Chapter 4 The Monster in the Mirror
Cressida's POV
I wake up to Marcus screaming in my face.
Except he's not actually here. It's a memory, playing in my head like a movie I can't turn off. Yesterday's humiliation the coffee mug, the laughter, his smug face calling me worthless.
But today feels different.
I roll out of bed and catch my reflection in the mirror. The girl staring back stands straight. Her eyes look sharp, awake, like she's been asleep her whole life and just woke up. I lift my hand, and she lifts hers. Same person. Different everything.
The black knife sits on my nightstand. I pick it up, and my fingers know exactly how to hold it. I practice the moves from the video I watched last night strike, block, spin, slash. My body moves perfectly, like I've trained for years instead of minutes.
"This is real," I whisper. "This is actually real."
My phone buzzes. Work starts in an hour. I should feel the usual dread, the sick feeling in my stomach. Instead, I smile.
Marcus has no idea what's coming.
The office looks the same gray cubicles, flickering lights, the smell of bad coffee. But I see it differently now. I see everything differently.
I'm barely at my desk when Marcus storms over, his face already red. "Halloway! My office. Now."
Three people look up, then quickly look away. They've seen this show before. Quiet Cressida getting destroyed by her boss. Entertainment for a boring Tuesday morning.
I follow Marcus into his glass office. He slams the door.
"The quarterly report has mistakes," he snaps. "Errors that make ME look bad. Fix it by noon, or you're fired. And bring me coffee. Actually hot this time."
He expects me to flinch. To apologize. To scramble and beg.
I just look at him.
And my new power shows me the truth.
It's like someone turned on lights all around him. Glowing marks that only I can see, floating in the air near his head and chest. Each one is a crime, a sin, a secret.
Embezzlement $47,000 from the nonprofit fund.
Fraud falsified donation records.
Harassment three women, all too scared to report.
Blackmail threatening Jenny in accounting to hide his crimes.
The information floods my brain. I see account numbers, passwords, email trails. Everything he's done wrong, laid out like a map.
"Are you listening to me?" Marcus shouts.
"Yes," I say calmly. "I heard everything."
His face gets redder. "Then what are you standing there for? Get moving!"
I smile. A small, quiet smile that makes him blink.
"Of course, Mr. Felding. Right away."
I walk out, and my hands don't shake. Not even a little.
Behind me, I hear him mutter, "What's wrong with her today?"
Everything, I think. Everything is wrong. And everything is finally right.
At lunch, I search for Marcus's home address on my phone. Found it in thirty seconds.
"Cressida?" Jenny from accounting appears next to my cubicle. She's young, maybe twenty-five, with tired eyes. "Did Marcus yell at you again?"
"Yes," I say.
"I'm sorry." She looks around nervously. "He's... he's horrible to everyone. Especially women. I tried to report him once, but "
"He threatened you," I finish. "Told you he'd make sure you never worked in this city again."
Jenny's eyes go wide. "How did you know?"
I almost tell her. Almost explain that I can see Marcus's sins glowing around him like neon signs. That I know about the $47,000 he stole, the records he faked, every terrible thing he's done.
Instead, I say, "Lucky guess. He seems like that type."
"I hate him," Jenny whispers. "Sometimes I wish... I wish someone would make him pay."
"Maybe someone will," I say.
Jenny gives me a strange look and walks away.
I spend the rest of the day working on the report, but my mind is planning. Tonight, I'll visit Landry. Tomorrow night, I hunt.
But Marcus? Marcus is a bonus target. He's been hurting people for years, and nobody stopped him.
I'll stop him.
The hospital smells like cleaning chemicals and sadness. I've been coming here three times a week for seven years. Same hallways. Same nurses. Same room where my little brother sleeps and sleeps and never wakes up.
Landry looks small in the hospital bed. He's sixteen, but the coma keeps him looking younger. Machines beep around him, tracking a life that's not really being lived.
"Miss Halloway." Dr. Reeves appears in the doorway. She's kind, which makes everything harder. "We need to talk about last night."
My heart speeds up. "Is he okay?"
"That's what we're trying to figure out." She pulls up a chair. "The brain activity spike we saw was... unprecedented. For ten minutes, Landry's brain was working at levels we've never recorded in coma patients. Then it just stopped, back to baseline."
"What does it mean?"
"We don't know." Dr. Reeves touches my shoulder gently. "But Cressida, I don't want you to get your hopes up. These things happen sometimes. It doesn't necessarily mean he's waking up."
But I know better.
Forty-three minutes. That's how long I was unconscious after making the deal with Sable. Landry's brain spike happened during that exact time.
The devil's power touched him somehow. Connected us.
After Dr. Reeves leaves, I sit beside Landry's bed and take his hand. His skin is warm but limp.
"I made a deal," I whisper. "A bad deal, probably. But I got power, Landry. Real power. And I'm going to use it to make the world better. Safer. I'm going to protect people the way you always tried to protect me."
His heart monitor beeps steadily. No response.
"I'm going to make everything right," I promise. "Just wait."
I kiss his forehead and leave.
At home, I sit on my couch with my laptop and watch videos.
"How to track someone without being seen."
"Self-defense techniques for street fighting."
"Lock picking basics."
Every video I watch, my brain absorbs everything instantly. It's like downloading information directly into my muscles and memory. By midnight, I could pick a lock in under thirty seconds. I could follow someone through a crowd without them noticing. I could fight off multiple attackers.
I've never felt powerful in my entire life.
Until now.
Isolde's attackers are easy to find. Isolde... that's what the news called her. The teenage girl I watched get beaten while people filmed on their phones. She survived, but barely.
The five gang members who hurt her are all in the system. Criminal records, addresses, everything. They're out on bail, probably laughing about what they did.
Not for long.
I pick the first target. Rico Martinez. Age twenty-four. Leader of the East Side Runners gang. He lives in a crappy apartment in the Rust Quarter.
I pack my black knife, wear dark clothes, and head out into the night.
The city looks different in the darkness. More honest. You can see what it really is not the shiny towers of Platinum Heights, but the broken streets, the desperate people, the evil hiding in plain sight.
Rico's apartment building is exactly as run-down as I expected. I wait in the shadows across the street, watching.
At 11:47 PM, he stumbles out of a bar two blocks away, drunk and laughing with two friends. They split up at the corner.
Rico walks alone.
I follow him, staying in the dark spaces between streetlights. My new abilities make me silent, invisible. He has no idea I'm there.
He reaches his building and fumbles with his keys. Drops them. Curses. Picks them up.
Gets the door open.
I slip inside behind him before it closes.
The hallway smells like garbage and mold. Rico climbs the stairs, still laughing to himself about something. He reaches the third floor, apartment 3B.
He unlocks his door.
Steps inside.
I follow.
He's halfway to his kitchen when I speak.
"Remember the girl you beat up last week?"
Rico spins around, eyes wide. For half a second, he looks confused.
Then he sees the knife in my hand.
"Who the hell " He reaches for his waistband. Gun.
I move.
The knife fighting videos taught me exactly what to do. I'm across the room in two steps, knocking the gun from his hand before he can even pull it free. It skitters across the floor.
Rico swings at me. I duck, block, and slash the knife across his arm.
He screams.
"You hurt an innocent girl," I say. My voice sounds cold. Unfamiliar. "You and your friends beat her almost to death while people watched. Do you even remember her name?"
"I don't know what you're talking about!" Rico backs away, clutching his bleeding arm.
My power shows me his sins. They glow around him like fire.
Assault. Robbery. Drug dealing. Murder.
Murder.
This man killed someone. A homeless teenager, six months ago. Beat him to death for fun.
The darkness inside me surges, hungry and eager.
"You're a monster," I whisper.
And I smile.
Rico's face goes white with terror.
I step toward him, and something in the window catches my eye. My reflection.
For just a second one horrible second I don't look human.
My eyes are completely black. My teeth are too sharp, too many. My shadow moves wrong, like it's alive and separate from my body.
Then I blink, and I'm normal again.
But Rico saw it too. He's shaking, backing into the corner, making sounds that aren't quite words.
"Please," he finally gasps. "Please don't "
Behind me, the apartment door crashes open.
I spin around, knife ready.
A man stands in the doorway. Tall, dark copper hair, eyes that are two different colors one green, one gold.
He's beautiful in a way that seems wrong, otherworldly.
And he's looking at me like I'm the most dangerous thing he's ever seen.
"Found you," he says quietly.
Then he raises his hand, and light explodes from his palm, bright as the sun.