Chapter Text
My name is Alex Brooks. I turned eighteen this year. Only a few weeks ago I finished my third year of junior high, and in one month I am supposed to begin high school.
I have an older sister named Claire. She is four years older than me and already studying at a university overseas. Claire has always been the beautiful one, the clever one, the child who made everything look effortless. That is why our parents sent her abroad. I have not seen her face in a full year.
Our father, David, works as a deputy director in the commerce division of a large international firm. He is rarely home. Some months he disappears for two weeks at a stretch, leaving only brief messages and the faint smell of his cologne on the coats in the hallway.
Our mother, Sophia, teaches literature at the best high school in the province. She comes from a quiet, well-educated family. Her voice is soft, her posture perfect, her presence calm enough to make any room feel ordered. People still say she was the most beautiful teacher the school ever hired, though she never seems to notice the attention.
The plan my parents once made for me was simple and firm. I would attend a strong junior high far from the city, study without distraction, and earn a place at the high school where my mother taught. That plan collapsed the moment the exam results arrived. The official letter spoke of “abnormal performance.” In ordinary language, I had not studied. I had wasted the three years of boarding school on everything except books.
My mother was frantic. She made calls late into the night, used every connection she still possessed, and finally secured one final chance. If I could pass a special entrance test before the new term began at the end of summer, the school would still accept me. The condition was clear: no second opportunities after that.
I had enjoyed less than a month of careless summer freedom when the message came. I packed a single bag and boarded the high-speed train that would carry me home.
The carriage was half empty. Afternoon light slanted through the wide windows and laid long pale rectangles across the seats. Outside, the countryside slipped past in a blur of fields and distant rooftops. I sat with my phone in my hand, scrolling without purpose, when a text arrived from the contact saved simply as “Mom.”
“Alex, where are you? Your father was going to meet you at the station, but the company sent him away on an emergency trip. He will be gone several days. Take your time and be careful on the way.”
I felt almost nothing when I thought of my father. He had been absent so often during my childhood that the space he left had long since filled with silence. My mother had raised me. The three years of boarding school had only widened the distance between us and him. Toward her it was different. Even though I had seen her only two days each month during junior high, the thought of her still settled something restless inside me. She was beautiful in a quiet, composed way that made coming home feel like a small, private reward.
I typed a short reply. “I’ll be there in about an hour. Don’t worry. I can get home on my own.”
“All right. I’ll have dinner ready when you arrive.”
The idea of seeing her again left me restless. There was still time left on the journey, so I closed my eyes and tried to sleep. The low hum of the train and the soft sway of the carriage pulled at me, but sleep stayed just out of reach. My mind kept circling back to the test waiting at the end of summer, the quiet disappointment I had already caused, and the calm face I would see when I walked through the door.
I was drifting when a clear young voice spoke nearby.
“I’m sorry, miss. I don’t have enough money. I don’t want it after all.”
I opened my eyes. A high-speed rail attendant stood in the aisle. She looked about thirty, full-figured, pretty in the ordinary way that a uniform can improve. The fitted jacket and skirt drew the eye, but she seemed almost plain beside the girl standing in front of her.
The girl was small and delicate. Her features were fine, almost fragile, with faint dimples that appeared when she spoke. Her eyes were large and clear, holding a soft violet tint in the irises that caught the light like water. Her mouth was perfectly shaped—neither too full nor too thin—soft and slightly glossy even without lipstick. Twin ponytails hung from just behind her ears, giving her a playful look that did not quite match the quiet stillness in her posture. Her face was narrow, almost pointed, yet the slight curve of her hips and the narrow line of her waist already suggested the beauty she would one day become.
I stared longer than I meant to. Before I could stop the words, I said, “I’ll pay for it.”
I scanned the attendant’s payment code, took the cold bottle from her hand, and held it out. The girl’s fingers were still half a meter away when a sudden cold pressure settled over me. It was sharp and heavy, the unmistakable weight of killing intent. My skin tightened. Cold sweat soaked the back of my shirt. For a moment I could not move or speak. The air itself felt thinner.
Then the girl tilted her head a fraction toward the far end of the carriage. The pressure vanished as cleanly as it had arrived. If not for the sweat still cooling against my skin, I might have believed I imagined the entire thing.
She smiled, small and bright, and took the bottle from my hand.
“Thank you, big brother.”
I managed a stiff smile and sat very still. Whatever she was, she was not someone I could afford to approach carelessly. Someone powerful was watching her. A face like hers would never be allowed to travel alone without protection.
She thanked me once more in the same light voice, then moved on down the aisle with quiet, unhurried steps. I stayed in my seat for a long time before the tension finally eased. Sleep was gone. I told myself that if the person guarding her had wanted me dead, I would already be dead. Better to treat the whole encounter as finished and leave it behind.
With nothing else to occupy the remaining time, I opened the familiar site on my phone and returned to the story I had been reading for days. At my age the hunger was constant. Three years of boarding school with almost no adult supervision had only sharpened it. I needed the release every day, sometimes more than once. The stories I preferred always circled the same themes—mature women, mothers, the quiet forbidden pull of family. Lately I had been following one particular series about a young man and his beautiful, elegant mother. The writing was strong enough that I kept returning even when the plot wandered into places I disliked. In the private theater of my mind the mother in the story wore my own mother’s face, and the son wore mine. I imagined the slow, careful breaking of her composure, the way resistance would soften under patient pressure until she belonged to him completely. The fantasy was vivid and heated. I would never act on it. Still, the images stayed with me, sharp and insistent, until the train finally slowed into the station.
I transferred to the subway, then caught a taxi the rest of the way across the city. The streets were familiar yet distant after months away. Our building was ordinary—four floors of pale concrete, two bedrooms and a living room. I climbed the stairs with the bag over one shoulder, paused outside the familiar door, and knocked.
“Who is it?”
“Mom, it’s me.”