Chapter Text

The police station hums in that specific, fluorescent way that makes time feel sticky.

Not loud. Not quiet. Just… persistent. Phones ringing somewhere behind glass. Footsteps passing in irregular rhythms. A printer coughing out paper every few minutes like it’s struggling to stay alive. The air smells faintly of disinfectant and burnt coffee, a scent Gangle is beginning to associate with after.

After danger. After escape. After the adrenaline drains and leaves you hollowed out.

They’re seated in a loose cluster near the far wall of the waiting area. Not all together, not all apart. The kind of arrangement that says we’re a group without forcing anyone to touch.

Pomni perches on the edge of a chair, phone in her hands, one leg bouncing. A paramedic checked her out; luckily, that bastard didn’t give her a concussion. Gangle sits beside her, pill organizer tucked carefully back into her bag, fingers laced around a warm paper cup filled with tea. Zooble leans against the wall, arms crossed, eyes flicking toward every uniform that passes like they’re daring someone to say something stupid. Ragatha sits slightly forward, posture attentive, already rehearsing answers to questions no one’s asked yet. Kinger’s speaking with officers and agents and trying to determine if the break in was associated with the investigation or just targeted harassment.

Jax stands.

He hasn’t sat since they arrived.

He leans against a column near the hallway, one foot braced against the wall, arms folded loosely like he’s just waiting out a boring errand. Anyone glancing at him would see casual impatience. Mild annoyance. The usual.

They wouldn’t see the way his jaw keeps tightening. Or how his fingers flex and relax against his sleeves, like he’s testing whether his hands still work.

Pomni clears her throat, drawing everyone’s attention to her. “I’m gonna… I’m gonna see if my parents would be alright with us staying with them for a while.”

Everyone looks at her.

She swallows, “It’s- they live kind of far from the city, and the police probably won’t be able to get us another house for a while, and I dunno about you but a hotel doesn’t feel all that secure-”

“Pomni.” Zooble interrupts her rambling, “That’s a good idea.”

She blinks a couple of times, tucks her bangs behind her ear, then nods to herself and steps a few paces away, phone already out and dialing. Her shoulders are tense, but when her voice comes out it’s steady.

“Hey, Mom? It’s me.”

Ragatha looks away to give her privacy, gaze drifting instead to the glass doors at the front of the station. Rain streaks the outside windows now, turning the world beyond into a blur of gray and reflected light.

Good, she thinks distantly, fewer people trying to catch a slice of our lives on camera.

Jax exhales slowly through his nose.

In. Out.

He’s fine. He’s been fine all day. He handled worse in the Circus. Worse at the station. Worse with Dr. Renki before he bolted halfway down the hall because someone, some officer he didn’t even recognize, had laughed under his breath and said something about ‘juvenile record discrepancies’ like it was a joke.

He swallows.

In. Out.

A man enters through the front doors.

Jax clocks him immediately.

Mid-forties, maybe. Tailored coat despite the weather. Fancy black umbrella with a metal tip. Leather briefcase held like an extension of his arm. He doesn’t look lost, doesn’t look nervous. He looks like someone who knows exactly where he’s going.

The man scans the room.

His eyes land on Jax.

They sharpen.

Jax’s stomach drops.

Oh.

The man approaches the front desk, speaks briefly to the officer there. A glance. A nod. Papers exchanged.

Then the man turns again.

And walks straight toward Jax.

Zooble notices the shift before they notice the man. The way Jax’s posture changes — not dramatic, just a subtle tightening, like a wire pulled too taut. They looks over, following his line of sight.

The man stops a few feet away.

“Felix Rivera,” he says pleasantly. “I represent Jason Rivera’s legal counsel.”

The name hits like a dropped plate.

Jax’s smile appears instantly. Easy. Automatic. “Cool. You lost?”

The man doesn’t react. He opens his briefcase with practiced efficiency and pulls out a manilla envelope.

“I’m here to serve you notice,” he says, holding it out. “You’ve been ordered to appear in family court.”

Gangle stands, splashing a little tea onto the ground.

“What?” she says, a little too fast. “There must be some mistake-”

“This doesn’t concern you,” the lawyer says without looking at her.

Jax takes the envelope.

His hands are steady. Somehow.

“What’s this about?” He asks lightly.

The lawyer finally meets his eyes. There’s something almost apologetic there. Almost.

“Your father is petitioning for custody,” he says. “Given the unusual circumstances surrounding your age and legal status, the court will determine whether you are to be considered a minor or an adult.”

Silence slams down around them.

Pomni’s voice drifts over from a few feet away, still on the phone. “-no, yeah, we’re all safe, we just… we just need somewhere away from the public for a bit-”

Jax’s ears ring.

Court.

Minor.

Custody.

His heart stutters, then takes off at a sprint.

“Oh,” he says. He even laughs. A short, incredulous sound. “That’s hilarious.”

The lawyer doesn’t smile.

“If you fail to appear,” he continues, “the court may rule in your absence.”

Jax nods. Once. Twice. Thrice.

“Yeah,” he says. “Okay.”

The lawyer steps back, already mentally moving on, “You’ll find the date and time enclosed. Have a good evening.”

He turns and walks away.

Just like that.

“Jax?” Gangle reaches for his arm, “What did he mean by-”

“I need to use the restroom,” Jax interrupts.

The words come out fast. Too fast. Too loud.

Zooble frowns. “Dude, are you-”

“I’ll be back,” Jax says, already brushing past them.

Kinger watches him go and almost follows, but he needs to get this sorted before someone tries to attack them again.

Jax turns down the hallway toward the restrooms, steps quick and purposeful. He makes it halfway before his vision tunnels.

His breath catches in the back of his throat.

Nope.

He ducks into the bathroom, locks the door behind him, and braces his hands against the sink.

His reflection stares back, eyes blown wide, grin gone. A scared kid wearing an adult’s sarcasm like armor.

“Okay,” he whispers. “Okay, okay, okay-”

His chest tightens. Air refuses to cooperate.

In. Out.

His fingers tremble.

Custody.

The word crawls under his skin, sparks every memory he’s spent years burying. Rooms scrubbed clean with bleach. Claustrophobic darkness and bugs and their eggs. Adults deciding his life like he’s a toy.

His lungs burn.

The mirror blurs.

No.

Not here. Not now. Not in front of them.

He drags in a shaky breath, forces it down, clamps the panic tight in his ribs like a trapped animal.

His phone buzzes.

A text from Ragatha: You okay?

He swipes it away.

Don’t need help.

He unlocks the door, steps back into the hallway-

-and doesn’t stop walking.

He passes the waiting area without looking. Slips through the side exit he clocked earlier. The rain greets him like a slap, cold and real and free.

By the time anyone notices he’s gone, Jax is already disappearing down the street, panic pounding in his veins, the envelope crumpled on the ground by the door like a verdict he refuses to read.

He doesn’t stop running until his lungs feel like they’re tearing themselves apart.

Rain slicks the sidewalk, turning streetlights into smeared halos that make everything feel unreal, like the world’s lagging a half-second behind him. His shoes slip. He catches himself on a brick wall, skinning his palm, and the sting snaps bright and hot and sharp-

Good.

Pain is something he understands.

Pain means he’s not in the room.

He doubles over, hands on his knees, breath coming in ragged pulls that refuse to slow no matter how hard he tells them to. His heart is trying to claw its way out of his chest. Every inhale tastes like metal and wet concrete.

Custody.

The word keeps looping, ugly and insistent.

He presses his forehead against the wall, rain soaking into his hair, jacket plastered to his back. His hand shakes as he grips the bricks.

“No,” he mutters. “No, no, no!”

Because he knows how this goes.

He can already hear his father’s voice, smooth and patient and reasonable in that way that always made other adults nod along. Jason never raised his voice when it mattered. He smiled. He charmed. He talked about concern and safety and what’s best for my son until the room bent around him.

He’s just confused.

He’s been through a lot.

He doesn’t really understand what he’s saying.

Jax’s teeth chatter, and he can’t tell if it’s the cold or the thought of being trapped in that house again. That too-clean place where each day was a struggle to maintain perfection. Where every argument ended with Jax apologizing for things he hadn’t ever done. Where he had to prove he loved his father- he did he really did- he promises!

The judge will listen.

They always do.

He wipes rain from his face with the back of his sleeve and forces himself upright. His head feels stuffed with static, thoughts colliding and short-circuiting before they can finish forming.

Physically seventeen.

The phrase had been said so casually, like it was trivia. Like it didn’t carry the weight of his entire life cracking open.

Seventeen means locks. Means tests. Means control.

Means-

“I can’t,” he whispers, voice hoarse. “I can’t go back.”

Because going back doesn’t mean just sharing a roof.

It means being owned.

The rain intensifies, cold needles biting through his clothes. A car splashes past, soaking his legs, and he laughs a short, hysterical bark that startles even him.

In the Circus, this would’ve been funny.

Slip, pratfall, reset.

Pain never stuck there. Bruises faded. Bones snapped back into place. No consequences that couldn’t be undone by a scene change or a joke.

His foot catches on uneven pavement and he goes down hard, shoulder slamming into the ground. The impact knocks the air from his lungs, white-hot pain flaring down his arm.

He hisses through clenched teeth, curls around it instinctively.

For one stupid, traitorous second, his brain supplies the wrong thought:

This wouldn’t have lasted in the Circus.

In the Circus, I’d be fine already.

The realization hits harder than the fall.

“I wish I never left,” he murmurs out loud, rain stealing the words as soon as they leave his mouth. “I wish-”

He cuts himself off, breath hitching.

Because the thought is there now, fully formed and terrifyingly comforting.

The Circus was a cage, yeah. A nightmare painted in neon. But it was a nightmare he knew how to survive. The rules were twisted, but they were consistent. Caine made sense in a way his dad never did. Cruelty without intent. Madness with logic.

And most importantly… no one could make him do anything he didn’t want.

No courts. No papers. No man shoving him into the water and declaring it love.

His hands shake as he pushes himself back to his feet. His shoulder screams in protest. He welcomes it.

“Temporary,” he mutters, “It’s all temporary.”

He starts walking.

Not toward the station. Not toward anywhere safe.

Toward the place they woke up.

The streets get rougher the farther he goes. Sidewalks crumble. Buildings hunch closer together, their windows dark and blind. He cuts through an alley slick with oil and trash, the smell thick and sour in his nose. Something skitters away from his feet and he flinches hard enough to stumble again.

His knee slams into a dumpster.

Pain blooms, bright and immediate.

He groans, presses his hand to it, then laughs breathlessly when it doesn’t stop hurting right away.

“See?” he tells the empty alley, “Still here.”

His phone buzzes again.

He doesn’t look.

He knows it’ll be Ragatha. Or Pomni. Or Kinger, steady and kind and worried in that way that makes his chest ache worse than the panic.

He can’t explain this to them.

He can’t let them see how small he feels right now.

It squats at the end of the street like a bad memory that never learned how to die. Concrete stained with age and neglect. Windows boarded over, some cracked, some missing entirely. The place looks just as wrong as it did that first morning.

Jax slows.

His heart pounds harder with every step closer.

The fear twists his insides, sharp and electric, but it’s threaded with something else now. Relief, maybe. Or the warped kind of hope you get when you’re out of options.

This place is a threshold.

He stops at the edge of the cracked pavement, rain plastering his hair to his face, chest heaving. His shoulder throbs. His knee burns. He feels wrecked and alive and completely unmoored.

The building looms in front of him, wrapped in yellow police tape and caution strips.

Jax lifts his head, breath fogging in the cold air.

“Temporary,” he says again, quieter this time.

Then he steps forward, toward the door.

Ragatha taps on her knee anxiously, the message on her phone left on ‘Unread’.

“Pomni,” she murmurs, barely louder than the room. “Did Jax say anything to you?”

Pomni pauses mid-sentence on the call. Her brow furrows. She pulls the phone slightly away from her ear. “No? He just said he needed the restroom. Why?”

Ragatha’s pulse ticks up. She scans the room again: the doors, the hallway beyond, the vending machines humming quietly in the corner.

Kinger looks up at her tone. He’s been sitting very still while waiting for the agents to finish the call with their supervisor. His hands are folded around a cooling paper cup of coffee, tapping along the rim to a beat no one else can hear.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

“Jax hasn’t come back,” Gangle answers.

Zooble straightens from where they’ve been leaning against their chair, arms crossed, jaw already set. “He’s not a kid. He probably just needed air.” Their words are sharp, but there’s an edge under them. Concern, badly disguised as irritation.

“How long has it been?” Kinger asks.

Ragatha checks the time on her phone.

Her throat tightens. “Fifteen minutes.”

Pomni ends the call with a soft, apologetic murmur and stares at Ragatha, eyes wide. “He would’ve said something. He wouldn’t just-”

Her voice trails off.

Zooble pushes off the wall, “I’m gonna check the bathrooms.”

“I’ll go with you,” Gangle says immediately, already getting up.

They check.

The men’s room smells like disinfectant and stale air. Empty stalls. A sink still dripping faintly, like someone left in a hurry. No Jax.

They check the hallway. The vending machines. The little waiting nook by the on-site psychiatrist where the chairs are bolted to the floor.

Nothing.

They do find a manilla envelope crumpled up by a fire exit, but nothing else.

When they return, Pomni is standing now too, worry written plainly across her face. Kinger hasn’t moved, but his posture has changed. His shoulders are tight, gaze fixed on the automatic doors at the front of the station like he’s willing them to open.

“He wouldn’t just leave,” Gangle murmurs, “Right?”

Ragatha opens her mouth.

Closes it again.

Because wouldn’t he?

She thinks of the envelope. The way Jax’s smile hadn’t reached his eyes. The way his hands had gone very, very still.

Zooble breathes through their teeth. “I knew it. I knew something was off. He cracks jokes and then-” They gesture vaguely, frustrated, “-he just vanishes!”

“He ran out of his session earlier in the week,” Kinger reminds them quietly.

They all look at him.

His expression is contemplative, focused. Like he’s piecing together a puzzle in five dimensions.

“Some officers said something,” he continues, “About ages, responsibility... About how old the law might see him.”

Pomni pales, “Oh.”

Gangle’s chest aches. She squeezes her arms, grounding herself, “What that lawyer said about family court freaked him out.”

“Yes,” Kinger says. “And when Jax is scared-”

He stops.

Something clicks behind his eyes.

Ragatha watches the realization dawn in real time, sharp and sudden. The way his pupils dilate. The way his breath catches.

“Oh no,” he whispers.

Zooble frowns, “What? What is it?”

Kinger is already standing, “The office!”

Ragatha’s heart lurches. “What office?”

“The one we woke up in,” he says, voice tight now as he pulls on his coat, “Where the servers were running.”

Pomni stares at him, horror dawning in her eyes. “You don’t think-”

“I do,” Kinger says, already moving toward the doors. “He ran, he’s panicking, and if he’s thinking what I think he’s thinking-”

“Fuck!” Zooble gets up as well, “He might try to go back.”

Ragatha’s mind races. Jax, soaked and shaking, chasing something familiar because the present hurts too much to bear.

“Is it even-” Pomni starts.

“I don’t know,” Kinger cuts in. “And neither does he. That’s the problem.”

Ragatha reaches for his arm, “Wait, Kinger- we should tell someone! The officers-”

“There isn’t time, you need to tell them,” he answers, not unkindly, but with a terrifying certainty, “If he’s gone there, I need to stop him before he puts on another one of those damn headsets!”

Then he turns and runs.

The automatic doors hiss open as he barrels through them, coat flaring behind him, the night swallowing him whole. Rain streaks down the glass as the doors slide shut again, sealing the station behind him.

Ragatha stares after him, heart sinking into a pit.

Outside, thunder rolls low and distant.

And somewhere out there, one of her family is running straight toward the place that almost destroyed them.

She clenches her fists.

“Please,” she whispers into the hum of the station, to no one and everyone, “Please get to him in time.”

The building is quieter than he expected.

That’s the first thing Jax notices as he staggers inside, ducking under police tape and letting the door slam shut behind him with a hollow clang that echoes too long down the corridors. No hum. No static buzz. No cheerful ambient noise pretending this place is alive.

Just emptiness.

“Hello?” he snaps automatically, voice sharp, brittle. It bounces back at him warped and thin.

Nothing answers.

The lobby looks wrong.

Not Circus wrong, not colors screaming into his brain, not geometry folding in on itself in ways that it shouldn’t, but abandoned. The walls are scuffed where posters used to be. Pale rectangles mark where screens were mounted and ripped away. Exposed wires curl out of the drywall like dead vines.

His boot skids on something slick.

Jax looks down.

Blood.

Dark, already drying in streaks across the tile where he must’ve clipped himself squeezing through the broken side entrance.

“Of course,” he mutters, breath coming too fast, “Of course this is how it goes.”

He presses a hand to his side. It comes away red. Not catastrophic, but enough to hurt. Enough to remind him he’s real.

He moves anyway.

Room one: empty.

A long rectangular space with dust motes drifting through the beam of his phone flashlight. Where consoles once stood, there are only bolted stumps and gouges in the floor. Someone took the time to strip this place clean.

“No, no, no,” he says, louder now, anger seeping through the panic. “You don’t get to just-”

He kicks one of the stumps. Pain flares up his leg and he snarls, slamming a hand into the wall to steady himself.

Blood smears there too.

Room two: worse.

This one still has the outline of C&A: a fading painted logo on the wall, broken cables and a cracked monitor tossed carelessly aside like trash, scuff marks on the ground from boots.

Jax laughs. Too high. Too fast. Too panicked

“They emptied it,” he says to the ceiling, to the wires, to the ghost of a place that used to eat him alive. “They took everything.”

He thinks of that lawyer’s voice. Calm. Polite. Devastating.

He thinks of his father’s smile. The way words bend when he says them. The way truth becomes whatever keeps him in control.

“I can’t go back,” Jax whispers, voice breaking despite himself, “I can’t.”

He slams his fist into the shelf.

The metal edge bites into his knuckles. He hisses, jerks back, and just stares at the blood dripping onto the concrete below.

Good.

Good. At least it hurts.

Room three: storage.

Or what used to be.

Empty crates. Torn packing foam. A single handwritten label stuck to the floor with old tape: VR UNITS - HANDLE WITH CARE.

Jax drops to his knees so hard the impact rattles his teeth.

“No,” he breathes. “No, no, no-”

His hands shake as he scrapes at the tape, peeling it up like maybe the words underneath will change if he’s fast enough. They don’t.

His chest tightens until breathing feels like trying to inhale through wet cloth.

“They said we were free,” he snarls, fury flooding in to replace the terror. “They said this was better.”

His voice echoes wildly now, bouncing off bare walls, feeding back into his skull.

“Do you have any idea how much easier it was when nothing mattered?” he shouts. “When you couldn’t take anything from me?”

He stumbles back to his feet, swaying, vision tunneling. His limbs feel cold and numb.

“Caine!” he yells suddenly, spinning in a slow, unsteady circle. “You hear me, you stupid toothy freak?!”

Nothing.

The silence presses in, heavy and suffocating.

“You weren’t supposed to let us out,” Jax spits. “It was supposed to be fake! An ADVENTURE!”

His laugh fractures into something jagged.

“I screwed it up,” he says. “Fuck, I was wrong. And now I have to deal with it.”

He drags himself down another hallway, leaving red fingerprints along the walls like a trail of accusations. The building feels smaller the deeper he goes, more claustrophobic, like it’s closing ranks against him.

Room after

room after

room after

room after

room

all

e  m  p  t  y               

The police were thorough, he’d give them that. Nothing left for him to use, no way for him to escape-

Then-

A door at the end of the corridor.

Half off its hinges.

The room beyond is dim, lit only by a flickering emergency strip along the ceiling. Jax hesitates, heart hammering, then shoves it open the rest of the way.

This room hasn’t been stripped.

Not completely.

A desk sits flat against the center of the wall, dusty but intact. A tangle of cables coils beneath it like a nest. A computer terminal resting next to a monitor. And there, half-hidden behind a fallen office chair-

A headset.

Jax freezes.

For a long moment, he just stares at it.

His breath comes shallow and fast. His fingers twitch uselessly at his sides. The room seems to tilt slightly, like the world itself is holding its breath.

There it is.

The door.

The exit.

The lie that was real enough to survive him once.

“Okay,” he whispers hoarsely. “Okay.”

He limps forward, every step sending sparks of pain through his body. Blood drips from his hand onto the floor, dark spots blooming like flowers in the dust.

He crouches and reaches out.

His fingers close around the headset.

It’s heavier than he remembers.

Jax lifts it slowly, cradling it like something fragile, dangerous, holy…

And turns on the machine.

Rain comes down in sheets.

Kinger barely remembers the drive. Just streetlights blurring into white smears, his hands locked tight on the steering wheel, the engine whining like it knows something terrible is about to happen. His heart hasn’t slowed since the moment the thought hit him – Jax might go back – and it only gets worse when the building looms out of the darkness.

The old complex sits at the edge of the lot like a carcass.

Lightning splits the sky, backlighting it in stark white: broken windows, skeletal scaffolding, the faint suggestion of a sign long since torn down. For half a second, the building looks unreal. Like a prop. Like something that should fold away when the lights go down.

Then thunder crashes, and it’s real again.

“Oh no,” Kinger whispers.

He barely puts the car in park before the door is open. Rain soaks him instantly - his coat, his hair, his glasses - but he doesn’t slow down. He runs, shoes splashing through puddles, breath tearing out of his chest in ragged pulls.

“Jax!” he shouts into the storm. “Jax, please!”

The door gives under his shoulder with a groan of old metal.

Inside, the air is cold and dead.

Rainwater drips steadily from the ceiling, pooling on the floor. Kinger takes two steps in-

-then stops.

There are footprints.

Wet. Erratic. Leading deeper into the building.

And threaded through them, unmistakable even in the dim emergency lighting—

Blood.

“No, no, no…” His voice trembles as he crouches, fingers hovering just above a smeared red handprint on the wall. His chest tightens until it aches.

Found family, he thinks wildly, helplessly. My kid.

He follows the trail.

“Jax!” His voice cracks this time, bouncing off the bare walls, coming back hollow. “I’m here. I’m here, just- just answer me!”

Nothing.

The trail gets worse.

Blood streaks along the walls where someone leaned too hard. Drops spatter the floor unevenly, interrupted by scuffed shoe marks and sliding steps. Kinger’s breathing grows frantic, sharp little gasps he can’t seem to slow.

Every door he passes is empty.

Stripped rooms. Exposed wiring. The hollow shells of places that once held something important. With every step, dread coils tighter in his chest, whispering all the things he’s afraid to name.

I should’ve seen it.

I should’ve gone sooner.

I should’ve stopped him.

Lightning flashes through a broken window, briefly illuminating a long hallway at the end of which a single door stands ajar.

The blood leads there.

Kinger breaks into a run.

His shoulder clips the doorframe as he barrels through, breath tearing out of him in a half-sob-

-and then he stops.

The room is dim, lit only by a flickering strip of emergency light in the ceiling. Rainwater drips steadily from somewhere overhead.

Jax is on the floor.

For one fragile heartbeat, relief surges so hard it almost knocks Kinger to his knees.

“There you are,” he breathes, stepping forward, “Oh, thank goodness- Jax, I-”

Then he sees it.

The VR headset.

Strapped over Jax’s eyes. Settled into place like it belongs there.

Time slows to a standstill.

“Jax?” Kinger whispers, dread creeping into every syllable.

He takes another step closer.

Jax is almost completely still.

Blood stains his hands, his sleeves, the floor beneath him. His chest rises and falls, shallow but steady like someone sleeping too deeply to wake. His clothes are torn and soaked through, sharing his wounds with the stale air.

The headset cable trails from his hands, disappearing into the shadows like an umbilical cord.

“No,” Kinger says faintly, the ringing in his ears drowning out his voice. “No, no, no-”

He drops to his knees in front of him, rainwater dripping from his hair onto the concrete. His hands hover uselessly, terrified to touch, terrified of what it might confirm.

“Jax,” he says again, voice breaking fully now. “Please. You didn’t- you didn’t go back. You can’t have...”

For an instant, the room is flooded with white light from the overhead LED, throwing Jax’s still form into sharp relief. The headset, the blood, the unmistakable finality of it all.

When the darkness returns, nothing has changed.

Kinger bows his head, breath shuddering out of him as the truth settles like a weight on his chest.

He was too late…