Nolan blinked, the world reassembling around him in fragments blood. Broken glass. A crumpled dumpster. A fractured wall still moaning under the weight of a body-shaped dent. Smoke hung in the air like a weighted blanket.
He was standing in the alley behind what he assumed to be a nightclub judging by the music. Or what was left of it.
Bodies littered the ground. Gang members. Thugs. One of them moaned faintly, struggling to crawl. Another wasn't moving at all.
His fists were slick with blood.
His shirt was torn at the sleeves, hanging off him in shreds. His breath was ragged. His heart hammered like it was trying to punch its way out of his chest.
Nolan slowly backed up until his spine hit a brick wall, steadying himself. He closed his eyes.
"This is exactly how it used to be." He whispered to himself
The memory hit hard: the sudden blinks. The lost time. The waking in chaos. The blood on his hands with no idea how it got there.
He took a trembling breath and pushed off the wall. His body hurt in strange ways healing bruises, impact soreness, as though he'd gone through a car crash.
He stumbled toward the street and raised a hand.
A yellow taxi slowed, honking twice before stopping. The driver looked him over warily as he climbed in.
"Where to, man?" the driver asked.
"…Arden Hotel," Nolan muttered. "Make it quick."
The driver nodded and pulled off.
Nolan slumped in the back seat, head leaned against the window, eyes half-lidded but sharp with reflection.
I can't do this again.
His hand trembled faintly in his lap.
"I never want to feel that again," he whispered.
"Did you know?" he asked aloud to the silence in the car. To the others. To the space behind his eyes.
The cab driver glanced in the mirror and didn't see a cell phone, "Know what?" He replied but Nolan ignored him
Quentin was the first to answer, his voice low. "Yeah."
Kieran followed, quieter still. "We've seen him once. A long time ago."
"We didn't… want to tell you," Quentin admitted. "Because just speaking his name, thinking too long about him it's like lighting a flare in the dark. It brings him closer."
"He's a well a beast," Kieran added. "Something we locked away for a reason. We were scared that if we even acknowledged him again, he'd find his way back to the circle."
"So you lied to me." Nolan ground out
The cab driver seemed to drive even faster as he glanced from the road to the mirror.
"No," said Vey finally, voice raw. "We protected you. There's a difference."
Nolan looked out the window. The city passed by in neon streaks, pulsing with rain and traffic and the heavy breath of survival. He felt a deep ache not physical, but inside, where the fear still curled up like a frightened child.
And beneath that, a flicker of fury.
They let me walk blind into that.
Still, some part of him understood. He might've done the same.
He leaned back, eyes closing. The sound of the city outside faded.
"I won't let that thing sit in my mind like a king ever again," he whispered.
None of them replied.
He didn't expect them to.
The cab turned down the street, the Arden Hotel rising in the distance like a sleeping giant.
The bathroom was fogged with steam, the mirror a silver blur. Water dripped steadily from Nolan's hair, trailing down his face and chest as he stepped out of the shower.
The blood was gone now—scrubbed away in silence. His skin, clean and pale under the bathroom light, didn't show a single bruise. Not a cut. Not a welt. No evidence of the carnage he knew had occurred just hours ago.
He stared at himself for a long moment, water still clinging to his eyelashes. Then he took a slow breath and turned his gaze downward, inspecting his limbs.
Even the faint bruises from past fights were gone, healed too fast.
"I should be broken," he muttered, voice low, disbelieving. "There should be something…"
His eyes drifted to his hands steady now, but they remembered. They remembered fists slamming bone. Knives failing to pierce skin. The force behind every move. The unnatural fluidity. The power.
He braced himself on the counter with both palms, gripping the cool porcelain, staring into the misted mirror as if it might give him answers.
"How is it possible," he said aloud, "that the Beast can be that strong?"
Then Kieran's voice surfaced, hesitant. "We've… wondered that too." ɴᴇᴡ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀʀᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜᴇᴅ ᴏɴ ɴovel(ꜰ)ɪre.nᴇt
Quentin added, "It's your body. Our body. But when he takes the chair, it's like something rewrites the rules."
"It's not just adrenaline," Kieran said. "It's something else."
Vey, usually the proud fighter, offered no confidence this time. "We don't know."
Nolan's jaw clenched. He watched a droplet fall from his chin and splash on the counter.
He let out a slow breath, heavy and resigned.
"Another puzzle," he muttered, eyes still fixed on his reflection. "Another damn mystery about what I am."
The others had no reply.
The mirror began to clear. And Nolan, standing there in the silence of steam and confusion, felt the weight settle once again.
Nolan stepped out of the bathroom, towel slung loosely over his shoulders, his bare feet silent against the cool floor of the penthouse.
He stopped in the center of the room.
The air was still, but the place reeked of chaos.
One of the windows was completely shattered—glass glittering in shards across the carpet and marble. A chunk of the far wall was caved in, fractured like something massive had slammed into it. The coffee table was split down the middle. A lamp lay in pieces against the far wall. Scorch marks from the fight with Martian Manhunter marred the corner by the bookshelves. Even the damn couch was twisted halfway around.
Nolan stood there, arms limp at his sides, and let out a long, dreadful sigh.
He ran a hand over his damp face, stared blankly at the carnage.
"How the hell am I supposed to explain this?" he muttered. "To the board. To the insurance. To anyone."
He looked at the wreckage again—every shattered thing a reminder that something else had been in control. Something stronger. Wilder. Crueler.
"And the repairs…" he rubbed his temple, already picturing the contractor estimates, the permits, the board questions. "They're gonna have to redo the whole wall. Reinforce the window frame. Hell, replace the window frame. That alone's gonna cost—"
He cut himself off, jaw clenching.
It wasn't just the money. It was the lie he'd have to construct. The story. A gas leak? A superpowered intruder? "Structural stress"? None of it would make sense.
He turned slowly in place, absorbing the damage like a quiet punishment.
In the back of his mind, the others were silent.
For once, not even Quentin had a sarcastic comment.
After a long moment, Nolan exhaled again. His voice was soft, bitter.
"…this place was supposed to be a sanctuary."