(TAYLOR’S DEMONIC ADVENTURE) CHAPTER FIVE

The tears did not stop all at once, nor did they disappear entirely. Instead, they became less frequent over time, easing from constant, overwhelming waves into something Taylor could endure without being consumed by them. The grief never truly left, and she suspected it never would, but it loosened its grip enough for other things to exist alongside it. Sleep came more easily, her appetite returned in fits and starts, and the days in the hospital blurred together into something approaching routine. In that sense, life began to resemble normal again, though she quickly learned that her understanding of what normal meant had changed in ways she could not undo.

Normal now included knowing that her name was in PRT databases, spoken in careful tones by strangers who thought they understood her story because they had heard from a friend of a friend who swore they were there on that day. Normal meant being recognized in public, sometimes subtly and sometimes less so, but it was often enough that she could no longer dismiss it as coincidence. She noticed the double takes, the hushed conversations that cut off when she passed, and the way people occasionally stared a moment too long before remembering to look away. After years of being invisible, of moving through the world without being seen at all, the scrutiny felt unreal, like it belonged to someone else entirely, and yet it followed her everywhere she went.

Even her parents were not spared.

When they went out together or even alone, whether it was to buy groceries or attend a follow-up appointment, the weight of that attention settled over them like a physical thing. Danny and Annette did their best to ignore it, to keep their head down and their shoulders squared, but Taylor saw the strain in the tightness of their jaw and the way their eyes never quite stopped moving. There were questions they could not answer and looks they did not know how to return, and after the third time someone approached them with awkward sympathy or poorly disguised curiosity, it became clear that this was not something they could simply wait out and hope would fade on its own.

That was when the PRT became more directly involved.

They were careful about it, as careful as they could be under the circumstances, and they framed their involvement as concern rather than an attempt at control. Brockton Bay was not kind to its capes, particularly the young ones, and a newly teenager tied to a highly public incident was a vulnerability they could not afford to ignore. The initial proposal was simple, delivered in a small office that smelled faintly of coffee and perfume, with her dad sitting close enough that their shoulders almost touched.

They could help the Heberts relocate.

Another city, another school, another chance to start over somewhere her name would not immediately call to mind speculation or headlines. It was a clean solution on paper, and Taylor could see why it appealed to the people suggesting it. Distance had a way of solving many problems, or at least making them easier to manage.

She and her family did not accept it.

Their lives were in Brockton Bay, stressful and imperfect as they were, and the idea of leaving felt wrong in a way neither of them could fully articulate. The house they lived in was more than just a building. It was where their joy and laughter still seemed to linger in the familiar creaks of the floorboards, where old habits and shared memories lived in the pictures in the rooms. 

Leaving it behind felt too much like another kind of loss, one neither of them was ready to shoulder. Brockton Bay had its faults, and there were many of them, from the dwindling economy to the constant undercurrent of violence, but it was still home.

The PRT listened, and then they offered an alternative.

If relocation was off the table, they could provide protection instead, offering full coverage for the immediate future rather than simple patrols or emergency contacts. It was an acknowledgment of both the danger Taylor might face and the scrutiny she was already under. 

The offer came with conditions, of course, because everything did. Surveillance, constant and unavoidable, and enrollment in a safer, better-funded school: Arcadia High, where security was tighter and the student body more carefully monitored.

And, eventually, there would be formal affiliation.

Taylor would join the Wards.

The offer lingered between them long after the meeting ended, heavy with implications neither of them rushed to voice. It was not an easy decision, despite how obvious it might have seemed from the outside. Joining the Wards meant structure and protection, but it also meant oversight, expectations, and a level of exposure she was not sure she could handle. It meant accepting that her life, already altered beyond recognition, would be shaped even further by people who viewed her as both an asset and a responsibility.

It took days of discussions and careful consideration, of weighing fears against necessities and acknowledging risks that no choice could fully erase. In the end, it was not ambition or a sense of duty that swayed her, but a simple acceptance of reality. Things were not going back to the way they had been, and pretending otherwise would only make what came next harder.

So she agreed.

Taylor Hebert became a Ward.