(TAYLOR’S DEMONIC ADVENTURE) CHAPTER TEN

Taylor knew, on some level, that what she was doing was wrong.

It was not wrong in the dramatic, villainous sense, but wrong in that morally questionable way. She was following Victoria’s boyfriend through the halls of Arcadia, keeping just far enough back that she blended into the flow of students, but close enough that she never quite lost sight of him.

She refused to call it stalking. That word came with implications she did not want to examine. So she told herself she was simply observing, trying to learn his routines, which turned out to be harder than she had expected. Dean seemed to know everyone. He drifted between groups with an ease that made it impossible to predict where he would go next, pausing for conversations that stretched on unpredictably, detouring into classrooms that were surely not on his schedule, and occasionally vanishing into clusters of people where Taylor could not follow without drawing attention.

And she needed him alone.

That was the important part. It was not because she liked him, and not because she was interested in him in any way that mattered, but because every time she thought about him, that same strange feeling stirred in her chest. The one she had noticed at lunch. The one that felt less like curiosity and more like recognition.

It had not gone away.

If anything, it had grown stronger over the course of the afternoon, intensifying into something that demanded an answer. She needed to know what it meant, and Dean was the only person who could give her what she wanted.

So she waited.

It took longer than she wanted. Nearly the entire school day, in fact. By the time the final bell rang and the halls flooded with noise and movement from the other students, she was starting to think she had misjudged her chances entirely.

Then he finally peeled away from the crowd.

Dean exited one of the science classrooms alone, phone in hand, attention clearly focused on whatever was on the screen. He turned down a quieter side corridor that led toward the less-used stairwells, the ones most students avoided unless they had a reason not to.

Taylor did not hesitate.

She followed him, heart hammering in her chest, every step feeling too loud or too obvious in retrospect. The hallway emptied quickly, the noise of the main corridors fading into a distant murmur until it was just the two of them and the low hiss of the building’s ventilation system.

This is stupid, she thought distantly.

But she was already reaching for him.

Her fingers closed around his wrist.

The reaction was immediate.

The world lurched violently to the side. Her face slammed into the wall hard enough to knock the air from her lungs, pain exploding across her cheek even as her arm was wrenched behind her with enough force to send a sharp jolt of pain up her shoulder. Something in her shoulder screamed in protest, but before she could even process what had happened, his other hand had her wrists pinned together, and her cheek was pressed against the cold, grimy concrete.

His mouth was close enough to her ear that she could feel his breath on her.

“Who are you?” he murmured, voice low with an edge that was not quite intimidating but came dangerously close. “Why have you been following me?”

For a split second, something inside her surged.

That same instinctual pressure she had felt in the locker room. The one that came with darkness and the odd sense that the world was about to end if she ever let it fully out. 

Her power responded to threats automatically, almost eagerly if she was being honest, as if this was exactly the kind of moment it existed for.

And she almost let it out. 

The pain, the shock, and the sheer violation of being grabbed and restrained made her chest burn with something dangerously close to fury.

But she forced it down.

It was not because she thought he was right, but because she knew, on some level, that she was technically in the wrong here. Because unleashing whatever darkness lived inside her over this would make everything infinitely worse.

“I’m—I’m Taylor,” she squeaked instead, voice shaking more than she liked. “Taylor Hebert. I just wanted to talk to you alone.”

There was a beat of silence, then the pressure behind her vanished.

Dean released her so abruptly she almost fell backward, rubbing her wrists as he took a step away from her, his expression shifting from tense and dangerous to something closer to horrified.

“Oh my god. I’m so sorry,” he said immediately. “I thought you were—I mean, you grabbed me and I—I didn’t know who you were, I just reacted. Are you okay? I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

She straightened slowly, ignoring the urge to massage her face. Her cheek still stung, and her heart was hammering hard enough that she could feel it in her throat.

“I’m fine,” she said, which was mostly true. She wasn’t injured, but her hands were still shaking, and the adrenaline hadn’t faded enough for her to feel normal about any of this. “You just surprised me.”

“I surprised you?” He looked genuinely distressed now. “You grabbed me from behind in an empty hallway.”

“That’s fair,” Taylor admitted. “But you didn’t have to slam me into the wall.” She shot back before she could stop herself.

“I absolutely did not mean to do that,” he said with a wince. “I’m really sorry. I’m not usually that jumpy, I’m just—with everything lately, I’ve been on edge. I thought you were someone else.”

That didn’t make her feel much better.

He sighed, then added more quietly, “I’m really sorry.”

She nodded, trying to get her breathing under control. “It’s okay.”

The anger didn’t vanish, but the tension between them dissipated, leaving behind something awkward and embarrassing in its place. The uncomfortable awareness that they were both standing far too close for comfort in an empty corridor.

But with the danger gone, she felt it again: that same certainty in her chest, even stronger now. 

He was just like her.

She leaned closer despite herself, lowering her voice. “Right?”

Dean blinked. “What?”

“You knew what I was feeling,” she continued, words tumbling over each other now that she had started. “At lunch. When everyone was talking over me. You knew I was overwhelmed before I said anything.”

“That doesn’t necessarily mean—”

“And you’re dating Victoria,” Taylor pressed on, emboldened. “She’s a hero from a whole family of heroes. Parahuman-civilian relationships are rare. You can’t tell me that’s a coincidence.”

He stared at her for a long moment.

Then he sighed.

“…You were supposed to find out during orientation,” he admitted. “Not by ambushing me in a hallway like a stalker.”

“So you are a cape.”

“Yes. A Ward.” He looked tired now. “I just didn’t want to dump that on you on your first day. I figured you had enough to deal with.”

Taylor felt a flicker of triumph within her.

She had been right.

Guilt followed immediately after, but she shoved it aside in favor of the much more important question burning in her mind.

“So what are your powers?” she asked. “They feel similar to mine.”

Dean’s eyebrows shot up. “Wait. You’re an empath too?”

Taylor froze.

“I’m a… what?”

He looked just as confused.

“You can feel emotions?” he asked slowly with a frown. “That’s what I do. Emotional awareness and influence. I thought your powers were likely to be something else.”

Taylor’s mind reeled.

“What does empathy have to do with dark tendrils and destruction?” she muttered.

Taylor was starting to realize just how truly she did not understand her own powers at all.