CHAPTER SIX: FRAGMENTS OF IDENTITY

The sounds of the Narrows were a constant backdrop as Taylor sat cross-legged on the cold floor of the small room Marla had let her use. It was spartan—just a threadbare mattress on the floor, a chipped nightstand, and a cracked window letting in a cold draft, lit only by the dim light of the moon filtering in to paint uneven shadows across the walls. It was quiet here, quieter than she was used to. Some quirk of the architecture or of the prevailing winds muffled the constant noise of the city.

Her fingers twitched, an unconscious habit she hadn’t shaken. She closed her eyes, reaching out instinctively, hoping to feel the faint, comforting buzz of her swarm. But there was nothing. 

It’s gone. You know it’s gone. Why do you keep trying?

Her chest tightened. It wasn’t the first time she had tried, and it wouldn’t be the last, but the emptiness hit her like it always did, a hollow ache in her chest that refused to fade. She drew in a shaky breath, pressing her palms against her knees as if grounding herself in the present could somehow fill the void.

Losing her passenger—her shard—felt like losing a limb. No, worse than that. It had been a part of her for so long, an extension of her very being. Her powers had been her strength, her shield, her weapon. Maybe even in some way, her friend. It had made her more than just a girl from Brockton Bay. Without it, she felt….

Her mind drifted to her time as Khepri. The things she had done then still haunted her. She could recall the way she had wielded her power like a god, her will stretching across worlds to bend and subjugate millions of minds—reality itself blurring at the edges as she focused on her singular purpose: survival, victory, control.

Control.

That had been the crux of it, hadn’t it? Jailbreaking her shard hadn’t just given her increased power—it had amplified her need to control, to dominate, to impose her will on the chaos around her. And in the end, it had consumed her. Khepri had been both a weapon and a curse as she had sacrificed her humanity and became a monster.

She had been a veritable monster

Taylor had justified them at the time—she had told herself it was necessary, that it was the only way to defeat Scion. But the truth was uglier. She had stripped away free will, reduced people to tools she had wielded with alien efficiency on an almost universal scale.  

It  wasn’t something a person should just be able to walk away from. And yet, here she was.

Alive.

But, sitting alone in a crumbling room in a broken city, she still felt the full weight of that cost. Her power was gone, her passenger severed from her mind. For the first time in years, she was just Taylor Hebert.

Not Khepri. Not Skitter. Not Weaver. Just… me.

Wasn’t this what she had wanted, though?

She had always told herself she’d do whatever it took to make a difference—to stop the suffering, to protect the people who couldn’t protect themselves. She had committed to those choices fully, even knowing the cost. Now, with her scars gone, her body healed, and everything wiped clean, she couldn’t help but wonder: If she’d had the chance to do it all again, would she have done anything differently? There had to have been a better way. A path that someone less damaged than her could have found.

She flexed her fingers, watching the way the moonlight through the clouds danced across her unmarked skin. It felt wrong, like she was wearing someone else’s body.

It’s not a clean slate. It’s a reminder. A reminder of everything I have done and what it cost.

But maybe that was the point. Maybe she was supposed to feel this way—to struggle, to stumble, to find her footing without the part of herself she’d thought she could never lose.

The faint sound of voices drifted up from the street below. She glanced down, seeing a group of children playing with a soccer ball patched with duct tape. Their laughter echoed through the night, a rare and fragile thing in a place like this.

Taylor leaned back against the wall, her arms resting on her knees as she stared at the cracks in the ceiling. The people she had found here, the community she had started to protect—they gave her a sense of purpose. But she knew it wouldn’t be enough.

Protecting this block, this small pocket of Gotham, wasn’t the end of her story. It couldn’t be. There was too much she didn’t understand—about this city, about herself, about the person she wanted to become.

She sighed and pushed herself to her feet, her shadow stretching across the floor. 

You have to rebuild yourself, she thought. Not as Khepri. Not as Skitter. Not as Weaver. As something new.