Susan Veder had made it through two days without crying. She considered that a victory. A small one. Hollow.

  Still—she'd take it.

  That had lasted up until fifteen seconds ago, when that had all come crashing down like the two-tiered vanilla cake she had stayed up till 2 AM baking and frosting with the white, gold, and blue frosting Greg had seemed oddly interested in when she had asked about it.

  Like her day, the party, and her streak of emotional stability, the cake was ruined. Frosting on her shoes, chocolate smeared across the tiles, bits of plastic candles half-crushed into the linoleum like someone had stepped on a memory. One of the blue ones was still flickering, stubborn against the siren's scream. She stared at it too long.

  Long enough to feel stupid for it.

  The siren didn't stop even as she stared.

  Three tones warbled and wailed. Pause. Again.

  Her hand went to her chest before she could stop it; not panic, not yet, just that old phantom pressure, like her heart was checking to see if it still had room to beat. She hadn't heard that pattern since the drills. Not the general broadcast. This was targeted. Local.

  Brockton Bay local.

  Real.

  She turned.

  Ryan's skateboard clattered to the floor by the entryway, forgotten. Melissa was crying, somewhere behind the overturned table. Ellie Reynolds had her phone out, sobbing into it like the static could solve anything.

  The carpet soaked red under the punchbowl. Staining. That was going to set.

  "Everyone remain calm," she heard herself say, but the voice really didn't feel like it belonged to her. Too steady. Too nurse. Not mother.

  No one listened. She wouldn't have either.

  She stepped into the hallway, ducked to avoid a flying elbow as two boys shoved past her, half-yelling, half-hyperventilating. Someone knocked into her shoulder. No apology.

  Just motion.

  All motion.

  "Greg?" she said, sharper now. No response.

  Her hand fumbled over the wall by habit, fingers finding the windowsill radio they kept for blackouts and snow days. Like everything else she had done in the last half minute, it was all useless. Like her house, the channel was all static and terror.

  "Greg!"

  Nothing.

  The crowd in her living room blurred—all of them barely more than just moving shapes, and terrified noise. She saw Greg in none of them.

  "Kayden!" Her voice cracked, Susan hating the sound of it as soon as it left her lips. The other woman was by the couch, baby in her arms, diaper bag already over one shoulder half-zipped up with a look of panic on her face.

  "Susan, I'm sorry, I need to go."

  "There's room in my car-"

  "I know. I know."

  Kayden didn't slow. Her shoulder hit the frame of the door as she went through it. Baby Aster wailed, irritated by the alarm and the jostling. Susan tried not to feel that.

  Theo paused. Just long enough to twist the knife. He looked older in the panic, face set in a way that didn't belong to fifteen.

  "I'll call when we're at the shelter, Mrs. Veder," he said.

  Her hand found his arm. She squeezed it, gently. "It's fine, honey. Just get to safety." Her throat tightened halfway through the sentence. She didn't fix it. "Call when you can."

  Theo nodded once, glancing past her toward the kitchen before hurrying after Kayden.

  With a long low breath, Susan turned back to the party, the remainder of the breath left in her chest threatening to go out of control.

  It wasn't a party anymore.

  Another burst of the siren drowned them both out. Her fingers went to her phone. The hospital would be cycling staff, coordinating trauma rotations, pulling from emergency rosters. Her name would be highlighted.

  She didn't check.

  Greg first.

  She pushed past two girls crying near the stairs, murmuring apologies without stopping. Every sound in the house bent around that shrieking alarm—warped and thinned and stretched until even her thoughts felt loud.

  Where had he gone?

  He wouldn't leave without saying something. Not on today, not after all this.

  He wouldn't.

  She told herself that again.

  She passed the table—the remnants of wrapping paper, the ripped plastic from the Eidolon figure she'd spent three weeks finding. Its little stand lay tilted on its side, glittering under a pile of napkins. He'd smiled when he opened it. Really smiled.

  That had to mean something.

  She reached the front door. Open. Not wide, not dramatic. Just...open.

  The sidewalk out front was chaos. Cars pulling out of driveways in every direction. Someone's dog barking in circles. A kid from down the block running with his backpack half-zipped and sneakers untied.

  No Greg.

  Her hand went to her chest again.

  She turned back inside.

  "Has anyone seen Greg?" Her voice barely rose above the wail.

  Ellie didn't look up. The Henderson boy was half-crying, half-yelling into his phone. The house was emptying like a sink with the stopper pulled.

  Her throat closed. For a moment, she saw him at seven, locking himself in his room after his dad refused to buy him a dog. She'd had to coax him out with chocolate milk and a promise she didn't keep.

  Not now. Not this.

  She stepped back from the door as her fingers curled, tension and nerves working her way through her like slow poison. Her phone buzzed but Susan couldn't be bothered to look at it, not willing to waste even a moment.

  The siren kept going.

  Greg first.

  But where was Greg, though?

  The house emptied in waves, and Susan could feel every motion like it was pulling at the stitches of something she'd just barely kept together; sweaters unraveling one thread at a time, and her hands too full to catch any of it. Her purse was already on her shoulder. She didn't remember grabbing it. The keys were in her hand, cool metal biting into her palm, but she couldn't feel them.

  Emergency preparedness had been the one thing she could control and always did, down to the letter on everything they needed to know, have and do; drills, go-bags, updates on the fifteenth of every month, like clockwork. Not to mention the Bandaids and inhalers (just in case, she warned Greg) and extra chargers, and even laminated maps marked in yellow highlighter.

  None of it because she'd thought they'd ever use them, not really. But because Rowan had left her alone with a child and a house and a city known for monsters to go sleep with women at least ten years younger that looked nothing like her down in Florida and she needed something to do. So she'd planned, and repacked, and replanned, and Greg had rolled his eyes every single time.

  She didn't blame him for that.

  "Greg! Sp-S-Sparky!" Her voice wasn't loud enough, not over the siren, but she shouted anyway. Her throat had caught on the second name, and she had to push the rest out, almost forgetting her son's best friend who was here by himself, no parents to take him home. "Boys! We need to go! Now!"

  The front door was wide open, door almost flush with the wall as guests continued streaming out in jolts, neighbors pulling kids by the arm, voices raised in directions she couldn't follow. Someone had dropped a phone, the thing already kicked around to the point of shattered glass and broken buttons. Another knocked over the chair she'd borrowed from Ellie Reynolds. No one stopped to apologize, and Susan didn't even think it mattered in the slightest.

  "G-Greg!" Her voice cracked again this time, as she went as loud as she could manage, louder than she would ever risk in the hospital. Her chest was already tight and it tightened even further still as the siren just kept going, rhythm drilling past skin and cartilage and into the hollow between bones. "Grab your bag. Now."

  Her body moved without her permission, cutting across the living room and into the hall, her feet skidding just slightly on the tile. The hall closet door stuck, like always, and she yanked it open with more force than necessary. Her own go-bag was there, front and center. Ready. Prepped. Practiced. She pulled it free, swung it over one shoulder, adjusted the weight automatically. Keys. Phone. IDs. Meds. She ticked the list off inside her head like the cadence might stop her from throwing up.

  She didn't look at the cake, still face-down on the floor. She knew it was there. She knew she'd stayed up until two a.m. piping that frosting, and she knew Greg hadn't gotten to blow out the last three candles. There wasn't time to think about it. There was only movement.

  She passed the fridge on the way out and her eyes flicked—just for a second—to the emergency checklist magnetized to the top corner. The words didn't register so much as the shape of them. She'd written it out last year in permanent marker, bold and clear. MEDICATION. DOCUMENTS. WATER. Like the universe was a patient and she could triage it into submission.

  The siren was louder outside. She didn't know how that was possible.

  She should've put the car in the driveway. Why hadn't she put the car in the driveway? It was parked across the street, and her legs moved too slow, and her hands were shaking again.

  "I'm starting the car!" she called out. She didn't know who she was talking to. Greg. Sparky. The neighbors. God, maybe, if He was listening and wanted to do something. "We're going now!"

  She dropped the keys once. Picked them up. Dropped them again.

  The second time, she swore under her breath, quietly, voice pinched. Her hands worked fine at work. In trauma bays. In crash carts. She could thread IVs through collapsed veins with those same fingers. But here, now—she couldn't even hold on to her damn keys.

  Ten minutes to Captain's Hill if traffic held. If every other person in this half of the city didn't have the same plan. If the roads weren't already clogged. If she could get Greg in the car. If she could find him.

  She crossed back toward the front yard, gaze flicking from car to crowd, tracking movement automatically. One car reversed too fast and clipped a trash bin. Another stopped short to let someone cross, almost got rear-ended for the trouble. Mrs. Westfield had her cat under one arm and her purse clutched to her chest like it would keep her safe. Down the street, the Tanakas were halfway through buckling in their grandmother, her silver hair glinting like tinfoil in the sun.

  The clouds looked wrong. It certainly wasn't storm clouds - not normal ones at least. Not even the green-yellow cast of tornado weather. The sky moved like it was being stirred, circular and low, too fast, too smooth. She tried not to look directly at it. That kind of wrong was the kind that stayed behind your eyes.

  She turned again, ready to scream—his name, the world, anything—but stopped.

  She saw them both and she felt so many things at once, but primarily? Relief.

  In the form of a long breath that let her shoulders slump a little as her blue eyes tracked her son and his best friend, coming from the side yard. Walking. Walking.

  Sparky looked like he was ready to cry or hit something, maybe both. His mouth kept opening and closing like he was trying to say something to Greg but couldn't get it out.

  Greg was—

  As relieved as she was, Susan couldn't help the confused frown that formed on her face at the sight of her son as he took his time making his way over to her.

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  Calm. Steady.

  Standing like someone older, someone taller, someone who knew what was coming. She didn't know that walk. It was Greg's body, Greg's hair, Greg's face, but the way he moved—it didn't belong to her son. Not the boy who left his cereal bowls in the sink. Not the one who took an hour to fold laundry because he kept getting distracted.

  It was the Greg of the last couple months, not the one from this same day last year. This one didn't flinch at sirens.

  She moved without thinking, almost sprinting across the grass as if she was still on the track team, keys clutched tight again in one hand. She didn't call for him this time. No, Susan didn't waste the breath when she could just move.

  "The car's on," she said, voice almost steady, almost normal, as she stood in front of the boys seconds later. She reached for her son's arm, trying not to shake. "We're going, okay? Honey, we have to go now."

  Her little boy didn't even blink at her words.

  Or the chaos all around him.

  When she got close enough to actually grab his sleeve, he somehow reached out after her and grabbed on first—hands landing on her shoulders with deliberate care.

  His hands were steady. Hers weren't.

  "Mom, hold on," he said, and she hated the sound of that voice because it wasn't a sixteen-year-old. It wasn't a child. It was too measured. Too sure. "Just... just for a second."

  His grip was firm on her shoulders. That was the first thing she noticed, she couldn't help that. Not how cold the wind had gotten, or how loud the sirens kept wailing; all that seemed to slide past her senses except the raw knowledge that his hands had grown big. Like he'd been lifting things when she wasn't looking. Like he could pick her up if he wanted.

  And then he pulled her in. No hesitation, no awkward angle, just arms around her and a warmth that felt intentional as his heartbeat thudded against hers It wasn't fast, not even a little, but it was so firm that she doubted she could pull away even if she wanted.

  "Mom," he said. It wasn't whiny or bored or performative and far more serious than she was used to from him, the words coming from somewhere low in his chest and vibrating through her ribs. "You know you're the most important person in the world to me, right?"

  The world dipped as everything she'd thought about for months threatened to burst up as Greg spoke into her ear. This wasn't Greg, not the Greg who couldn't stop talking about that stupid anime where everyone died or who still hadn't quite figured out how to handle deodorant properly.

  "O-of course," she managed. Her throat felt dry. "Of course, sweetheart, but—"

  He cut her off, still calm. "I'm sorry. But I have to go."

  She gave a tiny laugh—nervous, brittle. It didn't even sound like her. "Yes, we all have to go. That's what the siren means, honey. The car's running. We just have to—"

  "Mom." He didn't raise his voice. He didn't need to. The way he said it made her stop mid-sentence. "I have to go."

  The air dropped a degree. Her fingers closed around his sleeves without permission. She felt the fabric bunch in her fists—the same shirt she'd ironed this morning, blue, buttoned wrong at the top like always. She stared at it too long.

  "Go where?" Her voice sounded smaller than she intended. Not soft. Just thin.

  "Greg, the shelters are—"

  He smiled. Not wide. Not smug. Gentle. Understanding. And so deeply misplaced.

  "Come on, Mom." He didn't flinch when she blinked at him. "You know. And I know you know."

  No.

  No, no, no. The words kept forming in her brain but nowhere near her mouth. The conversation was getting away from her—bending sideways. Every sentence warped. Logic frayed. The timeline slipped. She couldn't find the thread.

  He saw it. He saw the panic behind her eyes the same way he used to spot bruises on her arms after night shifts she didn't talk about. So he didn't let it fester. He went for the artery.

  "I don't want this to get more dramatic than it needs to be," he said. "So I'm just gonna say it. I'm sorry I didn't tell you. But I'm a cape."

  It landed like a bone breaking.

  No.

  She didn't say it. She just felt it. All the way through. Like her ribcage might collapse.

  Not Greg.

  But she'd known. Of course she had. She wasn't stupid. You don't raise someone, don't know their skin and bones and schedules, and miss this. Not really. Not the way he'd stopped sweating, or how he'd bulked out fast enough to split seams on last year's shirts. How he'd stopped limping when he twisted an ankle. How he hadn't gotten a nosebleed in eight months despite how he used to pop capillaries just from allergies.

  "Greg," she said, and the name came out like it hurt. "No, sweetie. No."

  She looked up at him. Really looked. He'd gotten taller. How had she missed that? Shoulders wider too. Arms lean. His face still had softness, yes, but the edges—God, the edges looked like Rowan. And the eyes… the look in his eyes… not cruel, not like his father's, but there was steel in it. More than any sixteen-year-old should carry.

  "And I can help," he said.

  Her breath left her in a single, broken exhale. "No."

  She said it too fast, too flat. Tried again. "You can't. You're sixteen. You're—"

  Mine.

  "You're my son."

  He looked at Sparky. The other boy had kept a respectful distance, but his hands were balled into fists and he wasn't blinking enough.

  "Watch her for me, yeah?" Greg said to him.

  That tone. That tone didn't at all belong to a boy's voice, not in the slightest. It belonged in soldiers. It was goodbye.

  "Gregory Veder, don't you dare—"

  She lunged. She didn't think. Her hands grabbed at his shirt, at anything. "GREG, NO! PLEASE!"

  She hadn't yelled that loud in years. Not even during the divorce. Not even when her mother died. But it was ripped out of her.

  He stepped back. Too smooth. Too easy. The shirt came off in her hands.

  She froze.

  There was nothing. No acne. No scars. No freckles. No sign of the scraped knees, the broken arm, the measles scar on his shoulder. His skin caught the last gold edge of daylight like polished glass.

  When had this happened?

  "I love you, Mom," he said, and this time it cracked her. Because it sounded like him. The old him. The boy who curled up next to her during thunderstorms and whispered stories about dragons until he passed out.

  "And I know… I know... no videogames for a month."

  Then he was moving.

  Not stepping away or turning to go—not the kind of motion a boy made, not even a fast one.

  He launched, straight up, and her brain couldn't wrap itself around the speed until the air was rushing into the space he'd left behind. His body rose past the Williamson's tree like gravity had loosened its grip on him personally, like it had decided to let him go.

  Not like gym class. Not like when he used to fake shin splints to get out of running laps, not like the time he got stuck halfway up the rope climb and blamed the shoes. This wasn't awkward or hopeful or flailing. He moved like he knew he could. Like he'd done it before. Like he'd been waiting for a reason.

  He hung there for one impossible second, suspended above her—above everything—and then dropped behind the neighbor's roofline like a rock vanishing into water. Gone.

  Until he wasn't.

  Another bound. Further this time. He arced into the sky and disappeared again, and that was it. No flash. No trail. No goodbye.

  Just gone.

  Susan's knees gave out. She didn't remember deciding to sit. Didn't remember the fall. Her body hit the pavement and she barely felt it. The noise around her—the engines, the shouts, the rolling echo of the siren—melted into something far off. Not silent, but irrelevant.

  Her fingers closed tighter around his shirt, still balled in her hand, still warm where it had clung to his back.

  Rain hit, the clouds already close to properly bursting. First in specks, then more, properly pouring down.

  She didn't notice Sparky until his hand landed, both gently and awkwardly, on her shoulder. Just a light touch, like he didn't know if she'd flinch.

  "Ms. V?" His voice cracked a little and, once again, she couldn't blame him for it. "We—we gotta move."

  She looked up at him slowly.

  "Axel," she said, and that was it. Not a question. Not a correction. Just confirmation.

  His eyes had changed. She didn't comment on that either. There was a light behind them now, a proper gold shimmer to the irises from his old amber.

  "Yeah," he said, quiet. "Me too."

  She nodded to herself, well aware that Greg had constantly mentioned hanging out with Sparky. Then, she nodded again.

  Not because it made sense, but because she couldn't think of anything else to do. The rain picked up, soaking her scrubs deep beneath the hoodie.

  "You knew," she said, and it didn't come out angry. Just tired. Just… tired in a way that started behind her ribs and pulled everything forward.

  He didn't lie and didn't bother to stall. "He made me promise."

  Of course he did. Of course Greg did. He'd always been good at that—getting people to say yes to things they didn't quite understand. Babysitters, teachers, her. It didn't matter. He didn't know where the lines were but he kept pushing past them with just enough courage to drop things if he couldn't get what he wanted.

  The Veder charm with just a little of Rowan's timing. The Veder persuasion with just enough push.

  The nurse in her reasserted itself, like it always did. Her weight shifted forward and she planted both feet like she was scrubbing in. The grief didn't vanish. It just folded itself up and moved to the back of her mind, next to the other things she'd carry around forever.

  She pulled herself up, slow, deliberate. Her joints ached. Her palms scraped. Didn't matter.

  "Come on," she said. Not sharp. Not gentle. Just enough. She touched his elbow as she turned him toward the car, the shirt still clenched in one hand. Greg's shirt. Still folded at the hem. Still warm. Still his.

  They got five steps before her feet gave way under her, hands braced on asphalt that felt like it could swallow her whole somehow.

  Sparky didn't say anything this time. He didn't ask if she was okay. He just put his hand back on her shoulder, this time with more weight behind it. He kept it there.

  "He's just like his father," she whispered. Not to Sparky. Not to herself. Just… out.

  She wasn't even sure which part she meant. The leaving. The hiding. The knowing. All of it.

  Her gaze lifted without meaning to. The rain fell harder. She couldn't tell what was from her eyes and what wasn't anymore. The storm had finally arrived. Her son was gone.

  She didn't scream.

  Didn't beg.

  Didn't say the words out loud. But she thought them. Thought them so loud they echoed. Thought them like they might bring him back if she just meant them hard enough.

  Please come back. Please come back. Please come back.

  Sparky helped her up. One step. Another. They moved like survivors. Because that's what was left.

  Behind them, Leviathan approached, and somewhere in the gathering storm, her sixteen-year-old son was running toward it.