out the tension in his shoulders, and pivoted toward the kitchen with a bounce in his step.

  “Well!” he announced aloud, voice sing song and cheerful. “Time to go make some pecan pie!”

  He even hummed a little tune as he moved. But the weight didn’t lift. Not even a little.

  And as he reached for the mixing bowl with steady, practiced hands, one thought pressed heavily against the back of his mind:

  This was going to be a very long year.

  ─ ? END OF VOLUME 1 ? ─