The Gifted Divide

"And yet, I'm not the woman I was when they chased me through the woods all those weeks ago, ready to end myself with my tiny knife. These men don't deserve my life. In fact, they owe me theirs." ― Rebecca Quinn (Entangled)

* * * *

Lucas glanced down at the worn slip of paper in his hand, his fingers tightening slightly around its creased edge, then back up at the unassuming apartment door in front of him.

His chest was tight with unease.

Even before he stepped into Zalfari, he'd already known it wasn't wise to return here—not alone, not after what had happened with Ethan, and especially not after the warnings Leroy had left him with. And yet, here he was again, pulled by the last fraying thread of a trail he could no longer ignore, no matter how it might snap in his hands.

The address Louis had scribbled down in barely legible scrawl had led him straight back into the lion's den. An apartment in the very heart of Zalfari—deep in the territory of the underground. A place where Lucas and Leonid had been lucky to walk away with their lives less than a month ago.

He remembered that conversation with Louis the day before, held in the empty silence of a rooftop parking lot, far away from cameras, ears, or the hunter-leaning agents that roamed ESA HQ like shadows in their own right.

"I got to know Earl about two years ago during a chess tournament. I didn't know who he really was at first. He's an art activist—goes by a pseudonym online. Pretty well-known in certain circles. We became friends over flash fiction and message threads. I used to proofread some of his work."

Lucas had raised an eyebrow then. "So how does he tie to Aegis?"

"One of his stories was nearly identical to a case Team Delta was investigating at the time. This was before Aegis even made it onto Alpha's radar. I asked him about it. He dodged, but I knew he'd been closer to that story than he admitted. He didn't say it outright, but I could read between the lines. Earl's not loud like some activists, but trust me, he's embedded in the scene. The kind who knows how to disappear when the world gets too loud. The last time I saw him in person, though… He didn't look good. Something's wrong with him. Sick. And getting worse."

Louis's words echoed louder now than they had yesterday, growing heavier with each breath Lucas took.

He pulled his hoodie tighter around his face and glanced around the dusky street. He'd slipped into Zalfari near sundown, the golden hour cloaking the alleyways in long shadows.

So far, no one had stopped him. Not even the loitering figures perched on stoops or the flickering eyes behind shuttered windows. But Lucas wasn't foolish enough to believe he'd gone unnoticed.

If Leroy's threats were anything to go by, there were likely ten sets of eyes on him already, cataloguing every step, every hesitation.

Still, he knocked.

Knock. Knock.

Silence. Then…

"Earl? Earl Verga?" Lucas called softly but firmly. "Louis sent me. He said you might know something about Aegis. I just want to talk. Please."

Another long pause. Then, the faint, dragging sound of footsteps from within. The door opened slowly with a reluctant creak.

Standing in the threshold was a gaunt figure—a young man, though it was hard to tell at first glance with how sunken and fragile his frame looked.

Earl Verga appeared barely upright, looking as if a strong wind might knock him over, dressed in an oversized grey shirt that swallowed his thin arms, and loose black pants that hung off his hips like curtains.

His dark hair, tangled and shoulder-length, framed a waxen face with hollow cheeks and eyes rimmed with fatigue. There was a faint but unmistakable scent of antiseptic, metal, and slow decay lingering in the air around him. Sickness.

The kind Lucas had smelled only in hospital rooms where time was running out.

"Come in," Earl rasped, his voice barely above a whisper as he turned and shuffled back inside without waiting.

Lucas hesitated. His instincts screamed caution, but it wasn't fear of ambush that made his pulse spike. It was the dawning realisation that this man, this pale, frail ghost of a person, was his last chance.

The final breadcrumb in a trail that had led to nothing but dead ends, vanishing leads, and shadows that laughed behind locked doors.

Lucas stepped inside quietly, removing his shoes at the entrance. "Thank you. Sorry for the intrusion."

The apartment was small and cramped, just two rooms, one of which was clearly used as both workspace and living area. Paint-streaked canvases leaned against the walls beneath dusty cloth coverings, and half-used art supplies cluttered the coffee table.

It was clear Earl had once lived with colour and purpose, but now, that spark had dimmed. The air was thick, not just with the musty scent of medicine and neglect, but with the quiet, choking weight of a life being slowly snuffed out.

Lucas felt it immediately.

Earl coughed violently as he cleared a space on the coffee table, pushing aside papers and boxes of paint tubes with trembling hands. "It's one of my better days," he said hoarsely, giving Lucas a weak but oddly cheeky smile. "Don't worry, I won't keel over just yet."

But you're not denying that you're dying, Lucas thought grimly.

He sat down, watching Earl's every movement, noting the way his breath hitched, the red flecks he tried to wipe away subtly onto his pants. Lucas's heart twisted.

"Does…Louis know?" he asked quietly.

"That I'm dying?" Earl said with a sardonic smile, reaching shakily for a glass of water. "He knows I'm sick. But we're not exactly best friends. More like…long-distance pen pals who overshare once in a blue moon." He took a sip, then winced as he coughed again, gripping the edge of the table like he might slide off his seat otherwise.

Lucas had no idea what to say to that.

Louis had sounded worried, maybe even guilty, but now, Lucas wondered just how much he really knew. Earl wasn't on the ESA's radar. No criminal record, no known affiliations. Just a ghost living among ghosts, apparently too clever to get caught and too sick to care anymore.

"I didn't expect you to come," Earl said abruptly, cutting through Lucas's thoughts. "But Louis did warn me you might. He never said your name, but he didn't have to. You types…" He coughed again. "You give off a vibe. The kind that only someone from the underground can recognise. You spend enough years here, you learn to tell who's ESA, who's Gifted, and who's quietly vanishing between the cracks. Right from the start, I knew Louis was from the ESA, even when he said nothing."

Lucas stayed quiet.

Earl's eyes drifted over him with a slow, sharp calculation—exhausted but not dulled. "So. Aegis, huh?"

Lucas nodded. "I'm Lucas Alescio," he added, uncertain whether Louis had passed along his identity. Judging by the way Earl's tired gaze sharpened at the name, he hadn't needed to.

"…Alescio…" Earl muttered. "Right. So you're that Lucas."

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Lucas gritted his teeth. The way the underground reacted to his name lately was starting to wear thin.

"I heard from Louis that you may have hired Aegis once. Back before they became infamous. I just want to know more about them," he said, his voice lowering into something that almost trembled with weariness. "Why do they do what they do? What drives them? Because all I've found so far are corpses, encrypted messages, and silence. And I'm tired, Earl. I'm tired of chasing ghosts."

Earl didn't speak right away.

Instead, he leaned back in his seat, fingers twitching faintly, and regarded Lucas with the eyes of someone who'd seen too much of the world, and knew better than to trust it.

But he also saw something else in Lucas. Not just the fire Gifted in a black jacket. Not just the ESA agent looking for leads.

He saw a man on the edge. Desperate, angry, and frayed.

"You're not going to like the answers I have," Earl said eventually, his voice low and laced with something almost mournful. "Because Aegis doesn't move for money or power. They move for grief."

Lucas blinked.

"And grief doesn't follow rules," Earl continued. "It doesn't draw maps or leave evidence. It burns quietly, then explodes." He coughed again violently, doubling over as blood flecked his lips. Lucas lurched forward instinctively, but Earl waved him off. "Sit down. You want answers? I'll give you a story."

Lucas sat, the weight of the moment settling in his chest like lead. Earl's story might not be the breakthrough he needed. It might be worse.

But right now, it was all he had.

Earl coughed again, harsher this time, a rattling, drawn-out sound that made Lucas flinch.

It wasn't just the sound that unsettled him. It was the way Earl's body seized with it, like something deep inside was breaking apart piece by piece. When it didn't stop after the third, or fourth cough, Lucas instinctively rose halfway from his seat, his hands twitching toward the withering man before him.

"Should I—?"

"No."

Earl's voice came out hoarse, raw, but his eyes remained startlingly lucid, sharp with a quiet insistence that brooked no argument. His hand, skeletal and cold, latched tightly around Lucas's wrist—not with force, but with something firmer than strength. Desperation. A need not to be interrupted.

Lucas froze, then slowly eased back down, heart hammering.

Earl gave a breathless chuckle, followed by another cough, softer now but no less alarming. "Stay seated," he rasped. "I'm not going to die today." A pause. Then, quieter, "But I might not make it through the season."

Lucas stared at him in silence.

"I'm ill," Earl continued, as though stating something that had already been made obvious by the decay in his voice, in his frame, in the way he leaned ever so slightly toward the table like it was the only thing keeping him upright. "It's terminal. My doctor told me I had a year at most. That was nearly nine months ago. I probably don't even have months left at this point."

He gave a tired shake of his head, then coughed again into his sleeve, this time catching himself before he doubled over. "I've made peace with it. Mostly. But if I'm going to go, I want someone to know what happened. I want someone to remember."

Lucas swallowed hard.

He didn't know what it was about that admission—maybe it was the resignation in Earl's voice, or the way his eyes, sharp as they were, still carried the heavy weariness of a man who'd been walking toward death alone, but it made something sink in his chest.

Heavy. Final.

Lucas had been chasing ghosts for weeks, months, even, and every lead he followed had collapsed into silence, misdirection, or death.

He'd started this investigation believing there would be answers, that someone, somewhere, would finally pull back the veil on Aegis. But now, sitting in this suffocatingly small apartment, beside a man whose lungs were clearly bleeding and whose time was slipping like sand through his fingers, Lucas wasn't even sure what he was hoping to find anymore.

He was tired. Tired of the lies. Tired of the secrets. Tired of chasing phantoms through alleyways and abandoned buildings, only to find more riddles scribbled in blood and ash.

And Earl Verga, sick, trembling, and clinging to the last shards of memory, might be his final chance.

Lucas bit the inside of his cheek, his jaw tight. He couldn't let this slip through his fingers too.

"You knew Aegis?" he asked finally, his voice low.

Earl nodded, leaning back with slow, deliberate motion. "Yes. I had dealings with them, back before the name Aegis became mythic. Before they were on every underground thread and whispered about like urban legends." He let out a breath that sounded almost like a laugh, though it came out hollow. "They already had a reputation then. Not with the civilians, but with us. The ones who knew how to listen. The ones with something to lose."

Lucas narrowed his eyes. Something about the way Earl phrased it felt too curated, too detached. "You engaged them. Why?"

"I'm not a Gifted," Earl said, already anticipating the next question. "But my sister was."

Lucas stilled.

The use of the past tense didn't go unnoticed.

Earl's gaze dropped, his fingers curling slowly into loose fists against his knees. "Angela. She was ten when her Gift awakened. I was fifteen. Hunters raided our apartment the night it happened, stormed in like jackals. Killed our parents before they could even scream. We barely escaped. We ran. Lived on the streets. Constantly moving, always watching over our shoulders. Every alley was a potential trap. Every knock on the door a threat."

Lucas felt something shift inside him—something old and familiar. A quiet, simmering fury.

He'd seen it before. Lived it, too.

"And then… We found Elvryn."

The word alone stirred memories.

Elvryn, once the infamous territory of Blade. No gang had dared claim it since. A ghost town for gangs, haunted by the legends that once ruled it.

Even now, the name Blade lingered like the scent of smoke after a fire, heavy and unforgotten.

"My sister joined them. One of the first, actually," Earl said, his lips twitching faintly. "I was just a Normal, useless in a fight. Couldn't even wield a knife properly. But Blade never cared. They helped us. All of us. Found me work at a local café. The owner had ties to artists and publishers, and he helped me build a life. And for the first time since Angie's Gift awakened, we didn't have to run."

Lucas watched as Earl's fists began to tremble. His voice cracked on the next words.

"And then… It happened."

"The fall of Blade," Lucas murmured, already knowing the answer.

Earl nodded. "I was away at a convention. One of my art pieces had been shortlisted. It should've been a good day." He coughed, and when he pulled his sleeve away from his lips, Lucas's stomach lurched.

Blood.

A thin smear glistened at the edge of Earl's mouth. The sight tore through him. He wanted to say something, to offer help, but what could he do? There was no cure for this kind of death.

Just time. Just pain.

"They needed me," Earl whispered, voice breaking. "And I wasn't there. My sister, my friends… Blade was our family. And I wasn't there."

He choked, coughed again, and slumped slightly forward. Lucas caught him gently by the shoulder, steadying him without a word.

"I knew some of us had to survive," Earl said, rasping. "But the hunters… They were hunting down all those survivors. So whichever of us that had survived had to scatter to the four winds. We hid. Pretended we were never part of Blade. But I knew. I believed."

Lucas shook his head slowly, frowning. "I thought it was the ESA that attacked Blade. That's what the records say."

"That's what they wanted people to think," Earl murmured, his gaze sharpening despite the pain. "But it was the hunters. We just didn't have proof. Not until two years ago. And by then, it was too late to stop the bleeding. A civil war between the hunters and the underground would've torn Eldario apart. That's why none of us said anything."

Lucas sat in stunned silence. The implications were staggering.

"I wanted to kill them," Earl said, his voice barely audible now. "Not all of them. Just the ones who did it. The ones who lit the match."

Lucas's mind reeled.

Two years ago, right around the time Aegis started gaining their deadly reputation. The same time reports of dead hunters began surfacing, one after another, all unsolved, all mysterious.

"Were you the one who…?" Lucas started, then trailed off.

Earl's expression didn't change—but a small, knowing smile crept onto his lips. "You already know the answer," he said softly.

Lucas exhaled through his nose. He did. And part of him wasn't sure if he blamed Earl at all. "But why would the hunters go so far just to wipe out Blade?" he asked. "They were just a gang."

"No. They were a symbol," Earl said bitterly. "A symbol of unity. Of power. Blade wasn't just some thugs with knives and neon jackets. They protected the Gifted. They kept the hunters out. I don't claim to know the reasons why the hunters seem to have some kind of vendetta against not just the Gifted, but also the underground. But if you want to destabilise the underground, to crush the Abyss, you start by decapitating its champions."

The words sat like lead in Lucas's gut. "And Aegis?" he asked quietly. "Why do they do what they do?"

Earl turned his gaze on him fully, and for a moment, the weight of everything he'd lost radiated from him in a look more damning than any word.

"Because the world gave us no justice," Earl said. "Because the system burns us and smiles while it does. Because the Gifted are treated like rabid dogs. And when you've lost everything—your sister, your home, your voice—you either die in silence… Or you scream with fire."

"We don't…can't trust in the justice system of this country. The Gifted are second-class citizens in the eyes of most here, if not outright monsters. To most of the people here, a Gifted doesn't even deserve basic rights. There is a reason why most of the Gifted community is also counted amongst the underground. And you wonder why Aegis is a hero to those of the Gifted community? To the underground?"

He coughed again, but this time, Lucas didn't reach out. Because something inside him understood now.

"You're ESA," Earl whispered. "You know the truth of this world. Tell me, Alescio… In all the chaos, in all the bloodshed, have you ever known Aegis to kill an innocent?"

Lucas didn't answer.

Because he wasn't sure anymore.

And that scared him more than anything else.

* * * *

An hour later, Lucas found himself walking briskly down one of Zalfari's cracked, uneven streets, his shoulders drawn tight beneath his black jacket as the last slivers of daylight bled across the skyline like a bruise.

The sun had begun its slow descent behind the jagged silhouette of the town's gutted rooftops, casting long shadows that stretched like clawed hands across the graffiti-stained walls and pavement.

Lucas moved quickly, but not hurriedly, his pace calibrated with care, fast enough to leave without drawing attention, but slow enough not to look like he was running.

In Zalfari, urgency invited questions. Questions led to trouble. And trouble was the last thing he could afford right now.

The meeting with Earl had left him heavier than before—emotionally winded, his thoughts a tangled blur of too many names, too many dead, too many secrets threaded between the cracks of stories long buried.

There was nothing left to do but walk, to let the movement distract him, to focus on getting out before the night truly took hold of this place and swallowed it whole.

And still, Earl's words lingered.

"Blade's leader is a woman."

The revelation had caught Lucas off guard more than he would have liked to admit.

"To be honest," he had said, "I was really surprised when I learnt that the Death Reaper is a woman."

It wasn't disbelief. It was surprise. Even now, that distinction mattered to him.

The street gangs of Eldario, especially the older, more violent ones like the ones rooted in Zalfari, were still steeped in a culture that lionised male dominance, that measured power by brutality, blood, and the voice that shouted the loudest.

For someone to have carved a legend out of that, and be a woman, said something about the sheer force of will it must have taken.

"Well, the underground is still primarily patriarch-run," Earl had replied. "Still a man's world. But every now and then, a woman comes along and doesn't just stand beside them. She stands above them. Blade's leader was one of them."

Lucas remembered the look on Earl's face as he'd said it—half pride, half awe, touched with something reverent.

"She took less than a year to put Elvryn under her thumb. A year. Do you understand how unheard of that is? She united a fractured territory crawling with violent sub-gangs and chaos. Brought order. Discipline. Reputation. And not all of Blade's members were Gifted, either. Hell, most weren't. She didn't build power through brute strength alone. She built it with loyalty."

Lucas's boots clicked quietly against the cracked concrete as he turned into a narrow alley, ducking beneath a crooked laundry line swaying gently in the evening breeze.

Trash rustled nearby. The sounds of Zalfari at dusk—sirens in the distance, dogs barking, the occasional muttered curse or broken laugh, filled the air like static.

"And it's not like she was a mystery, either," Earl had added. "Everyone in the underground knows her name. Even some civilians do. That's how famous she is. Even the ESA must have records on her. Even the hunters."

Lucas paused at the edge of an intersection, scanning the broken street ahead before slipping across it, keeping to the wall. His breath misted faintly in the air. The deeper into Zalfari he went, the more it felt like the city was folding in on itself—pressing inward with a heavy, smog-laced silence.

"What's her name?" he had asked.

He remembered the beat of silence that followed. A pause thick with memory and weight.

"She's more commonly known as the Death Reaper. And trust me, she earned that name."

The title alone had sent a chill through Lucas. Not from fear, exactly, but from the raw, unvarnished certainty in Earl's voice when he'd said it.

"But her real name?" Earl had continued, his eyes gleaming just slightly through his exhaustion.

"Sera. Sera Kroix."