(TAYLOR’S DEMONIC ADVENTURE) CHAPTER NINE

Lunch, it turned out, was not the dreadful ordeal Taylor had been bracing herself for.

That made two occasions in a row where her expectations had been proven wrong, which was honestly more annoying than comforting. A small, stubborn part of her urged her to stop catastrophizing, to accept that maybe things were not automatically going to go badly just because they usually had before. 

But she had spent the better part of a year, and then some, dreading every interaction with her peers—flinching at every laugh, every glance, and every shift in tone—so it was hard to fault her for assuming the worst.

Old habits did not vanish overnight, after all.

Still, she did not want to come off as rude, or ungrateful for what was clearly an attempt to make her first day easier. Victoria had gone out of her way to include her, steering her toward a long table near the middle of the cafeteria, already populated by people who seemed to know each other well, and introducing her with an easy confidence that made it clear she expected everyone to be welcoming.

And, to their credit, they were.

There had been smiles, a few friendly greetings, and then—mercifully—a stretch of time where Taylor had been allowed to just eat, half-hidden in her hoodie, listening to conversation flow around her without demanding her involvement.

So she made an effort.

She plastered a small, polite smile on her face, nodded at appropriate moments, and tried to follow along with what they were talking about. When there was a pause, she even added a comment of her own, something mild and inoffensive about the food being better than she had expected.

That was all it took.

The moment she properly inserted herself into the conversation, it was like she had flipped some invisible switch. Expressions brightened with interest, and suddenly the casual chatter focused, becoming something directed squarely at her.

The questions came quickly.

How was she coping with everything?

Was it scary, being outed like that?

Did she know what her powers were yet?

What did she think of Arcadia so far?

Taylor tried to answer at first, offering vague, noncommittal responses that revealed as little as possible, but each answer only seemed to invite another question and more attention.

She felt herself shrinking into her hoodie, shoulders curling inward, and her hands tightened around her lunch tray as though it might anchor her to the table. The hoodie suddenly felt too thin to properly hide behind, and she found herself wishing, absurdly, for a cloak. Something thicker, heavier, that could hide her properly.

They were not being cruel, she could tell that much. If anything, they seemed genuinely interested, even concerned in places. But the overlapping voices and eager curiosity were overwhelming all the same, making her chest feel tight and her thoughts start to scatter.

Thankfully, her rescue came from across the table.

“Okay, okay,” a new voice said, warm and calm in a way that cut through the noise without being loud. “Let’s not overwhelm her, alright?”

The effect was immediate. The questions tapered off, replaced by sheepish laughs and a few murmured apologies.

Taylor looked up, grateful, and saw the boy who had spoken.

Dean Stansfield.

Victoria’s boyfriend looked exactly like the kind of person who could defuse the tension in a room without trying. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with an effortless confidence in the way he sat and spoke, as if he had never really had to worry about whether people liked him. His hair was light blond, his smile open and bright, and when he grinned at the table, Taylor could not help but notice how absurdly perfect his teeth were.

“Sorry about that,” he added, glancing at Taylor with an expression that seemed genuinely apologetic. “We mean well. We just tend to forget what it’s like to be new.”

“It’s fine,” Taylor replied automatically, though her voice came out quieter than she meant it to.

For a moment, an odd thought crossed her mind.

It was almost suspicious, the way he had stepped in exactly when she needed— 

No, she told herself immediately, shutting that line of thinking down. That was unfair, and frankly paranoid. The simplest explanation was usually the right one: he had noticed she was uncomfortable and acted on it.

Still, a niggling, persistent feeling stirred at the back of her mind, almost like an itch.

There was something about him that felt… familiar in a way she could not quite define. It was not in the sense of recognition, or even attraction, but a vague sense of similarity, like some part of her was quietly flagging him as relevant without explaining why.

Could he be like her?

The thought surfaced before she could stop it, and with it came a dangerous spike of hope. The idea of meeting someone who might actually understand what had happened to her—someone who could offer more than clinical reassurances and carefully vague PRT-patented explanations—was intoxicating enough that a real smile nearly broke through her careful neutrality.

But common sense reasserted itself just in time.

What were the odds, really? That someone similar to her would just happen to be one of the first people she met at her new school?

Still, it was not entirely impossible. After all, he was almost certainly a cape. And probably a Ward, at that. 

What were the odds? That someone similar to her would just happen to be one of the first people she met at a new school?

Still… he was almost certainly a cape. And probably a Ward.

Taylor doubted someone like Victoria would date a civilian, not with her lifestyle and the risks attached to it. And since she had not heard of anyone outside New Wave going around without masks—and she also doubted Victoria would ever fall for a villain—a Ward seemed like the only option.

Which only made it baffling that he was dating someone who did not bother with a secret identity at all, but—

“…Taylor?”

She blinked.

A hand was waving gently in front of her face, and with a jolt of embarrassment she realized she had completely zoned out, staring into nothing while everyone waited for her to respond.

Heat rushed to her cheeks. She ducked her head and retreated further into her hoodie, suddenly very aware of how long the silence must have lasted.

“Sorry,” she muttered. “I was just… thinking.”

“Are you okay?” someone asked.

It was Amy.

Taylor looked up just enough to meet her gaze, and it was strange to see Panacea—the most famous healer in the world—looking at her with quiet, uncertain concern. It was even stranger that on TV, Amy always seemed larger than life, but in person, she felt smaller somehow, the opposite of her sister’s effortless confidence. 

“…Yeah,” Taylor said, a little more softly. “I’m fine. I didn’t mean to space out.”

“It’s okay,” Dean said, reassuringly.

Taylor, still looking at Amy, caught the hint of displeasure that crossed her face at the sound of his voice. It was gone almost immediately, smoothed over into something neutral, but Taylor was sure she had seen it.

That was… odd.

Did Amy not like her sister’s boyfriend? Or had something happened between them?

Once again, that same niggling feeling stirred in the back of her mind, insistent in a way that made her uncomfortable. It was not just suspicion anymore, or a vague itch, but something closer to certainty, as though some part of her was drawing conclusions she did not yet have the context to understand.

And she could not help but wonder what that feeling even was.

It felt too coherent to be simple anxiety, too specific to be wholly random, and too confident in its assertions to be a mere thought. It almost felt like… an instinct.

Did her trigger event, as the PRT officers had called it, come with more than just the dark tendrils? Had it given her something else too, some new way of perceiving the world that she had not learned how to interpret yet?

The thought was unsettling, but it also made her curious.

There were so many things she did not know about herself now, about what she was capable of and what had changed inside her body, and it made her cling even harder to that irrational hope that maybe Dean—or someone like him—could help her make sense of it.

That maybe she would not have to navigate this new reality completely on her own.