Daughter of Zeus ✔

8.6

It was the eyes.

Ada had her eyes. Even now, decades later, Moretz swore Adina was standing in front of him.

All the pretending in the world couldn't erase Ada's face from his memory. When she had walked into the office, he had nearly laughed at her costume. Sure, she could pass for a Prominent, but he knew her. Had known her from when she was a child.

At six years old, like all other children, Ada had loved going to the park. On the weekends, he had walked her to the park. She longed to run ahead of him on the path on her own, but he had urged her to take his hand. To hold on tightly.

Her independent streak worried him. Already, her resemblance told him so much about the person she could become. And just like her long-gone doppelganger, Ada would leave him. As he watched her build castles in the sandbox, and swing on the swings, the surety gnawed at Moretz.

He could convince her to stay.

Moretz drummed his hands on the onyx desk. He had a few hours until the meeting with Ada. She would meet his family. Her family. He would give her a glimpse of family. The illusion could help dispel her hate. Then his deal with the Sammie would be that much easier to close.

In the end, he hadn't been able to do much of anything as a father. Just as his father, and his father, stretching back to long line of fatherless and manic children.

The manic part wasn't always the fault of the child. In Adina's case, her powers had driven her to commit reckless acts. Kressick had seen most of it, but had never shared details. Moretz only knew that the training had failed.

~*~

"...There's always a cost."

Eleven-year-old Moretz played with two toy cars in the living room. He grasped the red car, crashing the blue car into the side.

His grandmother's gravelly voice drifted from the kitchen. Her skin was like leather, and her clothes always smelled of smoke. However, she always slipped him a cookie when Father wasn't watching. Moretz was both fond of and disgusted by her.

"She's going to get stronger," Kressick said, not sounding happy at the prospect.

"They always do. And with more strength comes more instability." At the word instability, grandmother tapped her temple.

Moretz would understand the context of their conversation later. Much later.

He continued crashing the cars against one another. Red into blue. Flakes of red paint chipped off the toy, some of it leaving red dents in the blue paint.

~*~

The next day, Moretz walked home from the bus stop on his own.

Adina had missed school, again. At first, she blamed the constant absences on her "girly problems." Lately she'd stayed in her room, and Moretz thought it must be something other than that.

Something to do with this summer. They had snuck out, gotten caught. Before that, they had watched the holographic fireworks. Moretz lamented being so far away. He wanted to see the lights up close.

In response, Adina raised her hand at the sky. From her fingertips, arcs of electric light sparked, danced, and then shot in arcs across the black sky. Moretz scooted away, but then moved back to watch. Her hand appeared to be fine marvel, carved and able to emit powerful sparks. The shocks mixed with the holographic fireworks, creating a cascading effect that mesmerized Moretz. He reached out to touch, but Adina slapped him away.

"What is it?"

"I'm not sure," she told him.

Then the lights from her hands stopped.

They hadn't spoken about the display since.

Moretz recalled the memory, kicking at a rock along the sidewalk. He thought about how he was two houses away from home. Maybe today I can ask Adina to show me the lights again. His attention was elsewhere. He failed to notice a silver car on the road, speeding and angling dangerously in his direction.

Suddenly, the car hopped the curb. Moretz screamed as the car barreled toward him. Just as quickly as it had come for him, the car lurched, then stopped. The front grill was inches from Moretz's scrunched up face.

He'd been anticipating an impact, finally releasing the breath he'd been holding. A woman almost as old as his grandmother ran out from the driver's seat, rushing to Moretz. She cried and grabbed him. Her hands ran over him, checking for injuries.

When she found none, she said, "The interface wasn't working and I couldn't stop. Then the interface shut off, all by itself. I didn't see you. I didn't see you."

The woman kept talking. Frozen in shock, Moretz let her.  He felt eyes on him and roused from his comatose state to check the windows of his house. Light from the afternoon refracted off the window panes. He squinted and in the top left-hand window, Adina's room, the curtains moved.

Later, Moretz went into the house and explained the near-death experience to his father.  Kressick insisted he repeat every detail, particularly about feeling watched.

"The car stopped on its own?"

Moretz nodded.

Kressick frowned, as if this information contradicted what he knew.

The next year, when Kressick and Adina disappeared, Moretz considered the details of that day. Interfaces malfunctioned from time to time. There was no disputing that. However, if that occurred, it was rare for them to reboot on their own, let alone shut off. Moretz remembered the light from Adina's hand. She had summoned it. Controlled it. Turned on a sort of switch inside of herself.

He was convinced she had switched off the out-of-control car. Adina had saved him.

~*~