The supply run went the way supply runs always did—quiet, efficient, numb.
Dozens of trips had taught him, even when they're problems, just pretend there are no problems. Lest you be blamed for all the issues in the world.
And in the drug trade, there were always problems, just that nobody was thrilled to say anything.
Fact of the matter is—everyone steals.
Being honest was more likely to get you killed faster.
There were big stealers (parcels of weed), small stealers (grams of weed), and the bosses—they would steal just about anything, though they tended to steal from each other instead.
Edison walked beside his friends, Prime and Teevee, through aisles of stacked crates and fluorescent hum, counting boxes without really seeing them.
Their eyes drooping, breaths becoming shallow in such a way only sleep deprivation could demand.
At first, a couple of months ago, when they first got the job, Edison, Teevee, and Prime would count each and every crate, sliding covers aside just to check that what was inside was meant to be inside.
That meant rats, roaches, and the occasional snakes—well, they tended to leave the snakes alone—had to die upon discovery.
But all these months later, they had learned—nobody really cared.
The stuff inside the crates largely remained the same.
Rice.
Filters.
Canned meat.
Batteries.
Medication.
Ironically, the crates tended to have everything but drugs. Out of every ten crates, perhaps, the total sum of the drugs would fill half a crate. Which was probably why the bosses had no trouble trusting delinquent teenagers to manage the stash.
Edison was convinced the police knew about everything but simply chose to ignore it.
At least… everyone but The Chief of Police, Charlie Swann, probably knew—even called it Entrepreneur Learning.
Forks was a middle-of-nowhere with little-to-nothing kind of place so when Mr. Kentucky was subjected to pigeon poop for two consecutive days, it became a sort of ominous fable.
That counted as peak entertainment.
Still, the rhythm of work kept Edison's hands busy and his thoughts dull.
That was the point.
You didn't think about home when you were loading weight onto your back.
You thought about balance.
You thought about the pay.
You thought about a thousand small things meant to describe one larger thing.
Most days, most of his thoughts went toward not slipping.
About the way his shoulders burned in a predictable, almost comforting way.
Strangely, recurring pain, when exposed enough, was preferred to new forms of pain.
And lately, his jaw had been aching, his shoulder had the strange urge to slip out of its socket, and he felt a phantom pain in his leg despite a lack of preceding injures. And the way he saw the world was becoming clearer… simpler.
But simultaneously, the pain brought comfort.
Almost as if someone else was suffering in his place—sending the benefits to him.
Just like in toxic relationships. He thought.
Teevee and Prime joked, lightly amongst themselves.
Nothing sharp. Nothing real.
A few laughs that died as soon as they were born.
Fragile friendships could not sustain increasingly truthful jokes so balancing the relationship had become a fulltime job for Edison.
Thus, even in his friendships, he could not be completely vulnerable.
By the time they reached the neighborhood, the sky was already dimming into that washed-out blue that meant evening was close but not close enough to be immediate.
"Want to go for a drink?" Teevee posed the question.
Prime glanced at Edison, saw his unwillingness, and decided not to comment.
Alone, he could not manage Teevee and his bar-fighting tendencies, so any bouts of alcoholism which didn't include Edison was not a possibility. It was essentially asking for a beating.
"I have to head home."
Teevee and Prime shrugged.
Edison peeled off from the group with a short wave, his pack still digging into his shoulders, his body already bracing for whatever waited down the street.
He blanked out for a couple of seconds. It felt like a couple of steps but by the time he came back to his sense, he was already at the door of his house.
Strangely, it was the place he felt least at home.
Edison took a deep breath, centering his mind and soul in preparation for whatever wait behind the door—it was always something different.
The house lights were on.
That was wrong. He was usually the first at home.
His first thought was stupid and hopeful. Dad?
The man was rarely at home. Not since…
Still, hope was hard to kill—"Dad?" his voice echoed in the empty hall.
The word had all but slipped out of him as he turned the corner, quiet and automatic.
The house smelled different—sweet, unfamiliar, threaded with something anticipatory. No… it was not different as much as it was welcoming.
It was the smell of makeup, perfume, and self-care—something that had been missing from this house, from his mother, for a very long time. Years now.
But he didn't get to enjoy the moment. Didn't get to… hope.
As if, he, specifically, Edison, was disqualified from such blessings.
Shoes by the door that weren't his father's.
A jacket slung over a chair like it didn't care who noticed—it was the cheap kind, the kind neither Edison nor his father would be caught wearing.
The sound came from the bedroom.
A laugh—his mother's, but lighter than he remembered it being in years.
His heart didn't race.
It dropped.
His mind had understood something from the very first step in the door—it was a thought his body was only now accepting.
Edison moved down the hall without sound, pack sliding from his shoulders, every step careful in a way he didn't know how to name yet. He pushed the door open and saw enough in one glance to understand everything.
His mother froze, slipping back into her bathing robe with the agility of an Egyptian Mau.
The man beside her scrambled backward like he'd been burned—there was nothing for him to slip back into.
For a second, no one spoke.
"I—" his mother started, already crying.
Always crying.
He hated how much she cried. How much his father's abuse taught them that tears would solve nothing. When will she learned? He thought.
Edison closed the door behind him.
Gently.
He didn't scream. He didn't ask questions. He just moved, because movement was easier than thought.
"Back door," he said to the man, voice flat. "Now."
Once upon of time, Edison would have memorized the man's features—skin color, jawline, wrinkles or no wrinkles? But now, he knew better. It was best not to remember—his mother wouldn't.
He didn't need that guilt placed onto his shoulders.
It was ironic that those who felt the most guilt were usually the most blameless.
The man didn't argue. He pulled on his shirt, avoided Edison's eyes, all apology and cowardice wrapped in one shaking body. It was generous to call him a man—perhaps a well-defined boy would be more accurate.
Edison turned to his mother, examining her panicked breaths, crazy eyes, trembling fingers. Everything about her screamed mental instability—he had pleaded… begged for his father to send her to therapy.
The answer was always the same—it would be an embarrassment to the family.
Perhaps, the most painful part of the experience was what came next—Edison did what he had always done. What no child should have had to do from the tender age of whenever he was forced to grow up overnight.
He took gentle steps forward, falling to his knees. First, he gently reached for his mother's hands, to stop her from digging into her own skin with designer nails.
Another bit of evidence that wealth, for the mentally unstable, just hurt more.
He moved with methodical excellence, helping her straighten herself, hands careful, almost tender.
"It's okay," he said, and meant I know why.
He'd known for a long time.
"Mom, let's get you cleaned u—"
The sound of the garage door cut through the house like a blade.
Too late.
Most men might have stayed oblivious for a few minutes, but Edison's father was the kind who always assumed the worst—and reacted accordingly, even when it wasn't.
This time, though, it truly was the worst.
The back door slammed open.
Despite all his faults, Edison knew his father was an observant man—admittedly, negatively skewed in his observations, more likely to recognize the drug user rather than the beggar suffering from a mental illness that drove him to use drugs, but it was an observation nonetheless.
Thus, the moment the back door was slammed open—there was no more hiding.
It would take his father a second to take everything in, another second to come to a conclusion, and by the next second, he would—
The voice that followed was loud, raw, already burning with rage that didn't need evidence to exist, amplified by evidence that truly did exist.
The man, early twenties, immature in ways even Edison found discomforting, was having a panic attack that preceded any panic attack.
A boy. A fucking boy. Edison thought. "The window," he gestured, the last bit of kindness extinguishing from his eyes.
He could not spare his mother, nor himself, what was about to happen, but he could spare the young man who had, no doubt, been taken advantage of by a much older, more experienced, more damaged woman.
The man didn't bother to dash outside for his clothes, naked as the day he was born, the man bolted, scrambling through the bedroom window, vanishing into the yard the moment Edison's father crossed the threshold into the room.
Still, his father saw.
He didn't look at Edison.
He looked at his wife.
When his father darted forward suddenly, Edison twisted his body away, expecting a kick or a punch but he realized a second too late that he wasn't the target.
The sound of palm against cheek—heavy with the follow-through finesse of a boxing punch.
Edison's father had slapped his wife.
It would have been hard enough to knock her down if she wasn't already seated. It was the type of clap that echoed one statement—I am a thin-string away from killing you.
Her face swelled almost immediately.
Something in Edison snapped forward. "FUCKER!"
Before his father could levy another slap against his cowering mother, he threw himself between them without thinking, small body slamming into a wall of muscle and hatred.
For a couple of months now, Edison had been feeling bigger than he was—dreams painted in starlight gold made him feel whole, strong, and determined to survive.
But this was one of those exacting moments where reality collided with expectation.
His fists hit ribs, arms, anywhere he could reach. It didn't matter. He was fourteen.
All bone and fury and helpless understanding. Even though he knew it was stupid, that he would lose, his temper just demanded action.
"You treat her like shit!" Edison yelled as his father shoved him away. "You leave for weeks—months! You don't talk to her! She just wants—"
A blow caught him across the face.
Another in the stomach.
He folded, breath ripped out of him, but he kept talking because stopping meant accepting. And he could not accept—it would be like 'falling off a mountain'.
"She wants attention because you don't give her any!"
His mother broke at that.
She sobbed like something had finally been named. Like her son had reached into her chest and said the thing she'd never allowed herself to admit out loud. The thing she didn't want him to see—never wanted to see herself.
His father turned his eyes on Edison—cold, disgusted, almost relieved. "I wish you were never born," he said. "Useless. All that money wasted. You should've drowned in that well instead of your sister."
The room tilted, collapsing into silence.
His father's face contorted, as if the words had struck him too. His mother went rigid, her trembling stopping all at once.
And Edison—he remembered. He had to. He revisited the moment because he was so fractured that, to survive, he sometimes forced himself to view it with a strange, protective fondness.
He told himself he wasn't broken, even though he was. Madness flickered beneath his layers—above his ego, beneath his personality—settled deep at the core of who he was.
The well.
Stone walls slick with moss.
The echo of screaming.
His sister's hands slipping from his, her body going limp as exhaustion won.
Thirty minutes of panic and pushing and choking water, neither of them able to swim, neither of them knowing when to let go.
He hadn't let go.
She drowned anyway.
Everyone blamed him.
Then each other. Then the world.
"Arrrgh!" The sound tore out of him before language could catch up.
Edison lunged.
This time his father didn't bother restraining himself.
Edison hit the wall hard enough to see sparks. A kick drove into his stomach.
Another.
The world narrowed to pain and sound until—
The door burst open.
His friends, Teevee and Prime—they had heard the anger from a block away. They knew, even when they preferred they didn't, even when they pretended not to.
They stood there breathing hard, faces pale, having heard everything.
"Mr. Carter!" Teevee yelled, voice filled with rage.
Teevee was larger than Prime and Edison—he had tapped out his growth potential but for now, he was taller than everyone else in school except Emmet Cullen.
Prime dashed forward, giving Edison's father a shove in the chest—a shove that meant they were ready to brawl if it went that far.
His father paused, spat on the floor, and turned away.
"This family is a mistake," he said, and walked out.
Edison felt relieved for the first time in years… knowing that the façade of a good family had been stripped away, that now they would have no choice but to open their chests and display their hearts for, if not all to see, at least for each other to see.
But everything shattered in a single instant.
Hope, as it turned out, was a fickle lover.
His mother ran after him, his father.
Edison grabbed her leg, fingers digging into her dress. "Stay," he begged. "Please. We can be happy. Just us. Let him go." Those words existed in the deepest part of him. The part who knew exactly what type of man his father is.
Because… he was his father's son.
A bully at school, disgusted by the person in the mirror, wore wealth as if poverty was a disease, and a bubbling anger ready to be unleashed on anyone weaker—only his father didn't have the same restraint.
Then—his mother kicked his hands away.
Not viciously. Desperately.
Like someone drowning who couldn't see what she was climbing over to reach air. She crawled when she couldn't stand, sobbing, chasing the one thing she thought could keep her from disappearing completely.
The car was already moving when she slipped inside. The engine roared, stalled for a couple of seconds as if mother and father were debating whether to abandon their son.
Then, the decision was made with a zero-to-sixty acceleration in three seconds.
And for a moment—just a moment—something inside Edison surged.
His vision flickered. His eyes flashed red, so brief it barely registered as color.
Not heat. Not light.
A wave.
A discharge.
Charged particles rippling outward like an invisible shudder through the air.
It was barely a warp in the air—a faint distortion.
The engine sputtered a block away before resuming its journey.
That was all it took.
Consequences were not immediate—they took time to digest, and even longer to recognize.
Teevee and Prime helped Edison up, hands careful, voices asking questions he didn't answer.
When they steadied him, he shoved them away harder than he meant to.
They stumbled back more than expected.
"Scram," he said.
They hesitated.
Then they left.
Loyalty had limits. They all carried their own ruins.
Edison dragged himself upstairs alone.
He didn't notice the railing groan under his grip. Didn't notice the faint scorch of heat, the way the wood darkened beneath his palms, the perfect outline of his hands left behind like a brand.
His body ached. His chest burned. His mind was empty except for one rising, unfamiliar truth.
Something was changing.
And whatever it was—it was angry.
Little did he know, it had already demanded its first debt—and he… he had made the payment.