Autumn Recollection I

Los Angeles, 2025

2 hours before Naga woke.

POV: Haru

“Guess you're free to go,” Laurent said, after he steered Naga into his car and slammed the door shut. “Run before I change my mind.”

We hadn’t asked questions. We couldn’t. His men were still watching us, fingers hovering over triggers. The only reason we weren’t corpses on that floor was because Laurent allowed us to live.

We ran back to where the car was parked like broken animals set loose from their cage. My legs carried me without thought, pavement blurring beneath each footfall. Aki ran beside me, clutching my sleeve. Shelby stormed ahead, always a step faster, like fury itself was dragging her forward.

Malice was right there, right in front of us. And we could do nothing but flee. I felt so hopeless it could tear through my stomach.

We were so close to Vinnie. And now we’d just watched Naga disappear into the jaws of Malice.

By the time Club Envy rose into sight, Shelby had finally calmed down. At least a little bit. I wasn't sure what was going on between her and Naga, but her reaction made me think they might've been more than just friends. 

I watched Aki’s reflection in the mirrored wall: eyes rimmed red, lips bitten raw. Makoto’s jaw clenched so tight I thought his teeth might break. I tried to steady my breath, but all I could hear was Laurent’s voice, replaying again and again. Run.

It felt like all we did was run. From the orphanage. From Japan. And now again, so close to what we're searching for, we were running.

When the doors slid open, he was waiting.

Specter.

Of course he was.

He leaned on his cane like he’d been standing there forever, cigarette smoke curling around his face. Not a single wrinkle in his immaculate suit. 

The first thing he did was smile. A slow, deliberate curl of his lips.

“Well?” he said. His voice was silk dipped in poison. “Did they take the bait?”

I froze.

“The… bait?” Makoto spat. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

Aki found her voice. “Naga traced the scent to the docks,” she said between gasps. “But there was this guy, Laurent, he—”

“Took him,” I finished. My words cracked, my chest tightening like a vice.

Specter didn’t flinch. Didn’t even blink. Instead, when he heard Laurent's name he laughed. It might've been the first time I saw him look surprised.

“Laurent?” He tapped ash into a crystal tray. “So the hound of L.A is in cahoots with Malice. How interesting. Either way, I figured they would have an interest in our little devilish friend, so I've taken precautions.”

The world tilted. My stomach dropped.

“You knew?” Shelby’s voice shattered the air.

Specter glanced at her, unconcerned. “More of a gut feeling.”

“You let us go right to them just to test a theory?” Her fists shook as she slammed one against the glass table, the impact splitting the silence like thunder.

“That’s how the game is played,” Specter said calmly. “Risk and reward.”

“Reward?” Shelby’s voice broke, raw with rage. “He’s gone! Naga is gone because of you!”

“I told you,” Specter corrected, his tone sharp, “I've taken precautions.”

With a magician’s flourish, he slipped a hand into his coat and produced something small, silver, gleaming under the lights.

A coin. 

“I slid this into his pocket before you all left,” Specter said. He twirled it casually between his fingers. "GPS tracker."

The room froze.

It must've been when he accused Naga of being the Devil. Specter you dirty rat.

“You…” Shelby’s voice trembled. “You planned all of this?”

“I anticipated outcomes.” He shrugged. “The rest is improvisation.”

“You bastard.” The words ripped out of her, venomous.

But Specter didn’t even look at her. His eyes had already shifted to Makoto, who had been silent this whole time, standing in the corner like a shadow.

“Come,” Specter said. “We’ve got a serpent to retrieve. If all goes well he'll lead us right to Malice's nest.”

Makoto’s jaw clenched, but he nodded. Not to Specter, not to us, but to himself. He moved without hesitation, following the man who had just admitted to playing with our lives like pieces on a board.

“Wait!” Aki shouted, stepping forward. “What about us?”

Specter paused at the door, not even turning his head. “Do whatever you want.”

The door closed behind them with a final click.

The silence that followed was worse than any scream.

Shelby collapsed onto the couch, burying her face in her hands. Aki sank beside her, shoulders trembling, eyes wet.

I stood frozen, staring at the glass wall where the city sprawled beneath us, endless and indifferent.

I wanted to rage. To throw myself at Specter and tear his smug grin apart. But he was gone. And all I had left was the echo of his laugh.

That was when the past returned to me.

Memories don’t arrive politely. They seep through the cracks, uninvited. One moment I was staring at the neon veins of the city, and the next I was thirteen years old again.

The air smelled different back then. Not of smoke and gasoline, but of disinfectant. Rusted pipes and damp concrete. The orphanage was no home. It was a cage painted with the lie of charity.

And yet, somehow, we laughed.

Makoto was about sixteen. He always seemed older than he was, shoulders squared, eyes sharpened too soon by the cruelty of the caretakers. He carried himself like a leader, even though he never asked for it. We followed him anyway.

Aki was thirteen, the same as me. She was fiery and restless. She never let me wallow. If I cried, she’d smack my shoulder and sneer, “We’re not dying today, Haru.”

And I cried a lot.

And then there was Vinnie, the youngest.

Even in that place, he was a beacon. Making faces when the caretakers turned their backs. He’d puff out his cheeks until he looked like a blowfish, or pretend to faint dramatically when the needles pierced his arm.

“You look like a deflated balloon,” I teased him once. I was one to talk. I was nothing but skin and bones.

“And you look like one that never got inflated,” he shot back without missing a beat.

We laughed until our ribs hurt.

There was also Viora...

She was around Makoto’s age, small for her years, lavender hair tied back in a messy knot. The caretakers had put her “in charge” of all the kids. Not because she wanted it, but because she was kind, and they knew she could keep the younger kids in line. It must've been rough, there were more than about thirty of us.

When injection time came, she’d stand at the front, her eyes fierce but soft, squeezing our hands as we waited our turn. “Breathe,” she whispered every time. “Look at me, not the needle.”

Sometimes, that was the only reason I didn’t cry.

I remember one night when the storm outside hammered the roof so hard we thought it would break. The power flickered and the lights sputtered. Then in the dark, Vinnie revealed his latest treasure: a stolen loaf of bread.

We all huddled under a blanket in the corner of the dorm, tearing it apart with our teeth. It was stale, dry, but to us it was feast.

“Tonight,” Vinnie declared, standing on the cot like a king addressing his court, “we dine like royalty!”

Aki snorted bread through her nose, choking with laughter. Even Makoto cracked a smile, rare and fleeting.

For a moment, the cage became a castle.

But dawn always came. And with dawn, the caretakers.

We were dragged into the lab, lined up against the wall. The injections were always the same. A black, viscous liquid that burned like fire under the skin. We didn’t understand what it was. They told us it was “compatibility conditioning.” We only knew it hurt.

One morning, after my turn, I staggered into the hallway to wait. My vision swam, stomach twisting. I pressed against the wall, trying not to collapse. That’s when I heard them.

Two caretakers, voices hushed near the stairwell.

“…almost fully compatible,” one said.

“At last,” the other breathed. “After all these failures.”

My pulse quickened.

“Which subject?”

“Number seven. The small, blonde one. Vinnie, I think.”

Vinnie.

The boy who turned stale bread into banquets. Who carried us through despair with nothing but his smile.

He was the one they wanted.

The one they had been waiting for.

"If all goes well, we can ship him off to L.A soon."

"And if he doesn't survive the final procedure there?"

"We try again until we find another one who's compatible."

The world tilted.

I stood there in the shadows, too afraid to breathe, hands trembling at my sides.

And for the first time in my life, I felt fear not for myself, but for Vinnie.