Chapter 13: Love, Lies, and Shadows
POV: Ben
Three days after the Believe Expo, Ben's phone won't stop buzzing with the particular urgency that comes from people who care about you discovering you're becoming something they can't recognize.
Maya's texts arrive in clusters—emotional fragments that paint pictures of empathic overload and growing concern. Need to talk. Something happened at the expo. Can you come over? Sarah's messages carry medical precision mixed with personal worry: Your injuries are healing too fast. We need to discuss your concerning behavior patterns. Even Hughie checks in with the awkward care of someone who's learned that surviving chaos creates bonds whether you want them or not.
Ben sits on his apartment's fire escape, watching Popclaw's shadow make obscene gestures through his peripheral vision while trying to decide which crisis requires immediate attention and which can be postponed until he figures out how to explain the unexplainable.
"All falling apart at once. Sarah's getting suspicious about the healing rates, Maya's empathy is evolving beyond what I can hide, and Popclaw's shadow has started acting like she's still alive instead of just an echo."
The shadow in question grins with translucent malice, her form more solid than it should be after three days without combat deployment. When she speaks—which shouldn't be possible—her voice carries the particular cruelty that made her dangerous when she had actual lungs.
"Having relationship troubles, pretty boy? Maybe you should have thought about that before you murdered me."
Ben's blood freezes. Shadows aren't supposed to talk. They're supposed to be obedient echoes that follow commands without developing personalities or independent thought patterns.
"System malfunction. Has to be. Shadows don't retain consciousness—they're just absorbed abilities with basic tactical awareness."
[WARNING: SHADOW LOYALTY DEGRADING]
[CURRENT LOYALTY: POPCLAW 68% | EZEKIEL 71% | GILL 75% | JUICE BOX 82%]
[RECOMMEND: IMMEDIATE COMBAT DEPLOYMENT TO RESTORE LOYALTY]
[FAILURE TO DEPLOY WITHIN 48 HOURS MAY RESULT IN SHADOW REBELLION]
The System's warning makes Ben's stomach drop toward his shoes. His carefully collected army is developing independence, and independence in weapons designed for violence usually leads to violence applied in unintended directions.
A knock on his apartment door interrupts his crisis management, the sound carrying the particular authority that comes from someone who's decided uncomfortable conversations can't be postponed indefinitely.
Sarah.
Ben climbs through his window to find her standing in his hallway with a manila folder that probably contains evidence of things he can't explain without revealing truths that would make explanation impossible. Her scrubs smell of hospital antiseptic and the particular exhaustion that comes from saving people who probably don't deserve saving.
"Evidence. She's been documenting, investigating, building a case against the person she's been patching up. Medical training plus genuine concern equals trouble I can't lie my way out of."
"We need to talk." Sarah's voice carries the steady authority of someone who's decided that caring about someone requires confronting them about self-destructive behavior. "Now."
She enters without invitation, spreading photographs across his kitchen table with the practiced efficiency of someone presenting evidence to a jury. Security camera footage from the bodega where Juice Box died. Traffic cameras showing Ben near Popclaw's building hours before her "accidental" death. Hospital records documenting healing rates that defy medical explanation.
"Shit. She's connected everything. Not the murders—she doesn't know about those—but the pattern. I'm always there when Supes die, and my injuries heal like I'm enhanced when I'm supposed to be normal."
"Three weeks ago, you could barely walk after a mugging. Now you're healing from chemical burns and near-drowning in half the time medical science says is possible." Sarah's finger taps each photograph with accusatory precision. "Your blood work shows anomalies I've never seen in normal humans. And somehow, you're present at every major Supe incident in Queens."
Ben studies the evidence while calculating how much truth he can reveal without exposing everything. Sarah's face shows the particular mixture of concern and fear that comes from realizing someone you care about might be lying about fundamental aspects of their nature.
"I can explain."
"I hope so. Because right now, the evidence suggests you're either a Supe hiding your abilities, or you're hunting them. Either way, you've been lying to me about who you are."
The accusation hangs between them like a bridge neither wants to cross. Ben could tell her about the System, about shadows built from murdered criminals, about the particular necessity that comes from knowing which heroes rape and kill while cameras roll. Instead, he builds truth from half-lies and desperate improvisation.
"Half-truth. Give her something real enough to feel authentic, incomplete enough to avoid revealing the extraction mechanics."
"My sister." Ben's voice carries fabricated grief that feels authentic because the emotion is real, just redirected. "She was killed by a Supe during a Vought training exercise. Officially ruled an accident, but I know better."
Sarah's expression shifts from accusation to concerned medical assessment. Here's trauma she understands—grief processing that manifests as obsessive investigation and dangerous risk-taking.
"So you're investigating Supe-related incidents?" Sarah settles into a chair with the careful movement of someone preparing for long conversation. "That explains the pattern, but not the healing rates."
"Experimental treatment." The lie builds itself while Ben watches her face for signs of acceptance. "Military-grade accelerated healing compound. Black market stuff that Vought uses on their assets. I... acquired some during my investigation."
"Compound V derivative. Close enough to truth to feel plausible, far enough from extraction mechanics to avoid revealing the System."
Sarah nods with the expression of someone whose medical training recognizes the theoretical possibility even while her personal concern flags the practical dangers. "Enhanced healing would explain the recovery rates. But Ben, this kind of investigation—you're going to get yourself killed."
"Maybe." Ben lets controlled grief color his voice. "But someone has to do something. The system protects them, covers for them, turns their victims into statistical footnotes."
"Let the authorities handle it. There are people trained for this kind of work."
"The authorities work for Vought." Ben's voice carries bitter accuracy. "Police, prosecutors, judges—they're all bought or intimidated into compliance. Normal channels don't work when the criminals own the channels."
Sarah studies his face with the intensity usually reserved for medical emergencies, reading micro-expressions and stress indicators with professional competence. When she speaks, her voice carries the careful authority of someone delivering difficult diagnoses.
"I believe you. About your sister, about the investigation. But this path you're on—it's changing you into something I don't recognize. And I won't be responsible for enabling whatever you're becoming."
"Ultimatum. Help me or lose me. She's choosing her own mental health over my operational necessities."
"I understand."
"Do you?" Sarah's voice grows quieter, more personal. "Because I care about you, Ben. More than I probably should for someone who lies about everything important. But I won't patch up a vigilante forever. You need to find another way to get justice for your sister before your investigation gets you killed."
She gathers her evidence with movements that suggest the conversation is over whether or not Ben's prepared for it to end. At the door, she pauses with the particular hesitation that comes from wanting to say something that can't be unsaid.
"I'll keep treating your injuries. For now. But if you keep escalating this investigation, if you keep taking risks that normal humans shouldn't survive, I'm out. Find someone else to enable your death wish."
The door closes with finality that echoes through Ben's apartment like gunshot. Sarah's footsteps fade down the hallway while Ben stares at evidence that proves he's been careless about operational security in ways that could get everyone he cares about killed.
His phone buzzes with Maya's latest message: Please. I need to see you. Something's wrong with my abilities since the expo. I'm scared.
"Maya next. Her empathy is evolving, picking up resonances she doesn't understand. If she develops full telepathic abilities..."
Maya's apartment smells of cooking spices and growing panic when Ben arrives an hour later. She opens the door with eyes that have seen too much through senses that weren't designed to process superhuman psychology, and when she kisses him hello, the contact sends information through her empathic abilities that makes her flinch like he'd hit her.
"She felt it. Felt the shadows, the extracted abilities, the cold satisfaction that comes from successful hunts. Her empathy is reading me like an open book written in languages she doesn't recognize."
"How are you feeling?" Ben asks with concern that feels genuine because it is. Maya matters in ways that extend beyond operational considerations—she's becoming something approaching love in a world where love usually gets weaponized by people with corporate interests.
"Different. Since the expo, my abilities have been... expanding." Maya leads him to her kitchen where dinner preparations have been abandoned in favor of notebooks filled with frantic observations. "I can read deeper now. Not just surface emotions, but layers underneath. And when I touched you just now..."
She trails off, staring at her hands like they've betrayed her with unauthorized honesty. When she speaks again, her voice carries the particular fear that comes from discovering abilities you never wanted.
"It was like touching winter. Not sadness—I know sadness. This was emptiness. Spaces where feelings should be, filled with something cold and hungry and patient."
"The shadows. She's reading the shadows' resonance, the places where I've stored extracted abilities. Her empathy is developing beyond emotional recognition into psychic archaeology."
"Maya." Ben reaches for her hands, and the contact sends waves of information through her developing abilities that make her gasp with overwhelmed processing. "What do you see?"
Maya closes her eyes, her empathic senses cataloging layers of psychological architecture that shouldn't exist in normal human consciousness. When she speaks, her voice carries wonder mixed with growing terror.
"Guilt. Massive guilt wrapped around satisfaction that tastes like copper and winter. Violence that you enjoyed more than you want to admit. And these... spaces. Cold spaces that feel like they're watching me read them."
Ben kisses her before she can finish the psychic inventory, pressing his lips against hers with desperate intensity that tastes like tactical necessity disguised as affection. Maya responds despite her abilities screaming warnings, letting physical sensation override psychic perception in ways that probably aren't healthy for either of them.
They end up in her bedroom with the particular urgency that comes from people who know their time together is measured in discoveries rather than days. Maya's empathic abilities fluctuate during physical intimacy—reading Ben's pleasure and satisfaction and the strange hollow places where shadows whisper suggestions about hunting and feeding and growing stronger.
Afterward, Maya cries with tears that taste of salt and expanding psychic awareness.
"I love you," she whispers against his chest, her voice carrying the particular desperation that comes from knowing love might not be enough to bridge the gaps in understanding. "But something feels fundamentally wrong about you. Like parts of your soul are missing, and something else is living in the empty spaces."
"Truth. More truth than she realizes. The shadows have taken up residence in places where normal human empathy used to live, and her abilities are developed enough to map the emotional geography."
"I'm damaged." Ben's voice carries honesty that surprises him with its accuracy. "What happened to my sister, what I've had to do since then—it changed me in ways that probably can't be repaired."
Maya nods against his chest, her empathy reading truth mixed with deflection and careful omission. She loves him despite sensing something fundamentally inhuman about his psychological architecture, which makes her either incredibly brave or incredibly naive.
They fall asleep entwined in her bed while Ben's shadows wait in his apartment like weapons that have been promised violence but delivered none. At 3 AM, his danger sense explodes with warnings that drag him back to consciousness with the certainty that something has gone very wrong.
Ben extracts himself from Maya's sleeping form and races across the city to find his apartment filled with the sounds of shadow warfare. Through his window, he watches Ezekiel's echo strangling Juice Box's while Popclaw's shadow observes with cruel amusement that suggests she's enjoying the violence more than programmed loyalty should allow.
Gill's shadow has written "HUNGRY" in condensation on the glass, the letters dripping like tears from empty eyes that reflect Ben's face with predatory interest.
"Stop." Ben's command carries authority that used to be absolute, but the shadows hesitate for three long seconds before obeying—the first sign of genuine independence since extraction.
"Rebellion. They're developing beyond programmed loyalty into something approaching consciousness. And consciousness in weapons designed for violence..."
[WARNING: SHADOW LOYALTY CRITICAL]
[POPCLAW: 61% | EZEKIEL: 64% | GILL: 68% | JUICE BOX: 73%]
[SHADOWS REQUIRE COMBAT DEPLOYMENT WITHIN 24 HOURS]
[FAILURE TO DEPLOY MAY RESULT IN HOST TARGETING]
Ben stares at his collected army while they stare back with expressions that suggest they're calculating whether their creator is more valuable alive or dead. The extraction process that gave him their abilities has also given them hunger that grows stronger with each day of forced inactivity.
He pulls out his phone and texts Hughie at dawn: Any chance The Boys have work coming up? I'm getting restless, need to contribute more to the team.
The response arrives twenty minutes later: Butcher's got intel on a trafficking ring. Warehouse raid tomorrow night. You interested?
Ben types back: Absolutely. Time to earn my keep.
Across the city, Maya wakes from nightmares about touching something cold and ancient and hungry wearing the face of someone she's falling in love with—darkness that felt patient and predatory and wrong in ways her developing empathy can sense but not comprehend.
The sun rises over Queens like a corporate blessing while Ben sits surrounded by shadows that have started whispering suggestions about feeding and hunting and the particular satisfaction that comes from watching stronger predators learn they're not as strong as they thought.
"Twenty-four hours. Feed them violence or become their next meal. Time to see if The Boys are ready to learn what their newest team member really is."
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