Part 4

Part 4 After hours :

Livia

My house is never quiet. Not really. Quiet here means people walking soft and doors closing like they’re sorry for existing. It means tension like the walls are holding their breath…

I sit on my bedroom floor, back against the bed, sketchpad open on my knees. My pencil’s moving faster than I’m thinking. Lines chase memories I didn’t know I had the rhythm of the turret fire, the arc of the drone before it fried midair.

Over and over. Like I’m trying to solve something that already lives in my bones.

Then: footsteps. Heavy ones. The kind that want to be heard.

My father…

“Why the hell are you still drawing that garbage?”

I don’t look up. “It’s not garbage.”

He doesn’t answer. Just walks right up, grabs the sketchpad out of my hands.

I freeze. He flips through the pages like they’re napkins, stopping at the one I redrew twice the pulse pattern I dodged in the gym. Then he rips it out. No warning.

“You’re wasting your time,” he mutters. “You wanna draw? Fine. Sketch something useful. Weapon schematics. Business models. Not this childish crap.”

Behind him, one of the maids passes by. She barely grazes the corner of the table.

He doesn’t even turn. Just snaps, sharp: “Careful, idiot!”

She flinches. I do too. But I bite down on it. Hard.

He looks back at me.

“You’re soft. That school’s making you weaker. You’re not special, Livia. You’re just expensive.”

And then he’s gone — taking my sketch with him.

I don’t cry…

I pick up the pencil again. Redraw every line. Harder. Sharper.

I don’t know if I’m creating something anymore. Maybe I’m just predicting it.

Gabe

Dinner’s noodles again. Dry, stuck together, dumped into four plastic bowls — one for me, two for the twins to spill, and one for Mom, even though she probably won’t eat.

I stir mine with a fork, pretending it’s food…

Mom’s eyes are heavy. Not just tired like all her hope evaporated and left nothing behind. She’s got one hand on her forehead and the other holding her cracked phone.

“Eat it before it sticks,” she mutters…

My little brother’s noodles are in his hair again. I don’t even ask how. My sister glows faintly — literally — when she’s nervous. It’s her power. Bioluminescence. Like a scared jellyfish.

Super useful.

I clear my throat. “So… I kinda figured something out today.”

Mom doesn’t look up.

“You know how sometimes I, like… flinch too hard? Like things break around me?”

“That why the bathroom mirror’s gone?”

I nod. “Yeah, but it’s more than that. I think it’s like—”

“Unless it gets you a job or a scholarship, Gabe, I don’t want to hear it.”

Not angry. Just tired. Like always.

I press my tongue against my teeth and bite down the words trying to crawl out. Then I push the bowl aside and stand up.

“Gonna take a walk.”

She waves me off like she’s swatting a fly.

Outside, it’s hot. The streetlights flicker. I walk past the alley and down to the corner store. There’s a vending machine outside with one candy bar stuck on the edge of the drop slot.

I stare at it.

Focus…

My hand twitches. The air pops.

The candy falls.

I grab it, unwrap it, and take a bite before anyone can yell.

Not stealing. Just… solving a problem. The machine didn’t need it anyway.

I walk home slower.

And I wonder what else I could knock loose from the world — if I aimed just right.