September 19th, 2025
Hugo Hollands, Age 25.
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The door closed behind me with a sound that swallowed the air — thick, final, like a vault sealing. The room held a kind of stillness that didn't belong to the living. White walls, a bolted table, two chairs fixed to the floor. I could smell the sweat of other visits, the nervous heat of men trying to sound forgiven.
He sat with his back to me at first, hands folded on the table, his hair thinner, the gray crawling through like ash. When he turned, his eyes narrowed as if the light itself betrayed him. For a moment, I almost pitied the confusion that flickered there. Then he recognized me.
"You don't recognize me, right?" I asked, pulling the chair opposite him, the scrape of metal against concrete echoing louder than it should have.
He smiled — or tried to — a twitch more than warmth. "You still have the same eyes. From when you were a kid. Of course I recognize you, Hugo."
I smiled back, bitter and short. "Wanted to mess with you a bit. Too bad."
He laughed, a dry, papery sound. "I can't believe you finally came to see me."
"I came to ask you just one question," I told him. "Actually, two."
He leaned forward, elbows on the table, the posture of a man pretending to negotiate. "Go on."
"The first one — why would you do what you did? And don't tell me it was the money, because that's bullshit."
He exhaled through his nose, shaking his head like someone trying to dislodge regret. "I had you when I was very young, Hugo. I had no money. I was already in a bad place, and your mother got pregnant. I told her to abort you. I did. But she didn't want to."
I laughed, sharp and unkind. "Oh, the irony. She could've done it then, saved herself the effort. Instead, she waited until later to decide she couldn't handle me and threw me to Odette."
He looked away, jaw tight. The lines around his mouth deepened, like each one marked a lie too old to be worth defending.
"So you never felt anything," I said quietly. "No fatherly instinct strong enough to stop you from wrecking everything. Nothing."
He stared at the table, at the faint carvings and ink stains left by other men. "I regret what I've done. I hate being here. I fucking hate it. It's awful."
"I know," I said. "You made sure to tell me that in every call. The food, the beatings, the smell — the tragedies of your own making." I leaned back, studying him. "I just wanted to see you. See how old you've gotten. How trash decays when left to rot. You smell like a life gone sour."
He scoffed, his eyes darting toward my clothes. "You're wearing designer. Where'd you get that from?"
"It's none of your business."
He grinned, a yellow-toothed mockery. "So you have money now, huh? You got cash on you?"
I looked at him — the stubble, the sagging eyes, the restless twitch in his fingers. "Turn on the TV on September twenty-first," I said. "Over the Fall Ball."
He frowned. "What do you mean? You're on TV now?"
"I'm everywhere now, Dad," I told him. "If you could walk out, you'd see my face on the billboards. But you can't. I would've shown you, but they took my phone at the gate. You're missing out on so much. Too bad you were too young, too stupid, to know what you had."
He sneered, unsure whether to be proud or insulted. I leaned forward, lowering my voice. "You know what really sucks? I inherited things from you. A lot of things, actually. The hunger. The anger. The curse of needing to prove I'm not you — by doing exactly what you did. Hurting everyone who ever tried to love me."
He opened his mouth, maybe to protest, maybe to confess. I didn't let him.
"I thought seeing you might fix something," I said. "But you look just like every man who ever blamed the world for what he built himself. I guess I just wanted to confirm it."
The silence after that felt colder than the air conditioning. Somewhere beyond the door, a guard coughed, a chair scraped, life continued. But inside that small room, time stopped — father and son facing the ghost of what they made in each other.
I looked at him again before standing. The air between us had gone heavy, bitter with all the words that used to rot in my throat. "I still have one more thing to ask," I said.
He straightened a little, eyes narrowing. "What?"
"Do you have any idea where Mom might be?"
He blinked, slow, like the question had come from a dream he'd already forgotten. Then he shook his head. "I don't know. I knew you were with Odette because she told me your mother dropped you off and never came back. That's all I know."
"So you don't even know if she's alive?"
He rubbed the back of his neck, the motion stiff. "I don't give a fuck. She can rot in hell for all I care."
I laughed under my breath. "You know, I don't even think she deserves hell. She deserves to be stuck somewhere in the middle — on the edge where she can see heaven but never taste it. She'd feel so bad knowing she could've done something and didn't. And you? You belong right next to her. You both do."
He stared at me, unblinking, trying to decide if I meant it. I did.
"I think it'll be one fun family reunion," I went on. "Because I'll be joining you on that edge someday. Anyway, I could've delivered this over the phone, but I wanted to see you. It's been so long. And I'm glad this is where it ends — the lineage, the whole goddamn bloodline. I don't think people like us should multiply."
He frowned, his voice rough. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Good," I said, smiling faintly. "Good."
The guard's keys rattled like cheap applause.
I pushed the chair back, the legs scraping against the floor like teeth dragging across bone. My knees locked as I stood, breath catching in my throat before words found the space they'd been starving for.
"I can't even—" I stopped, shaking my head. The sight of him sitting there, still pretending to be something human, made it hard to breathe. "I can't even stand facing you and telling you what you did was wrong. But you know. You've always known."
He didn't look at me. Just stared at the table, his hands clasped, the veins standing out like old roads that led nowhere.
"Kidnapping kids. Taking money. All that shit." My voice dropped, lower, colder. "You're disgusting. I fucking hate you. I hate you so much I can feel it in my teeth."
The silence that followed wasn't silence at all—it throbbed, heavy, pressing against the walls. I could hear the clank of a distant gate, the faint call of another name that wasn't mine.
"I never really got to know you," I said. "And I probably won't ever. Maybe you were fun, maybe people laughed around you. I'll never know. I know you tried to keep something going over the phone, but it was hollow. Empty words bouncing through a line. You should've never had me. Should've shot your load outside or used a condom, for fuck's sake."
He flinched, a small twitch at the corner of his mouth, as if the vulgarity stung more than the truth.
"But anyway," I went on, my voice softening into something that almost sounded like calm, "you'll see me soon enough. On the screen. Try not to blink."
The door clicked open behind me. The guard was already there, waiting. The sound of keys brushed against my back like wind. I turned away from him, from the stench of regret that clung to the room.
I didn't look again. Just walked out, slow, measured, until the door closed between us — sealing the rot inside, leaving the echo of my words behind to rot with him.
The heat outside clung to everything — to the glass, the steering wheel, the back of my neck. When I got into the car, the air inside felt thick with the residue of sunlight, trapped and stale. The driver asked where to, and I told him to take me back to the Morrison. He nodded without a word, and the car rolled forward, leaving the prison behind like something scraped off a shoe.
The road stretched endlessly, the same color as exhaustion. I leaned my head against the window, the glass warm against my temple, and tried to understand why I even went there. Why I needed to see him in the first place. Maybe it was curiosity. Maybe it was a sickness. Or maybe it was just habit — the old ache of trying to complete something that was never whole.
I tried to picture him younger, before the walls and the gray hair and the smell of metal keys. Nothing came. No face, no voice, not even the shape of his hands. My mind skimmed through the past like a stone skipping across a dry lake — no splash, no depth. Just emptiness.
In our first house, we had a framed photograph of him on the fireplace. I remember it only because of how it vanished. My mother threw it away when we moved. I watched her do it — a blur of motion, the frame disappearing into a black bag. I think she was angry that day. Or maybe relieved. Either way, that was the last time I saw his face, and I can't remember what it looked like.
Maybe he was always like that — naturally absent. A man who left gaps in the air instead of presence. Maybe that's why my mind can't draw him. There's no imprint. Just a hollow space with his name written on it.
Even today, sitting across from him, it felt like locking eyes with a stranger. Yet he recognized me instantly. He said it was my eyes. That's how he knew. So he must be my father. Frank Allister Hollands. The name matches. The story matches. Everything adds up — and still it doesn't.
He recognized me from my eyes. I wish I had anything I could recognize him with. Anything at all. But I have nothing. Not even a memory that feels like mine.
Outside, the sky shimmered with late afternoon heat, colorless and trembling. The car's engine murmured low, steady, indifferent. I closed my eyes, trying to remember him one more time — not the prisoner, not the man in that sterile room, but the father I must've once had. Still nothing came. Just the echo of his voice saying my name, and even that sounded borrowed.
My molars ached from how hard I was clenching. So, nothing.
When the car stopped, I stepped out, the hotel doors sighing open to the cool breath of the lobby. I went straight to the elevator, ignoring the receptionist who called something after me. Sixth floor. The button glowed under my thumb, and for a moment I watched my own reflection in the mirrored wall—tired eyes, the color of sleep lost to thought.
When the doors slid open, noise greeted me. My suite was chaos. People moved like windblown paper—stylists unpacking garments, someone steaming a jacket, another setting out trays of silver accessories and small bottles that glittered under the yellow light. The air smelled of fabric, perfume, and heat from the blow dryers. A new set of piercings was being prepared on the vanity; I could see the needle gleaming beside a small jar of antiseptic.
I stepped in, and the noise dimmed for me in that strange way the world sometimes does when your mind's elsewhere. My gaze moved through the motion, past the mirrored walls and racks of suits, until it found him. Corvian.
He stood near the window, sleeves rolled, expression unreadable until our eyes met. Then came the smallest curve of his mouth—an almost smile that could cut or comfort depending on where you stood.
I crossed the room toward the bedroom without saying anything. He followed, the quiet behind us heavy and familiar. When the door shut, sealing the noise outside, I turned.
A grin found me before I could think of one. "You're done with your important outing?" he asked, his voice low, easy.
"Yeah," I said. "Felt nothing."
He tilted his head, watching me.
"Even when I was telling him I hated him," I went on. "I didn't really feel it. I despised him, but the emotions—" I searched for the word. "They've changed. Is that because of the marking?"
"Or you just don't give a fuck anymore," he said. "The marking doesn't take away your human feelings. It only connects us tighter."
"I don't feel different," I said. "Sometimes my heart stutters, or my breathing catches, but that's it. Nothing else. Just… sometimes there's a burn." I touched my chest, the space between my ribs and stomach. "Here."
He stepped closer. The air shifted, a quiet warmth threading through it. "Nothing about your anatomy has changed," he said. "See? You're still the same height."
I turned to the mirror, catching both of us in its frame—the mortal and what follows him. "I wish I could grow taller though."
That earned a soft laugh from him, a sound almost human. "That's not something I can do," he said.
I smiled back, the edge of laughter rising between us, fragile and strange after a day that had left everything else burning. The sound of it filled the room like breath returning to a body.
A knock struck the main door, firm and brisk, followed by a man's voice from the hallway. "Rehearsal in twenty minutes, before decorations are set."
The words came with the dry authority of someone who'd been repeating the same announcement all day. Poppy let out a long sigh, hands still busy with the pins. "He never shuts up," she muttered. "Always with the tight schedules. Disgusting."
I laughed under my breath, the sound slipping loose without thought. The air in the suite felt lighter for a second, the kind of lightness that vanishes as soon as you notice it. Poppy glanced at me, her eyes half a smile, half exhaustion, then went back to fixing the fabric on my shoulder. I let her. The laughter faded, but the echo of it stayed—a brief, human sound inside all that artifice and preparation.
Poppy straightened, clapping her hands once to gather the room's attention. "Alright, everyone," she said, her tone somewhere between command and relief. "We'll be back after rehearsal. You can leave for now."
The assistants murmured a few polite acknowledgments, already halfway to exhaustion. One by one, they gathered their things—scissors clinking, fabrics folding, the air shifting with the soft rustle of leaving bodies. The door shut behind the last of them, leaving the suite quieter, though not entirely still. The air-conditioning hummed low, brushing the scent of pressed linen and perfume across the room.
Poppy leaned against the arm of the couch, arms crossed, eyes narrowing with that particular curiosity that usually led to trouble. "Do you know they're suspecting Cole was killed?"
I frowned, the words cutting through the haze of rehearsal notes and fabric. "What? How?"
"They don't know," she said, lowering her voice, the thrill of gossip glinting behind her concern. "But he hasn't been seen for almost two weeks now. Everyone's scared to call the police."
"Eddie should go looking for him," I said. "He's always been a loyal dog to Cole."
"Eddie's gone too." Her tone dropped, softer now. "They're saying he was with Cole."
I turned toward her, a sharp breath caught in my throat. "Who told you that?"
"I still hang out with Keira," she said, a small shrug to soften it. "From the brothels. You know how she's always around Cole's boys. They're saying he picked up gambling again, going to his clients' houses to play poker all night. The rumor is that one of them might've killed him—and everyone's keeping quiet."
I exhaled through my nose, slow, measured. "They're probably hiding from the police somewhere. Doesn't matter." My voice came out colder than I meant. "And you should stop hanging around those people."
Her brows arched, amused, defiant. "Why?"
"Isn't it obvious why?" I met her eyes. "They feed on rot. And you can only sit at that table for so long before you start smelling like what's being served."
She tilted her head, a faint smirk tugging at her mouth, but said nothing. The silence stretched between us—thick, fragile, and warm with the kind of understanding that didn't need agreement.
We stepped out into the corridor, the sound of the door latching behind us crisp as glass. The carpet underfoot swallowed every footstep, making the air between us louder, stretched with unspoken things. Corvian trailed a few paces back, hands in his pockets, expression unreadable. Poppy kept her clipboard pressed against her chest like a shield.
At the elevator, I reached out and pressed the button to the roof. The small circle of light glowed red against my finger.
"Be careful of the fire range," Corvian murmured beside me, his voice low, almost indulgent. "Your field is stronger now"
Poppy looked up from her notes, suspicious. "Why?"
"Mind your own business for once," he said flatly, then tilted his head at her. "And why are you even coming with us?"
"I'm his stylist," she said, her tone sharp but bright with pride.
He let out a small scoff. "Shut up. Just—stop talking."
Poppy gasped, half offended, half amused. "Hugo!"
"I didn't say anything," I said, raising my hands in surrender.
"Exactly!" she said, gesturing toward him with the end of her pen. "Tell him to stop treating me like shit."
I sighed, shoulders sinking. "Corrin, please."
He turned his head toward me, eyes glinting with a quiet amusement that never meant peace. "You too. Shut the fuck up."
Poppy pressed her palm over her mouth, trying to contain the laugh that escaped anyway, muffled and bright against the elevator's gold walls.
The doors slid open to the roof level, and a gust of hot air greeted us—the kind that clung to skin and clothes, alive with the smell of dust and salt. We stepped out into the open expanse. The stage had been partially assembled: scaffolds of light frames, coiled wires, and a sea of silver instruments waiting for purpose. Technicians moved like ghosts among them, carrying cords and shouting to each other over the wind.
"This is a first," I said, scanning the space. "Igor isn't here."
Clay appeared from behind a lighting rig, sleeves rolled, clipboard tucked under his arm, his smile too quick to be real. "Igor decided to rehearse separately."
I tilted my head. "Oh? Why? Is he scared now?"
The smile faltered, a hairline crack spreading across his composure. "He wants to keep the surprise element," he said carefully.
"I thought we were working together," I said. "It's best if he rehearses with me—or he'll get eaten on stage."
Clay's gaze hardened. "Let's not go there."
"Bring him here right now," I said, the words spilling sharp and certain. "What the fuck is this? Afraid I'll cheat from him? What are we, in college? Doing entrance exams? This is bullshit."
Clay's voice tightened. "Let's respect each other's choices, please, Mr. Ho— Mr. Verran."
That name still sat strangely on me, new and polished like a weapon. I smiled wide enough to show teeth. "Get him here. Tell him Hugo is waiting for him to start the rehearsal."
Clay hesitated, the sun catching on the sweat at his temple, then nodded once and turned away. The air felt heavier after he left, the heat rising from the floor in soft waves that blurred the edges of everything. Somewhere in the distance, the city murmured below us, and I stood there, pulse steady, waiting.
"Take it easy, Hugo," Corvian said, his voice the kind that didn't need volume to command stillness.
I looked at him, heat prickling the back of my neck. "He's scared."
"And what if he is?" His tone didn't shift—steady, smooth, unbothered. "He should be."
I said nothing. My pulse still thudded from the argument, though I wasn't sure if it was anger or anticipation that kept it going. The rooftop breeze caught the hem of my shirt, lifting it slightly as I walked toward the edge of the stage. I sat down, legs dangling over the side, the world sprawling beneath me in soft color and noise. Somewhere below, cars threaded through the streets like sparks on dark water. The stage lights weren't on yet, but the air still carried the warmth of afternoon.
I waited. Corvian didn't move. He simply watched me—one hand tucked into his pocket, the other hanging loose, his shadow cutting across the stage floor.
A few minutes passed before footsteps returned. Clay's voice came first, sharp against the wind. Behind him trailed Kent, all charm and grin, walking like he owned whatever air he entered.
"Hello, everyone!" Kent announced, too brightly. "We're so sorry, but Igor can't make it."
I let out a small laugh, almost genuine. "Really? Okay. That's fine. He wants to keep the surprise. I agree with him."
Kent paused, his smile faltering though he held onto it like a mask slipping. "You do? Then why were you throwing a fit earlier?"
I stood, brushing off the dust from my hands, my reflection flashing briefly in the black glass panels behind the stage. "I wasn't," I said. "I was demanding respect. But since you don't know the difference, let's not go further with this conversation. You can return from where you came from, Kent. It's time for my rehearsal."
He turned his gaze toward Corvian, confusion flickering behind that stubborn grin. Corvian lifted one shoulder in a lazy shrug. "Shoo for now."
Clay cleared his throat. "Mr. Kent—"
Kent waved him off lightly. "It's time for dinner anyway." He gave a small bow—mocking, polite—and turned away. Clay followed, expression tight, clipboard hugged close to his chest.
When the door closed behind them, the rooftop went still again, the last sliver of sun stretching across the floor like spilled gold.
"Fucking bitch," I muttered under my breath.
"Chill," Corvian said, amusement flickering in his tone. "There are no surprises."
"Even if there are," I said, still watching the horizon. "Let him enjoy his time. I'll crush him anyway."
The wind caught the words as they left my mouth, pulling them out into the city where the lights were beginning to bloom. Corvian said nothing more. He only smiled, the kind of smile that could almost be mistaken for pride.