(TAYLOR’S DEMONIC ADVENTURE) INTERLUDE

Taylor didn’t run.

She told herself that mattered.

Her steps through the hallway were moderate enough in a way that almost convinced her body she was fine. The PRT building didn’t change just because she was leaving early. Fluorescent lights still droned overhead, doors still slid open at the same patient pace, and somewhere behind her, life continued as if nothing had happened in the common room.

That was the worst part.

She could still feel it in the gap between her ribs, in the tightness under her skin. The memory of losing control in front of them, of not just someone she knew, but everyone in that room seeing something she hadn’t agreed to show.

She pressed her tongue to the inside of her cheek as she walked, focusing on the sensation to keep her thoughts from spiralling.

But then, she heard footsteps behind her.

“Taylor.”

Dean’s voice.

She didn’t stop immediately. It wasn’t because she was trying to be difficult, but because stopping meant facing him, and she wasn’t sure she had anything left to say. 

After a second, she did stop anyway. Slowly. Then, she turned.

Dean was a few steps back, hands half-raised in that uncertain way he seemed to do when he was trying to be careful with people. His expression wasn’t annoyed, and that somehow made it worse. Annoyance would have been easier to interpret.

“I just—” he started, then stopped. He tried again. “You don’t have to go home. Not like this.”

Taylor looked at him for a moment.

Her mouth opened slightly, then closed again. She wasn’t sure what version of her voice would come out if she spoke.

“I already am,” she said eventually, sounding even flatter than usual. 

Dean opened his mouth again, then closed it. Sighing, he scratched the back of his head. “It wasn’t your fault.”

That again.

Everyone had said it in the room. Each time it landed a little less convincingly than the last, like a phrase repeated too often until it lost all meaning.

Taylor nodded once. “I know.”

A pause stretched between them.

He seemed to be searching for something else to say that would fix the moment, or at least make it less awkward. But there wasn’t anything.

Taylor realised that at almost the same time he did, and the silence became almost resigned.

Finally, Dean lowered his hands.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll… I’ll let them know you headed out.”

Another nod.

That was it.

Taylor turned back toward the exit.

This time, she didn’t feel his eyes on her as she walked. That was its own kind of relief.

Outside, the air hit colder than she expected.

Brockton Bay’s sky was already leaning into evening, the light becoming that muted gold that made everything look temporarily softer than it actually was. The city noise felt distant here, buffered by the PRT building’s walls, like she was stepping out of one world and into another that hadn’t noticed her at all.

She stood still for a moment on the steps, and her hands curled slightly at her sides.

It would have been easy to interpret what she felt as shame. That would have been a neat label she could file away. But it wasn’t just shame. It was the awareness that, inside that room, she had become unpredictable in a way that even she couldn’t fully track. Unstable and undeniably dangerous. 

And people noticed that.

They always noticed that.

A car passed on the road below, horn briefly cutting through her thoughts. Normal life continued without pause, without interpretation, without care.

She exhaled slowly.

“I didn’t hurt anyone,” she said under her breath.

It wasn’t merely reassurance, but a fact she needed to confirm against herself, like checking a list.

Behind her, the building doors opened and closed once—someone else entering or leaving—but no one called her name again. No one followed.

She should have been grateful for that, and she was.

That was the problem.

Taylor stepped down the stairs and started walking home.