The plane's steady vibration lulls me into memory. James has dozed off beside me, his face softer in sleep, more like the eager young enforcer I first met three years ago. Before everything got complicated. Before trust and betrayal and whatever lies between us now.
I remember that day perfectly...
It was six months after Marcus found me, helped me understand what I could do. The resistance was smaller then, still finding its feet. We were investigating reports of Church activity at an abandoned subway station – signs of ritual preparation, possible seeding attempts.
I was still learning to control the darkness, still figuring out how to use it without letting it use me. Still trying to trust Marcus and his promises that I could be more than what the Church tried to make me.
"Stay close," Marcus had said as we descended into the tunnel. "Something feels wrong about this one."
He didn't know how right he was.
The enforcer – James, though I didn't know his name then – was waiting with his team. They were good, I'll give them that. Let us get deep into the tunnel before springing their ambush. The fight was chaos in the darkness, gunshots and shouts echoing off tile walls.
But I remember the moment I first saw him clearly. He stepped into the beam of my flashlight, and for a second we both just... stopped. He was younger than the other enforcers, his Church robes still new enough to be slightly stiff. The scar on his face was fresher then, still pink and healing.
"The prodigal messiah," he said, and his voice held something I wasn't expecting. Not hate or fear or zealotry, but... curiosity. "You're shorter than I imagined."
"Sorry to disappoint." I let the darkness seep into my left eye, ready to defend myself. "Want me to stand on a box while you try to capture me?"
He didn't raise his weapon. Just stood there studying me, head slightly tilted. "They talk about you constantly, you know. The one who got away. Their greatest success and greatest failure."
"Sounds like Mother Superior needs a hobby."
"They made us read your files. Study the recordings of your early demonstrations. Your perfect communion with Their realm." He took a step closer. "But they never could explain why you left."
Around us, the fight continued. I should have been helping the resistance. Should have been using my power. Instead, I found myself drawn into conversation with this strange enforcer who seemed more interested in understanding than capturing.
"They tried to use me as a door," I said. "Didn't care if opening it would destroy me."
"But it wouldn't have destroyed you. You're stronger than that. Special."
"That's what they kept telling me. Right up until they started breaking my fingers when I resisted their rituals."
Something flickered across his face – doubt, maybe. Or recognition. His hand twitched toward his left arm, where I would later learn he had his own scars from Church discipline.
"The pain was necessary," he said, but he didn't sound entirely convinced. "Evolution requires sacrifice."
"Evolution requires choice." I let him see more of the darkness, let him see how I controlled it rather than letting it control me. "They never understood that. Never understood that force and pain don't create transcendence – they just create broken things."
"And what has choice created?" He gestured at me. "Running with their enemies, hiding your gift, denying your destiny?"
"I'm not denying anything. I'm becoming what I'm meant to be, not what they tried to force me to be."
More gunshots, closer now. Someone shouted a warning. Neither of us moved.
"Show me," he said suddenly. "Show me what real communion looks like. Not their rituals, not their ceremonies. Show me what happens when it's freely chosen."
I remember hesitating. Remember wondering if it was a trick, a trap. But something in his voice, something in the way he asked...
I let the darkness flow, just a little. Let reality bend around us in gentle waves. Showed him what Their realm looked like when touched with permission rather than force. His eyes widened as he saw colors that shouldn't exist, geometries that shouldn't be possible.
"Beautiful," he whispered. Then his expression hardened. "But dangerous. Uncontrolled. The Church provides structure, purpose..."
"The Church provides chains." I pulled the power back, let reality settle. "They took something natural and tried to industrialize it. Tried to force evolution to follow their timetable, their path."
"And what's your path?"
"My own."
A explosion rocked the tunnel. The fight was getting closer. Soon we'd have to decide – fight or flee, capture or release.
"They'll never stop hunting you," he said. "You're too important. Too valuable."
"I'm not their property."
"No." He studied me for another moment. "You're really not, are you?"
Then he did something that changed everything. He stepped aside, clearing my path to the exit.
"James!" Another enforcer's voice, angry and shocked. "What are you doing?"
"Testing a theory," he said quietly. Then to me: "Go. Before I change my mind."
I remember running past him, remember the feel of his eyes on my back. Remember hearing him tell the others I'd used my power to escape, that they couldn't have stopped me.
Remember wondering if I'd just seen the first crack in the Church's perfect enforcer.
The memory fades as turbulence rocks the plane. James stirs beside me, blinking awake. For a moment, as sleep leaves him, I see that same curiosity in his eyes. That same need to understand.
"You were dreaming," he says.
"Remembering. The subway tunnel."
"Ah." He stretches slightly in the cramped seat. "When you ruined my perfect record of obedience."
"When you chose to see something different."
"Same thing, really." He glances at me. "I spent weeks after that reviewing your files, looking for things the Church might have missed. Trying to understand what I saw in that tunnel."
"And what did you find?"
"Questions. Doubts. Cracks in everything I thought I believed." He keeps his voice low, mindful of the sleeping businessman. "You know they made us study you, right? Not just your abilities, but your personality. Your choices. They were obsessed with understanding why you turned against them."
"And now? Do you understand?"
"I understand that they never could have kept you. Never could have controlled you. Because what you are, what you're becoming... it has to be chosen. Has to be natural." He pauses. "That's why Rachel Chen is so important. She understood that too. Got away before they could force her child to become something instead of letting it evolve."
The darkness pulses gently, and I clamp down on it before the plane's electronics can start acting up again. "If she's real."
"If she's real," he agrees. "But you believed me once before. In that tunnel. Believed me enough to show me what real communion looks like."
"And look where that got us."
He almost smiles. "Yeah. Look where that got us."
The plane begins its descent into Oregon. Somewhere below us, a woman who escaped the Church might have answers about what I am, what I'm becoming. Or she might not exist at all. Or she might be part of an elaborate trap.
But I remember that moment in the tunnel, when a Church enforcer chose to see something different. Chose to understand rather than obey.
Maybe some choices are worth the risk.
The darkness pulses, and I carefully keep reality stable as we descend through cloud layers that occasionally form impossible shapes. Beside me, James pretends to read his magazine again, but I catch him watching my reflection in the window.
Still curious. Still trying to understand.
Still choosing to see something different.
Time will tell if that's enough.