Amputation [Belizna]

[Jay Carpenter]

He was too much of a coward and too selfish to end things with Natalie. Yet every time she crossed his line of sight, a pang of duty washed over him like bleach poured onto raw skin. Scouring. Burning. Necessary only to keep things from rotting entirely.

He doubted she noticed his withdrawal. Especially when distance was his middle name. At first, he’d hovered around Belizna, offering to help wherever he could, though his right hand remained locked in the ER's cast. When physical labor was out of the question, he leaned into the wizardry of his power. Tearing down scaffolding with his mind went much swifter than a team of laborers with power tools, and it gave him an excuse to sweat, strain, and stay miles away from Natalie’s hip.

He had no head for corporate architecture or the politics. A few stray moments of nostalgia flickered to life when she walked through financials with her lawyers, but they died quickly under the weight of his own uselessness. He had nothing to offer those conversations except a quiet, vacant nod and an inkling to give more.

The more physical tasks he volunteered to do, the wider the chasms grew. It worked decently until Adrian Kane showed up.

Jay had no idea he and Natalie shared a history, nor how deep the roots of it went. But once their business partnership was spelled out, the alignment of it all became blindingly obvious. Adrian didn't just fit into Natalie’s world; he elevated it. He seemed to draw her out in a way Jay couldn't. Even if he recognized Natalie's sarcasm and dry humor for what it was, at least it was better than the depressing pity he saw when she looked his way

Looking at them together, Jay was slow to accept. that Adrian was a better match for her in every conceivable way.

[Adrian Kane]

He hadn't come to Belizna for Natalie. He was here to inspect the site, to ensure his capital was yielding results, and to watch the scales of balance tip ever more into his favor. A lot of progress had been made since his first visit. The building was nearly fully renovated. The grounds substantially improved. As his inspection carried him across the historical floors, shoes tapping rhythmically on the marble, he drank in every inch as if he owned half of it - because, in his mind, he did.

He thought about Natalie's description of Belizna’s purpose as he listened to the foreman explain various projects. She described it as a place that the rich and powerful would do anything to save their daughters, and now that Adrian spent so many months wrestling his own power under control, he appreciated the significance of that angle more than ever.

In fact, since Natalie arrived with Jay Carpenter, he thought about it quite frequently. The more he watched Jay channel effortlessly, the more Adrian pondered the implications. He’d not been tempted into controlling any aspect of the channeler community, but perhaps he should diversify his influence there. If the Ascendancy recruited the best for the military and government, where did that leave those who were overlooked? Those who slipped under the radar or whose power was not yet fully realized? There had to be diamonds in the roughs, and where a vacuum existed, someone would fill it. Why not Adrian?

He approached Jay as he was dismantling the scaffolding. Adrian’s mind immediately slid into diagnostic gear, executing a cold, retrospective calculation of the timeline. Were Jay and Natalie together when she... A razor-thin smile touched the corner of his mouth, the thought stored neatly away for a future moment when leverage might be required. But he didn't twitch, didn't let his expression drop. Impatience was a tax he refused to pay, and social friction was inefficient. He simply unbuttoned the cuffs at the end of his sleeves and filed the variable away.

Adrian stopped a few paces away, watching with a clinical, predatory appreciation. Jay wasn't even sweating. He stood amid the skeletal remains of the scaffolding structure, his expression flat, as a massive steel bar peeled away from the structure under the invisible pressure of his will.

He said nothing as he stepped into place alongside, reached out into that void of nothingness to wrench the power into his grasp and join the effort.

[Jay Carpenter]

He let out a long exhale the second he felt the tingle.

Adrian’s attempts to channel were half-hearted at best. As much as the man demanded to be taught, he sure didn’t seem to want to really learn. Not that Jay knew how to teach it. His sole experience about teaching this shit was with Vanders, who stumbled through learning on instinct himself only to turn around and try to teach Jay. And how does someone teach instinct?

Well, there were probably ways. But a glance at Adrian’s profile showed only the same flat gaze and a mere trickle of power inkling from the other man.

A sweep upward showed the exterior wall free of its previous scaffolding, all now dismantled on the ground around them. Maybe that’s why his neck hurt, all the staring upward? He absently rubbed out a knot and cleared his throat.

“Let’s get this cleaned up. I’ll bundle up those diagonals and you knot them up. Then I’ll explain how to tie it off so they don’t come apart.”

Adrian’s face was almost unreadable, except for a brief nod and an utter look of stoic concentration, and Jay went back to channeling. Each time another one was added, a twang of metal bracing against metal tolled. They floated a few feet off the ground in six foot long rods. A few moments later and a bundle of diagonal supports were stacked like a kid gathering sticks.

“Okay. Now.”

Jay glanced at Adrian. Waiting.

But Adrian just stared. Jay knew he had the power in his grasp. Could feel it wafting off the guy like aftershave. Meanwhile, Jay was just standing there, hands in his pockets, with a bundle of steel bars floating in front of them. He glanced around to see if anyone was watching.

“Any time.”

But to his shock, Adrian just growled and walked away in a hurry.

The hell?

The bundle clattered to the ground a little harder than he intended to, and he caught up with Adrian.

“Look, give yourself a break, man. It’s hard.”

Adrian turned and looked at him with such a fuck-you look that Jay literally stopped in his tracks. After a few seconds, Adrian kept walking.

Jay frowned as he left. He felt a little guilty, knowing he’d insulted Adrian, and for some reason, he knew he shouldn’t give two shits what the guy felt. Shit.

Vanders would probably chase Adrian down, tell him to give it another try, and force success through sheer encouragement. Nox, on the other hand, would probably have already gone on to something else by now. But the irritation faded almost as quickly as it had flared, replaced by a deep, bone-weary apathy. Let the corporate prince storm off to nurse his pride.

“I’m leaving this here until you come back and clean it up yourself!” He called out after Adrian, who was out of sight a few seconds later.

With a low grunt, Jay turned on his heel and walked back to where the bundle of steel supports lay discarded on the ground, left half-knotted and messy just where they had been dropped.

He didn't pick them back up. He didn't try to finish the job. He just kicked the nearest iron rod with the toe of his boot, watching it clatter against the others with a flat, dull ring, and left the scaffolding right where it lay. Let it be a mess. Let Adrian come back and stare at it tomorrow.

[Adrian Kane]

The sprawling, matte-black smart desk had been hauled into what was once a private sitting room. Its seamless glass surface was currently alive with hovering holographic blueprints, fluid architectural schematics, and shifting data-streams of quarterly expenditure reports.

Outside, the sprawling silhouette of Belizna brooded against the deepening dusk. Adrian did not look at the view. His eyes were fixed on a row of numbers outlining the cost of high-tensile structural steel against the staggering price of heritage stone preservation.

To call Belizna a building was an insult to its architecture. It was a sprawling, calcified monument to elite survival. A fortress disguised as a manor to all but the untrained eye, now designed to cradle the daughters of the wealthy and powerful away from the dangers of their new world.

And Adrian was funding its resurrection. Every square foot of its vast interior was being gutted and retrofitted with modern smart-grids, high-security conduits, and heavy-duty seismic bracing. It was an ambitious, obscenely expensive gamble to turn an obsolete relic into an impenetrable nexus of modern power.

On paper, the margins were terrible, but Adrian was banking on more than just a return on investment. There were easier ways to make money. It was something else entirely that convinced him to invest.

But by now his temples were throbbing with a dull, rhythmic ache. Not from the numbers. He didn’t mind the work, but from a persistent, phantom friction behind his eyes. He leaned back in his chair, the cushions creaking softly in the otherwise quiet room, and brought his right hand up over the decorative, unlit candle sitting  on the corner of his desk.

It was a pathetic ritual. A habit born of a quiet, humiliating curiosity that he would never admit to anyone.

He focused his eyes and reached outward, searching for the mechanism. In theory, it was simple enough: an intensity of focus, a redirection of ambient kinetic or thermal energy, a spark of the extraordinary. He felt the familiar, frustrating resistance instead swell up, like the thick, glass-like wall of his own meticulous, over-engineered consciousness refused to yield. He was a man who built his empire on the principle absolute control, precise forecasting, and complete discipline. Every thought he had was cataloged, hedged, and managed.

And that was precisely why he was choking the life out of whatever raw throughput was trying to surface.

He pushed harder, his jaw tightening, his internal will slamming against the invisible barrier he’d erected around himself. For a fraction of a second, the air temperature in the room dropped sharply.

Snap.

A tiny, pale flame flickered into existence on the wick of the candle, casting a brief, pitiful halo against the dark wood of the desk. It was microscopic. A parlor trick. The sort of combustion a novice could manage without breaking a sweat, let alone a man whose internal capacity should have been able to melt the brass holder down to slag.

Adrian stared at the pathetic little flame with a cold, dead look in his eyes.

He didn't curse. He didn't slam his fist on the desk. He simply withdrew his hand, letting the vacuum of his attention starve the wick until the flame died out, leaving a thin wisp of gray smoke curling into the chill air.

It was insulting, This systemic failure of his own biology.

He glanced at a clock. Exactly 11:00 PM. Precision was a religion, and sleep was a necessary maintenance cost he refused to skip, no matter how much his mind hummed with restless, unspent static.

Adrian stood, smoothing the front of his vest with automatic, immaculate care. He closed the remaining files and powered down the desk, and was soon in bed.

[Jay Carpenter]

The winter air outside Belizna made the lungs hurt to suck it in. It was a dry cold, but there was no snow on the ground. Only a slick of frost blanketed everything, turning churned up mud and work equipment into a beautiful but eerie landscape. By the time he was outside, the warmth of his morning coffee was long gone. His breaths plumed white on each exhale, but the morning sunlight was thin. It felt like the day before a snowstorm, though none was forecasted.

Jay adjusted the strap of a heavy wool coat. He secretly wished for his Dominon’s jacket, which was designed for this kind of work, but it was left behind in the city. Instead his movements were stiff, like every joint needed extra grease. Inside the confines of the fiberglass cast, his right forearm throbbed with a dull, rhythmic heat in an obnoxious contrast to the weather. He kept his left hand shoved deep into his pocket, curling his fingers against the cold as he walked the perimeter toward the estate’s primary gate.

A couple of technicians were huddled around the massive, automated steel housing of the gate, consulting a diagnostic tablet and swearing low under their breath. The overnight freeze had seized the motorized gears solid, locking the heavy iron bars half-open and snarling the morning logistics.

"Morning, Jay," the lead technician, a sharp-eyed woman in a tailored utility jacket, murmured without looking up from her screen. "Thing’s completely iced through. Motor’s throwing a temperature fault because the track’s fused. We’re going to have to manually bypass the failsafes."

Jay offered a measured, easy smile, the kind that crinkled the corners of his eyes just enough to look entirely natural. He let his posture relax into an illusion of casual camaraderie, leaning his shoulder against the brick pillar. He was no boss around here despite having showed up with Natalie (and sleeping in the same room as her), but he’d been helpful enough in unexpected ways these past few days that when someone had the idea to text him, he showed up.

He scanned the mechanism, piecing through the hundreds of times he’d worked various engines in bad weather on the ranch. Short of drenching the thing in antifreeze and a prayer, he knew they were shit out of luck. With a massive delivery scheduled to arrive at noon, if the road was blocked, it would throw off a bunch of work schedules that he doubted would put Natalie in a good mood.

“Sure, not a problem. Just, uh, give me a minute.” It was a smooth lie, rolled out with the casual grace of a man entirely secure in his domestic life.

She’d be better off if you vanished, a cold, quiet voice whispered in the back of his mind.

He swallowed the thought down, the smile remaining firmly pinned to his face. The truth was a rotting weight in his chest: he loved her, but she was brilliant, vibrant, and moving upward, while he was increasingly becoming a cracked anchor dragging her into the deep. She deserves a clean break. Someone whole.

"Right," the technician sighed, gesturing to a heavy manual override lever protruding from the frozen machinery box. "Well, if you want to give us a hand throwing that override, it might break the frost-seal. Though with the cast..." She glanced pointedly at Jay’s cast with professional sympathy.

He shook his head. He could literally rip the gate out of the ground and toss it in the lake, but that rather defeated the purpose of a gate in the first place. So he seized hold of the power to try something a bit more finessed.

“Might want to take a few steps back,” Jay murmured, his tone dropping an octave, losing its performative warmth.

The technician blinked, surprised by the sudden edge in his voice, waved at the others, and they collectively took a few steps away.

He drew out a thin tendril of raw fire, guiding it straight into the frozen iron mechanics. To the professionals watching, Jay merely pressed his palm flat against the housing and exhaled a slow breath into the cold air. It was a phantom touch. It was a delicate balance to disperse enough to melt the ice but not so much to melt the whole housing.

Inside the sealed box, the micro-layers of ice flash began to melt, the expanding vapor hissing through the seams. With a sharp, metallic clack that made both technicians flinch, the seized gears violently unlatched. The iron gate slid smoothly backward along its track, gliding open on silent rollers until it hit the stop.

The lead technician stared from the open gate to Jay, her eyes narrowing slightly as she checked her diagnostic tablet, which immediately green-lit the system status. She searched the lines of Jay’s face for any sign of sweat or strain. There was none. Jay merely pulled his hand back, sliding it back into his coat pocket with an air of mild, unbothered expectation.

“Well?” Jay asked, his voice entirely level, though a faint, electric hum still prickled beneath his skin. “Did the trick?”

“Fuck yeah it did the trick," she stammered, casting one more uneasy, bewildered look at the gate and then at him.

“Alright. What’s next?” He smirked like a tool happy to be used.