CHAPTER NINE: PRESSURE FROM THE OUTSIDE WORLD

Taylor pulled her hood up as she walked, shoulders tight, eyes scanning every passing face.

She had always been careful. Always aware. But ever since Keith had shown her the missing poster, the city had started to feel smaller. Like she was threading her way through a minefield, every step a potential mistake, every backward glance a chance for someone to recognize her.

She changed her routes, avoided well-lit areas, stuck to side streets whenever possible. But the paranoia lingered. The thought of someone recognizing her, of her father finding her—it left her stomach knotted, her pulse a little too quick.

She told herself it was for the best. That she had to stay hidden.

She wasn’t ready to see her father’s face and explain why she had stayed away.

To see the hurt in his eyes, the way his shoulders would tense with barely restrained desperation. To hear him ask why—why she hadn’t come home, why she had let him think the worst. She could already picture the way his voice would break when he asked if he had done something wrong, if it was his fault that she had vanished.

And what could she even say? That it wasn’t about him? That it wasn’t about them—not really? That the moment she felt that surge of power, the moment she realized what she had become, everything changed? That if she went back, if she let herself be found, it would never just be about going home?

That she was afraid?

So she pushed down the guilt, ignored the ache in her chest, and kept moving forward.

But then she heard her name.

Taylor froze mid-step.

It was late, the streets quiet, only a few scattered cars passing by. She had just ducked into an alley when the low murmur of voices reached her ears.

“—Taylor Hebert. Still no leads?”

Her breath caught. She pressed herself against the rough brick wall, barely daring to move. The voices came from just around the corner.

A radio crackled. “Nothing solid. Her dad’s been pushing for more searches. Says she wouldn’t just run off.”

A pause. Then a sigh. “Poor guy. Kid like that, disappearing after what happened to her… I’d bet money someone took her.”

Taylor clenched her jaw.

They thought she’d been kidnapped. That she was some helpless victim, taken against her will.

It shouldn’t have bothered her. But it did.

They saw her as weak. As someone who needed to be rescued. A missing girl, lost and waiting to be found. Not someone who had chosen to disappear. Not someone who had looked at the life she had, at the future stretching out in front of her, and decided to walk away.

Maybe that was the part that stung the most. That no one, not even her own father, had considered that she might have left on her own. That she might have had her reasons, good or bad.

The voices drifted away as the officers walked off, their conversation fading into the hum of the city. Taylor stayed where she was, heart pounding in her ears.

She could go back.

She could walk into a police station tomorrow and end this—let them make their assumptions, let them believe whatever story made sense to them. That she had been taken. That she had escaped. That she had been too scared, too traumatized to come forward sooner.

It would be easier than telling the truth.

Easier than trying to explain why she had stayed away.

Easier than admitting that, for all the guilt twisting in her gut, for all the times she had almost turned around—she wasn’t ready to be found.

But she wouldn’t.

Not yet.

Because what would happen if she did? 

It wouldn't stop with her father. 

The PRT would get involved. She was a parahuman now—one who had triggered very publicly. There would be files on her, theories, speculation. If she walked back into the world she had left behind, they would come looking for her.

And when they did?

They’d see the things she was only beginning to understand herself.

That she wasn’t just another case for their records, another name to be filed away.

That she was powerful.

More than that—that she was still learning, still figuring out what she could do. And the moment they realized that, the moment they understood that there were still things she didn’t fully control—

They wouldn’t let her go.

She would become a problem to solve, a resource to contain, an asset to be managed.

And if there was one thing Taylor knew, it was that she wouldn’t let herself be controlled.

She couldn’t risk it.

She pulled her hood lower and stepped out of the alley. The night swallowed her whole.