PART 1: VINCENT – Chapter 1

When Marielle woke up Monday morning, she wasn’t surprised that her phone was ringing loudly, or that it was bright in her room. Nor was she surprised that she’d fallen asleep on top of the blankets, still in her dress from her date the night before.

Right, she thought, Joe something or other… Definitely no second date. She chuckled silently. Joe Goldberg, probably.

She also wasn’t surprised that the night had ended with them parting ways, and that he’d been upset that she “wasn’t who she seemed to be.”

None of that surprised her, no. As she fumbled languidly for the cellphone mid-yawn, she was surprised by the I.D. on her phone screen, a name that made her throat go dry and shut her voice down temporarily.

Blinking herself awake, she answered, “Sabine?”

The line clicked and went dead, and for several moments Marielle lay in bed, staring at the phone and wondering if it would ring again. Maybe she needed to call her back? Maybe the call was a mistake, or they’d been disconnected? Maybe someone had grabbed the phone away from Sabine and hung it up?

She drummed her lip in thought, mulling it over for a few more moments before sitting up and looking at the clock. 7:10 A.M. She’d find out the answer to those questions soon enough, since she had to be at Valorant Headquarters in less than an hour.

Swinging her legs over the edge of the bed, she stretched as her mouth opened forcefully in another long, uncontrollable yawn, one that made her left ear pop a little. She put four fingers to it and tested her jaw a bit. How late had she been out last night? Even though the date had been such a bummer, it sure seemed like they’d spent a lot of time together. She clearly recalled leaving the house at six o’clock, and it seemed that she had hit the sheets around midnight. She and her date had met at a local bar, had a few drinks over some bland conversation, and then gone to a nice restaurant where she’d ordered lobster.

At least I got a good meal out of it. She chuckled inwardly, deciding it was probably time to stop the blind dates, and maybe the dating scene altogether. Swiping right wasn’t getting her anywhere; it never really had.

She had been on exactly three dates in the last year, and none of them had gone well. She called Guy Number One “Mr. Pokemon.” Her guilty pleasure was video games and first-person shooters as well, but he’d been a bit much. She sarcastically called Guy Number Two “Dressed to Impress” because he certainly hadn’t been and had had very little going for him at forty. Last night had been the final date. If she was being honest with herself, she was over the whole thing.

Of course, being who she was didn’t help matters in the romance department at all. As a profiler, she could—if she focused in and tried hard enough—pick up on things that made her back away from any and all men. Those same men didn’t like this ability, and they often just paid for dinner and never called again.

Marielle sluggishly stood and stretched her muscles, then went into the bathroom to get ready for the day. Tired, bright-green eyes looked back at her from her mirror as she brushed her teeth, and her long black hair was slightly unruly from another lonely night of tossing and turning. Being welcomed into Valorant had definitely given her a kind of anxiety she’d never felt in her entire thirty years. Well, except for when she had been twelve and the phasing had started.

As she spat her toothpaste into the sink, she lifted a trembling hand and watched as her fingers slowly faded into nothingness. Then she swallowed hard and brought them back. She didn’t know what the next step was with her abilities. Most radianite abilities took a lot of energy, and thus had to be used carefully and sparingly. Usually, a person had one in particular that jokingly became known as their ultimate ability, something that was the “big bang,” so to speak, and this ultimate ability often exhausted them. Marielle could make her entire body disappear, or at least parts of it. About once an hour, if she was well-rested and felt strong, she could move through a wall. That had been frightening to discover when it had first begun.

Alone in her bathroom, she tested it out, raising her hand higher and higher toward the ceiling and wiggling her fingers until they vanished, leaving only her wrist visible. She brought it back down to her eye level, wondering, What is this for? Why have it? Why use it?

Her mind wandered. Twenty years ago, an event called “First Light” had occurred. A giant flash had consumed the globe, and following that, a massive worldwide blackout had plunged everything into darkness for several long hours. This event had changed the world overnight.

Shortly before First Light had taken place, a life-altering discovery had been made: a rare mineral called radianite. What it was and where it originated from had never been revealed, but it was known that exposure to this mineral caused certain people, known as radiants, to gain hypernatural abilities in varying forms.

Valorant, where Marielle worked, had been founded by Liam Byrne and Wei Ling to tackle dangerous situations involving radianite. The Valorant Protocol was a group of radiants who were researchers, explorers, and warriors ready to serve and protect.

Like many radiants, Marielle had discovered her ability around puberty. One day in sixth grade, she had vanished after scoring a goal in soccer at school. The crowd had stopped shouting in victory and started gasping and screaming in horror. Although she had come back shortly afterward, nothing had ever been the same for Marielle.

Generally speaking, when people gained these abilities, they had three or four that showed up in similar categories. For instance, Hazal was one of the members of Valorant. She was lovely, but a pure nightmare ability-wise, and that was no exaggeration. Her particular abilities manifested themselves in fear. Hazal believed her abilities were a punishment from Allah for having committed some particular sin she simply could not atone for. They kept her up at night, and even when they didn’t, she didn’t sleep much and smeared black makeup around her blue and red eyes to hide the dark circles that never went away.

Hazal had come from Turkey, and she was used by Liam and Sabine to extract information out of people. The other agents called her “the witch.” Hazal referred to her abilities as “Nightmare,” personifying them as an entity separate from her. Many of the others believed they had driven her insane. She could conjure a person’s worst phobias and fears, making them believe they were surrounded by them, being eaten by them, being drowned in them. Hazal’s agent name was Fade, and Marielle often wished she knew her a little more deeply—even in their counseling sessions, when Hazal spoke profoundly and openly at times. Hazal was quiet and hard to read, and she often provoked fear in everyone around her.

How lonely that must be, Marielle thought as her mind moved to Sasha, another radiant whose agent name was Sova. Marielle always thought that he was one of the more attractive men at Valorant. The Russian man was tall and fair, with long, flowing golden locks and one striking blue eye. The other had been lost in an accident and replaced with a mechanical blue orb, but that didn’t make him any less attractive.

Marielle shivered a little just thinking about him, which made her giggle—Sasha loved the cold. He was proud, but on the softer side, and highly trusted. He was one of the few Valorant members reliable enough to watch detainees at any given moment if someone else couldn’t take a shift. All of Sasha’s abilities were based on radianite technology, and most of the agents believed that many of them lay in his fake eye, which gave him hawk-like vision.

Marielle was brought out of her memories when her cellphone rang a second time. She turned the water in her tub off and rushed to her cell, her hand complete again.

She answered, trying for a less shocked tone this time. “Sabine?”

“We need you to come in.” Sabine’s icy, masked voice came through the other end.

“I was on my way anyway,” she replied anxiously. Silence. “What’s going on?”

“Just come in.” Sabine sounded exasperated. “Jamie’ll be waiting for you at the front with the dossier.”

Marielle drummed her bottom lip, waiting. “Sabine, what’s this about?” Silence. “Is this about… him?”

Click.

Sighing, she went back to the bathroom and got into the steamy tub, scrubbing off the perfume and left-over makeup from her failed date, then quickly washing her hip-length black hair.

She didn’t take the hang up too personally. There were several reasons Sabine’s agent name was Viper, and her cold demeanor definitely played into it. Not that Marielle could blame her. She’d always been cold, but the events of five years ago had ruined her ability to have a friendly or empathetic thought. She was all spite, bitterness, and anger.

“Him…” That was one way of referring to what had happened at Valorant Headquarters over the last week. It all centered on the mysterious “him.”

At an event that Marielle had not been part of the Saturday before, a mysterious stranger had shown up, aimed and fired a gun at Liam, and then disappeared, reappearing in a different part of the room. Then, according to the accounts of those who had been there, this same gentleman had proceeded to pull his weapon into his arm, where it had vanished with a flurry of color into what looked like a golden tribal tattoo that had appeared on his face, neck, and arms.

This gentleman hadn’t said a word to anyone since, and was being kept—guarded, really—at Valorant Headquarters until further notice. No one except those on guard duty had seen him. He was a big mystery to all. Liam had told her very little, except that they might eventually want her expertise.

Liam was in charge of everyone at Valorant. He was forty-six, red-headed, blue-eyed, and big—much bigger than she was, anyway. This thought process always made her chuckle, since she was only five foot two and didn’t weigh a whole lot. What she lacked in height and size, she made up for in bravery, or at least that’s what everyone at Valorant said. In training, she always rushed in, attacking without fear. 

Once Marielle had towel-dried her locks, she braided her hair, threw on some black slacks, a tight-fitting tank top, boots, and a khaki jacket, and went into the kitchen to make herself some coffee and dry toast. When she finished eating, she left out some food for Felix, her black cat, then took the subway to Headquarters.           

At the front doors, she found Jamie waiting for her. The tall, handsome young man with the dark skin and orange- and gold-tipped curls was grinning at her. If “fire” was the first thing anyone thought of when they saw him, she was certain that was what Jamie intended. He did have fire abilities, after all. In particular, his ultimate ability had given him his Agent name: Phoenix. He had the ability to create a temporary firewall and throw blinding flashes of light at enemies, but with his ultimate, Jamie could drop a marker and walk a certain distance away from it. Then, if he sustained any fatal injury, he would reappear over his marker, thus coming back from the grave. He called this ability “run it back.”

He was leaning on the wall by the front doors with his arms crossed, a manila folder in his right hand. “Hey,” he said, his husky tone already edging toward, “Want to go out later?”

Marielle loved his British accent, as did most of his fangirls. Jamie had been an actor before he had come to Valorant, after all. The flirting was a game the two of them had started not too long ago, a playful exchange on variations of, “Want to go out for a drink?” and “Nope. It’s not me, it’s you.” Both always chuckled at that. This was all in good fun. There were no real feelings there. It was just one of Jamie’s many ways of deflecting any of his true emotions, especially when it came to Marielle. She knew he feared her skills as a profiler.

When she approached, he removed a pair of sunglasses, revealing his deep golden eyes, then handed her the dossier. It was hot out, as August always was in California, and both of them looked like they were two seconds from needing a cold drink.

She glanced down at the folder. “Thanks.” She swallowed hard, wondering if she should open it now or later.

“Do you know what this is all about?” Jamie asked, leaning in a little.

“My guess?” She opened the folder and showed him the photo of the young, dark-haired man in glasses. “Chamber…”

 

***

 

“Why didn’t they call me sooner?” Marielle asked, rubbing the space between her eyes and briefly closing them as the elevator ascended. That whiskey the night before had been a bad idea.

“Beats me, love,” Jamie replied, leaning against the back. “I wasn’t even in on this. I just caught the briefing.”

Marielle bit her bottom lip abashedly and removed her own sunglasses. “I’m still not trusted around here.”

“And you won’t be until you prove yourself in some way. That’s what I had to do.”

She thought for a moment, eyeing her reflection in the elevator walls. “How do I do that?”

“Be trustworthy and do your job.” Jamie hung his sunglasses off of his collar.

She let out a long, exasperated sigh, wishing she’d stopped somewhere for coffee. She wasn’t exactly experiencing a hangover, but her eyes felt sensitive to the light and her mind was blurring with thoughts and questions.

She cracked open the folder again and peered at the first page, scanning the stranger’s photo. He was young, dark-haired, handsome, and wore black, square-rimmed glasses. There wasn’t much else to say about him. Her thoughts were already trying to assess him, but she interrupted them to speak to Jamie again before they parted ways. He was on her watch today. 

“Speaking of which”—her gaze flicked up to him—“meeting later?”

“Already on my calendar, love,” he replied with a strong nod.

The elevator stopped. “Are you following me in?” She leafed through the dossier, licking a finger to turn the last page. 

The elevator door dinged open and Jamie sauntered out into the hall, smooth as ever. “Nah, I’m headed back to training.” He jerked around toward her and saluted. “Good luck.” Then he popped the collar on his white jacket and disappeared down the hall.

Marielle stood alone in the elevator for a moment, taking a deep breath. She wasn’t looking forward to being in the same room as Sabine today. They often saw one another, and just as often ignored one another. Sabine hadn’t called her in over five years, but today was going to be different. Marielle could already feel it.

Marielle’s mind briefly went back to her time with Sabine in college. Back then, the nights had been wild, especially in the August heat.