(TAYLOR’S DEMONIC ADVENTURE) CHAPTER ELEVEN

The ride to the PRT building felt longer than it actually was.

Taylor sat in the back seat of the car they had sent for her, hands resting in her lap, her reflection slightly visible in the tinted window beside her. The city slid past in muted colors, familiar streets taking on an unfamiliar weight now that she was seeing them as something more than just a civilian.

A Ward.

The word still felt strange in her head, like it belonged to someone else.

The building itself was nondescript, the kind of place that did not need to advertise what it was because everyone already knew. Security was tight but efficient, the process of getting her inside handled with practiced ease and minimal explanation. 

Before she had time to fully process any of it, she was already being led deeper into the building, past large, framed portraits of the Wards lining the lobby walls, each face she recognized only adding to the growing sense of surreality, and then down the stairs.

By the time she reached the common room, she felt like she had stepped into something larger than herself.

They were already there.

For a moment, she paused in the doorway without meaning to, taking them in. They were dressed far more casually than she expected, which almost felt sacrilegious, even though she shouldn't have been surprised. They were heroes. People she had read about in cape magazines, watched in leaked videos, and argued about on forums late into the night. They were the kind of people others looked up to, the kind of people she had once observed from a distance without ever expecting to stand among them.

And now they were her peers. 

It was… a lot to take in.

A girl, younger than the rest and noticeably shorter, glanced toward the door and nudged the boy beside her. He followed her gaze, then straightened slightly, and the shift in attention rippled outward through the group. Conversations slowed rather than stopped outright, trailing off into half-finished sentences.

Taylor stepped fully into the room.

“Hey,” someone said, a little too brightly.

It took her a second to match the voice to the speaker. He was lounging against the back of a couch, relaxed in a way that felt almost intentional, like he was leaning into a role. There was a hint of a grin on his face, but it didn’t quite settle into anything fully formed.

“New girl, right?” he added, and then, after a beat, “That came out worse than I meant it to.”

A couple of the others shifted, one of them huffing out a laugh that didn’t quite ease the tension.

Another boy, taller, standing closer to the center of the room, stepped forward instead. The others looked at him, and when he spoke, his tone carried an authority the others seemed to settle around.

“Taylor Hebert?” he asked.

She nodded.

“I’m Aegis,” he said, offering a small, reassuring smile. “Carlos. Welcome.”

That seemed to be the signal.

Introductions followed, one at a time, in a loose circle that was not quite as informal as it might have been on another day. The girl who had first noticed her introduced herself as Vista, her voice quick and slightly too loud at the start before she reined it in. The boy on the couch, who had spoken first, leaned forward and introduced himself as Clockblocker, adding something about terrible first impressions that earned him a pointed look from Vista.

Another boy, pale-skinned with brown hair and a pockmarked face, gave his name as Kid Win and then corrected herself immediately with a quiet, “No, sorry, Habit. I mean—” before trailing off and shaking his head.

“No, you had it right the first time,” Clockblocker said helpfully.

“Shut up,” he replied, though without any real heat.

The exchange might have been amusing under different circumstances. As it was, it only seemed to highlight the inconsistencyI'm the introduction.

Taylor waited until the attention circled back to her.

“Taylor Hebert,” she said. Her voice came out calmer than she felt. “I don’t have a cape name yet.”

There were a few nods at that, a murmur of understanding, and then a brief silence that stretched just long enough to be noticeable before someone picked up a new subject matter.

On the surface, everything went well.

Conversation followed, light and meandering, touching on training schedules and probable patrol rotations, on school and the small, mundane details that reminded Taylor that they were around her age. They did not ignore her, and no one tried to exclude her outright. Questions were asked, though carefully phrased ones, and responses were given in kind.

But Taylor was not oblivious.

She noticed the way people hesitated before addressing her, the half-second pause where they seemed to reconsider what they were about to say. She noticed how conversations became stilted when she drew closer, as if certain topics had been quietly set aside, and how they maintained a careful distance without seemingly realizing they were doing it. 

They did not know how to act around her, and she knew why.

She was a murderer.

Unintentional or not, justified or not, it did not change the fact. Three people were dead, and she was the reason. These were heroes, trained to stop people who did things like that, to protect others from them, and now they were expected to stand beside her as teammates.

Of course things were awkward.

The thought dug in deeper the longer she stayed in that room, eroding what little confidence she had managed to gather before arriving. It wasn't long before she found herself stepping back without fully realizing it, drifting toward the edge of the room until she stood just outside the circle that had formed. Close enough to be included, but far enough that she would not interrupt anything.

She lowered her gaze, focusing on a random point on the floor that gave her something to hold onto while her thoughts began to turn inward in that familiar, spiraling way she was becoming used to. So much so that she did not notice someone approach until they spoke.

“Hey.”

Taylor looked up.

Dean stood a short distance away, hands in his pockets, his expression carefully neutral in a way that immediately made her suspicious.

Of course he noticed.

“Hey,” she echoed, quieter.

He studied her for a moment, his focus lingering in a way that made it clear he was paying attention to more than just her words.

“You okay?” he asked.

Taylor hesitated.

She knew, rationally, that she could lie. That she could brush it off, deflect, or give some vague answer that would satisfy anyone else. But after what he had told her back in school, the effort felt pointless. He would see through it anyway.

“I know they feel awkward around me,” she said, and then, before she could stop herself, the rest followed. “Because of what I did.”

The words came out more plainly than she expected, stripped of the hesitation she had shown earlier. But for some reason, saying it out loud made her action seem even more damning.

Dean went very still.

“Oh,” he said.

And then nothing.

The silence stretched, long enough for Taylor to feel a hint of regret. Maybe she should not have said it like that. Maybe she should have phrased it differently. Maybe she should not have said anything at all.

She looked away, already bracing herself for whatever came next. But unlike what she expected, when he finally spoke again, his tone was without reproach. 

“No,” he said. “That’s not why things are… like this.”

Taylor blinked, turning back to him. “What do you mean?”

He lifted a hand to the back of his neck, rubbing it briefly in a gesture that felt uncharacteristically uncertain.

“I don’t know if I should be the one telling you this,” he admitted. “It’s… not exactly public knowledge yet. But you’re part of the team now, and I think you should know.”

Something in his tone made a small, uneasy knot form in her stomach.

Was it really that serious?

Dean exhaled slowly, as though settling on a decision.

“Sophia Hess was a Ward,” he said.

The name alone was enough to enlarge that small knot.

“She was Shadow Stalker.”

And for a moment, the world seemed to stop.