Chapter 28: An Old Lover
Maya had been another lost child, pretty much like themselves, Jerald and Sasha. Around that time, just before they met, her mother who was a drug addict, and a serious one at that, had just died after crossing the wrong dealers, leaving Maya alone and drowning in debt.
It hadn’t been long since Maya discovered her ability, so following her mother’s death, she had to think fast to survive even at such a young age. Her ability that allowed her to perform mental tasks at super human levels even though it was only for a limited short time, aided her greatly in survival even at such a young age of 15.
She was forced to take risks with her life to survive, as the only other option was death. Turning yourself in as someone with abilities wasn’t so easy, since it was more like a sentence by the government if they found you, than commemoration. Back when they were young, things weren’t so good as they were now.
It was around this time, during a small job, that three of them met. First Maya and Jerald, then she met Sasha after following Jerald to where they lived.
Jerald and Sasha took her in not long after—partly from genuine sympathy, and partly because Jerald already harbored grand ambitions.
"Do you remember," Jerald leaned forward and began speaking, his voice carrying both nostalgia and persuasion, "when we were seventeen? You’d only been with us about eight months. There was that cold stretch that February—the heating in the building had been out for almost two weeks."
Maya said nothing, listening.
"Sasha had taken a job that week. A terrible one too. She came back with three cracked ribs and enough money to cover the rent and one good meal." He paused. "I stayed up that whole night running calculations in my head, trying to figure out how two street kids and one girl who’d just lost everything were going to survive the next six months. Business hadn’t been flowing in well at that particular time." He looked at her more intently. "You woke up at about three in the morning, sat across from me exactly the way you’re sitting now, and you used your ability for the stretch of ten minutes for the first time."
Something shifted behind Maya’s eyes as he finished that sentence... Briefly.
"In ten minutes," Jerald continued, "you restructured every calculation I’d spent hours on. You found four angles I hadn’t considered, two of which actually worked flawlessly." He sat back. "We were fine, because of you. You alone saved us the following six months. A miracle to say the least. A miracle."
Jerald himself dreamed of building something greater than mere survival. His vision was grand, to establish an organization where individuals with special abilities would gather under his leadership, growing powerful enough to reshape the world, without the puppetry of the government.
Looking him dead in the eye, Maya spoke. "I remember," she said, her voice even. "I also remember passing out afterward and not waking up properly for almost a full day. And I remember that when I did, you had already started planning the next time you’d need me to do it."
Silence followed, the brightness of his expression diming a bit.
"That’s not—"
"It is, Jerald." She said it without heat. "Stop trying to fake it, every moment of warmth you ever showed me had a direction. It was always moving somewhere. Always in service of something larger." She tilted her head slightly. "That’s not love."
Back then, it didn’t take long for romantic feelings to bloom between them. Maya was a little resistant at first, but that didn’t last. They started dating, much to Sasha’s quiet devastation. While Sasha remained loyal, she was gradually pushed into the role of a third wheel, watching the boy she had survived with fall for the new girl they had rescued.
...
Jerald was quiet for a long moment. Then he stood and moved to the far side of the room, where a covered workstation sat against the wall. In one motion, he pulled the covering away.
The display that came to life was dense and packed, filled with layered data, compound structures, progression charts mapped across a timeline that stretched back years. At the centre of it was something that looked like a molecular diagram, intricate and branching, annotated in Jerald’s obsessively neat handwriting.
"As you know, I’ve been working on this ever since that day. But, I’ve seen great progress over the last four years," he said. "An enhancement compound. Not something that simply amplifies like the first prototype. No, this one is more complete. Something that evolves what’s already there. Takes the seed of an ability and grows it into something the person couldn’t have reached alone." He said, almost marveling at his own work.
Maya looked at it in genuine surprise as a thought almost immediately, formed in her mind. "Sasha..."
"Sasha was the first." He said. "Aside from her enhanced physical capabilities, her original ability was essentially camouflage. She could press herself into shadows, become visually undetectable. While useful it was severely limited." He pulled up a secondary display. "After the compound, her relationship with shadow became far structural. She doesn’t hide in darkness anymore. She moves through it, folds it, uses it as a medium for displacement." He let that land. "She’s stronger than she was, even physically too, and faster. The ability has branched in directions neither of us fully predicted."
"And what did it cost her?" Maya asked.
Jerald paused.
"What did it cost Sasha, Jerald."
He didn’t answer immediately. That was its own answer.
"The drug works, Maya. It evolves abilities beyond their natural limits." This is the exact thing you were able to calculate in only a few minutes back then, and now I have brought that theory to life, Maya."
He turned to her directly, his eyes intense. "Your ability is one of the most powerful we’ve ever encountered. Temporary super-intelligence. For those precious minutes, you become the smartest person alive, unmatched in calculation, comprehension, creativity, strategic thinking, you name it. The only drawback is the severe mental exhaustion if you push beyond ten minutes. Imagine what you could achieve here, Maya. Saying you could become a god wouldn’t even be far-talk."
"No." She answered.
Jerald’s smile faltered. He tried again, reminding her of their old love, of the future they could build together, of how wasted her talent was in the corporate world. But Maya remained unmoved.
"I don’t trust you, Jerald," she said, looking him dead in the eyes. "I pity Sasha. She has been loyal to you for years, fighting, bleeding, sacrificing everything for you; while you chased your ambitions. You barely even see her. People are nothing but tools to you. Even the love you claimed to have for me was just another way to control my ability and keep me close."
"You don’t know what she means to me."
"I know exactly what she means to you. I was in the same position." Maya stood. "Whatever you’ve built here—whatever this is—I want no part of it. I’m not coming back. Not for the work, and not because of anything you think still exists between us."
"Maya—" The room grew tense. Jerald attempted to persuade her further, softening his tone, appealing to their history, promising her power and safety. But Maya stood firm, refusing every offer.
As her final rejection settled in the air, Jerald’s expression changed completely. The warm, nostalgic lover vanished in an instant. His face became cold and detached—the true face of a ruthless manipulator who viewed every person as either an asset or an obstacle. His eyes turned icy, sending an involuntary shiver down Maya’s spine. The temperature in the room seemed to drop as the mask finally fell away.
"So that’s how it is," he said quietly, his voice now devoid of any affection. "You’ve grown quite stubborn during your time away from me, Maya."
