Chapter 201: What’s Missing

Chapter 201: Chapter 201: What’s Missing

The report came from Ethan, breathless, having sprinted the last flight of stairs to reach their gate.

"They’re not from here," he said, gripping the bars, chest heaving. "Not our building. Word is they came over from the tower two blocks east — the one that finally lost its upper floors to structural damage a few days ago. They needed somewhere dry, and now they’ve decided taking it by force is easier than asking."

Erik’s jaw tightened. "How many?"

"At least a dozen, from what people are saying. Maybe more. They’ve got weapons, and a couple of them have powers now too." Ethan’s voice carried genuine fear, different from the usual wary caution the building had settled into. "They hit my floor an hour ago. Took almost everything we had left."

Killian’s expression darkened. "Your floor specifically?"

"Ours, and the one below us. I don’t know if they’re planning to keep climbing."

Penelope exchanged a look with Erik, old dread settling heavy between them. "This was going to happen eventually. Enough buildings are failing now that people are going to start moving into whatever’s still standing."

"Is your dad safe?" Erik asked. "William?"

"He’s hurt," Ethan said, voice cracking slightly. "Not bad — bruised, mostly, from trying to stop them. But they took our food. Everything we’d been saving."

Erik’s expression hardened instantly, something decisive settling into his posture. "We’re not letting that stand. Not for you."

Killian glanced at him, understanding immediately. "This isn’t about the building."

"No," Erik agreed. "It’s about them."

Silver, arriving from his own floor just in time to catch the tail end of the report, Dahlia and Victor close behind him, studied the exchange with careful attention. "You’re not planning to clear every threat in this building."

"No," Erik confirmed. "We can’t, and I’m not interested in pretending otherwise. But Ethan’s family has warned us, helped us, trusted us more than once. That’s different. That’s not charity. That’s owed."

Silver nodded slowly, something approving in the gesture. "Then that’s a fight worth having. Not because it’s the building’s problem. Because it’s yours."

They organized quickly — Erik, Killian, Silver, and Victor forming the primary group, Kai and Ben close behind, everyone else remaining to secure the floor in their absence. The plan was simple: reach Ethan’s floor, confirm the threat, and make it unmistakably clear that his family wasn’t an easy target twice.

They found the aftermath first — Ethan’s apartment door hanging loose on one hinge, the small stockpile of supplies stripped bare, William seated on the couch with a split lip and a hand pressed carefully against his ribs.

"They’re still in the building," William said, wincing as he shifted. "Two floors down, last I heard. Sounded like they were deciding whether to keep going up or move on to somewhere easier."

"We’ll make sure it’s not this building," Erik said.

They descended cautiously, and it was Victor who caught the first sign — a low murmur of voices carrying up from a landing two floors below, careless, confident in a way that suggested nobody had yet given them reason to be otherwise.

"There," he murmured. "Seven, maybe eight. Not organized like a unit. More like a mob that decided to stay together because it worked once."

They rounded the final flight and found them — a cluster of men and women gathered near a stripped-out supply room, laughing over their haul, weapons resting casually against the wall behind them, entirely unprepared for the sight of four armed, clearly capable strangers appearing at the top of the stairs.

The largest of them straightened first, some rough approximation of leadership settling into his posture. "This ain’t your floor."

"You’re right," Erik said. "It’s not. But the people you just hit are under our protection, and you’re not welcome anywhere near them again." ℴℴ𝘮

The man’s eyes swept over the four of them, calculating, and something in his expression shifted — not fear exactly, but recalibration, the particular hesitation of someone realizing the easy targets he’d grown accustomed to might not describe the people currently standing in front of him.

"We don’t want trouble with you specifically," he said finally, though the words carried more caution now than the earlier bravado had. "Our building’s gone. We needed somewhere. This one had people who didn’t fight back."

"They fought back," Erik said. "You just didn’t listen."

One of the men near the back — younger, twitchy, clearly less composed than his leader — raised a hand, and the air around his fingers shimmered faintly with heat, some early, unstable manifestation of an awakened ability.

"We’ve got power now too," he said, defensive. "Don’t think you’re the only ones who matter anymore."

"Stand down," the leader said, sharp, though the younger man didn’t immediately comply.

Victor’s focus sharpened, some silent warning already crossing his expression before he spoke. "He’s about to do something stupid."

The heat around the younger man’s hand flared brighter, and he lunged forward without further warning, a crude, half-formed fireball already gathering in his palm.

Kai’s own flame answered instantly, meeting the attack head-on and simply overwhelming it entirely, the younger man’s unstable power extinguished before it ever fully formed. He stumbled back, startled, staring at his own hand like it had betrayed him.

"That’s the difference between an ability and training," Kai said, unbothered. "You’ve got the first. We’ve had weeks of the second."

The leader’s jaw tightened, some of his earlier posturing collapsing under the sudden, undeniable proof of exactly how outmatched his group actually was.

Silver stepped forward then, python already uncoiling from his arm, fangs bared in silent, unmistakable warning. "You have one chance to leave this building entirely. Not this floor. This building. If I see any of you again, I won’t be nearly this patient."

The leader’s eyes tracked the massive snake with open, genuine fear now, all pretense of confidence gone entirely. "We’re gone. We’re gone, all right? Just — put that away."

"Take nothing with you that isn’t yours," Erik added. "Leave what you took from him behind."

They complied quickly, hauling the stolen supplies back into the hallway under the group’s watchful, silent supervision, and within minutes the entire cluster had retreated toward the stairwell, disappearing down toward the flooded lower levels and, presumably, whatever remained of their own building or the next one they’d try their luck against.

"That won’t be the last group like that," Victor said, once the hallway had emptied. "Buildings are failing faster now. More of them are going to come looking for somewhere dry."

"I know," Erik said grimly. "But this floor’s safe tonight, and that’s all I was trying to guarantee."

They gathered the recovered supplies and made their way back up to Ethan’s apartment, where William managed a tired, grateful smile despite his split lip. "I don’t know how to thank you for this."

"You don’t need to," Erik said. "You warned us the first night this all started, before anyone else thought to. This is just the same debt, paid back."

Ethan, still catching his breath from the earlier sprint, glanced between them. "Are they gone? Really gone?"

"For now," Killian said. "We made it clear this building isn’t worth the trouble."

They made their way back upstairs eventually, exhausted, the confrontation’s adrenaline slowly draining out of all of them, and Erik lingered near the gate a moment longer than necessary once they’d returned, staring back down the darkened stairwell.

"We can’t do that for everyone," he said quietly, mostly to himself. "I know that. I’m not going to pretend we can."

"You don’t have to," Silver said, resting a hand briefly on his shoulder. "You did it for the people who’ve earned it. That’s not the same as trying to save a building that isn’t yours to save. There’s no failure in drawing that line."

Erik nodded slowly, though the weight of it didn’t fully lift.

Kai, still catching his breath beside them, glanced back down the stairwell with a different kind of restlessness now. "What about Jason? He wasn’t with Ethan’s family when we got there. Anyone know where he ended up during all that?"

Erik paused, something briefly uncertain crossing his expression. "I didn’t see him."

"He’s usually attached to that floor," Kai said, some real concern threading through the words now. "I don’t like that nobody mentioned him."

"William would have said something if he was hurt," Killian offered, though even he didn’t sound entirely convinced.

"Maybe," Kai said. "Or maybe everyone was too busy dealing with the actual raid to think to bring him up."

Erik considered that for a moment, old instinct already recalculating. "We should go back down. Just to confirm he’s accounted for."

"I’ll go," Kai said, already turning. "You’ve all had enough for tonight. I’ll just check, make sure he’s fine, and come straight back."

"Not alone," Erik said.

"I’ll go with him," Ben offered, stepping forward.

Erik studied them both for a moment, weighing the risk against the genuine worry sitting plainly on Kai’s face, before finally nodding. "Quick. In and out. If anything feels wrong, you come straight back and tell us."

"Understood," Kai said, already moving toward the stairwell with Ben close behind.

They found Ethan’s floor settling back into its cautious, exhausted quiet by the time they arrived, most of the residents still gathered near William’s apartment, comparing notes on the night’s chaos in hushed, relieved voices. Jason emerged from a side hallway just as Kai reached the landing, looking tired but entirely unharmed, a battered flashlight clutched in one hand.

"Kai?" Jason blinked, surprised. "What are you doing back down here?"

"Making sure you’re okay," Kai said, some of the tension visibly draining out of his shoulders at the sight of him. "You weren’t with everyone else when we got here earlier. Had us worried."

"I was helping barricade the stairwell on the other end," Jason said, gesturing vaguely behind him. "Figured it couldn’t hurt to block off a second entry point while everyone else was distracted."

"That was smart," Ben said, genuinely impressed. "Good instinct."

Jason managed a tired, pleased smile at the praise, still visibly shaken from the night’s events despite his efforts to seem composed. "My dad helped too, actually. You should see what he’s been able to do lately."

"David’s up?" Kai asked, surprised. Last he’d heard, Jason’s father had barely been steady on his feet.

"More than up." Jason gestured them toward a small side room, where a row of struggling potted plants — clearly rescued from someone’s abandoned apartment — sat lined against the wall, most of them wilted or half-dead from weeks of neglect. "Dad, show them."

David looked up from where he sat beside the plants, still favoring one side slightly from the earlier scuffle, though his color had returned considerably since Kai had last seen him. He pressed two fingers gently against one of the drooping stems, and the plant responded almost immediately — leaves unfurling, color deepening, a visible, accelerated bloom of new growth spreading through the entire stem within seconds.

Ben’s mouth fell open. "That’s incredible."

"Started a few days ago," David admitted, something almost sheepish in his voice. "Didn’t think much of it until tonight. Figured it was worth testing properly once things settled down."

"You can just — heal plants?" Kai asked, already turning the implications over.

"More than heal, I think," David said. "Accelerate them. Strengthen them. I tried it on some of the building’s dying rooftop garden a few days back, and it came back stronger than it’s looked in months."

Kai exchanged a glance with Ben, something quietly significant passing between them that neither of them said aloud in front of Jason and his father — the exact kind of ability their own family’s struggling crops and exhausted farmland could genuinely use.

"That’s a good power to have," Kai said instead, careful. "Really good, actually."

"Useful, I hope," David said, still modest about it. "Wish it had come with an instruction manual, though. I’m mostly just guessing at what it can do."

"You’ll figure it out," Ben said. "Takes all of us a while."

Kai clapped a hand lightly on Jason’s shoulder before turning back toward the stairwell, some of the earlier worry finally, fully easing. "Get some rest. Both of you," he added, glancing toward David, who managed a tired but genuine smile in return.

They made their way back upstairs in easier silence this time, and by the time they rejoined the rest of the group at the gate, Erik’s questioning glance was answered before he could even voice it.

"He’s fine," Kai said. "Smart, actually. Helped barricade a second entrance while everyone else was busy." He hesitated a moment before adding, quieter now, mostly for Erik and Killian’s benefit. "His dad’s awakened something too. Plant growth, accelerated healing for crops. Saw him bring a half-dead plant back in seconds."

Erik’s brow lifted slightly, already turning the information over with the same quiet calculation Silver had shown all evening. "That would help the garden considerably."

"That’s what I was thinking," Kai admitted.

"Something to consider," Erik said, careful, noncommittal, though something in his tone suggested the thought wasn’t going anywhere soon.

The gate sealed shut behind them, and the building settled into its uneasy, temporary quiet once more — one debt repaid, one family protected, one worried search resolved into simple relief, and somewhere out there, in the flooded, desperate dark, a group of strangers already moving on to try their luck somewhere else entirely.