Daughter of None

17.

Lex

My sheets smelled like oranges and old detergent.

I stayed there for a moment, half-buried in cotton, breathing like the world might shift if I moved too fast. The light was soft. My bookshelf still leaned left. The radiator hissed like always.

Home.

Except—it wasn’t.

Because I’d tripped over a root in the woods. And then I was here.

No hike, no car, no time passed.

Just one blink. One breath.

Now this whole place felt wrong—familiar like a song played half a key too flat.

I sat up slowly. My limbs ached like I’d fought something invisible in my sleep. Head pounding. Chest tight. I moved on instinct, legs swinging over the side of the bed, feet hitting hardwood.

The kitchen looked normal. The dented kettle. The chipped mug. The little flicker of light over the stove that never quite died.

But the air felt static-charged. Like lightning had licked the corners.

I caught my reflection in the microwave door.

My hair was a mess of wind and leaves. My skin was pale. My eyes—

There was a flicker. Not a trick of light. A glow, deep and gold and flickering like a storm trapped behind glass.

Then it vanished.

I made the tea anyway.

I needed something normal. Something mine.

Halfway through my first sip, I noticed it—the paint above the window had blistered and blackened, like it had been kissed by fire.

My stomach dropped. I set the mug down, hands suddenly cold.

I didn’t do that.

Did I?

A knock at the door, sharp and fast, made me jump.

“Lex!” Cas’s voice. Urgent.

I stumbled to the door and unlocked it.

He came in fast, eyes sweeping the room, then landing on me.

“You’re okay.”

“Am I?” I asked. My voice sounded like it belonged to someone else. “Cas… what’s happening to me?”

Before he could answer, someone else filled the frame.

Lio.

He didn’t speak. Didn’t move. Just stood there—huge, ragged with adrenaline, eyes locked on me like I was a live wire about to snap.

“I didn’t mean to leave,” I said, suddenly very, very small.

“You didn’t leave,” he said, voice low and scraped raw. “You vanished.”

I opened my mouth. Closed it.

Cas edged past him. “We think you jumped. Teleported. Imploded. Exploded. Something in the middle.”

I sank onto the couch like my bones stopped working. “I didn’t mean to.”

“No one’s saying you did,” Cas said, gentler now.

Lio didn’t sit. He paced. His hands flexed and clenched like he wanted to fight the walls.

“You’re lucky you didn’t rematerialize inside a lamppost,” he muttered. “Or a lake. Or a subway tunnel.”

“I was just walking,” I said quietly. “I tripped, and then—I woke up here.”

He dragged a hand through his hair. “You’re not supposed to be able to do that. No one is.”

“Well,” I snapped, something sharp rising in me, “guess I missed the rulebook. Sorry for being the plot twist.”

Cas whistled under his breath. “She’s back.”

Lio shot him a death glare. Cas just smiled like this was all mildly entertaining.

I curled further into the couch. The tea had gone cold. My hands were still trembling.

Cas sat beside me. “Okay. Here’s the part where we stop reacting and start figuring out what the hell’s going on. Because this”—he waved around the apartment—“isn’t random. It’s a warning shot. Something in you is waking up. Old, loud, and hungry. And next time, you might dropkick yourself into a volcano instead of your pillow.”

“…That’s a possibility?”

Cas didn’t answer.

Lio turned to me, and something dark flickered behind his eyes—fear, maybe. Or worse, care.

“You need control,” he said. His voice was steel. “Until then, you don’t go anywhere alone. You don’t wander. You don’t trip. You don’t blink too hard without backup.”

I raised a brow. “What, I get a babysitter now?”

“No,” he said flatly. “You get me.”

Cas coughed, nearly choking on laughter. “God help us all.”

I stared at them both. I didn’t know whether to cry or hit someone.

Instead, I asked, “So what—you’re just going to live here now? Take shifts watching me glow in the dark?”

“Yes,” Lio said.

Cas said, “Maybe.”

They looked at each other. It was almost funny.

I looked at the bubbling paint again.

It wasn’t funny.

Something was wrong with me.

And I didn’t know if I wanted to fix it—or burn the whole world down with it.