„So that's all we know for this moment," Aleks finished retelling the new finding as they sat at dinner in their family home. Antoni agreed that this is something they should discuss as a family.

Grażyna rubbed her brow and took off her glasses. "This is horrible. This discovery changes everything."

"Does it?" Antoni crossed his arms, and his aura flared into aggressive scarlet.

"Of course! Do you think you can keep working for GSO, knowing it slowly kills you?" Grażyna asked incredulously.

"The way I see it, this information changed nothing. We are serving the public as peacekeepers. We swore we would protect this city, country, and people. There was always a risk involved."

"Yes, it was supposed to be a high-risk job, but now it's a death sentence!" Grażyna's fist slammed the table rattling the cutlery. "You can't seriously consider staying in GSO now."

"Mum." Aleks raised her hands, trying to keep the situation from escalating. She couldn't tell which aura was redder, Toni's or their mother's. "We are here to discuss our options, not to argue. Can you please listen to us?"

Grażyna huffed and took a long sip from her wine glass. "I'm not going to like what you have to say, am I?"

"It's not a simple decision, Mum," Aleks replied. And it was true. They talked about the revelation the whole night, and they still couldn't say what the best option for them was.

"But trust me, we considered everything," Toni added. "I don't think we can simply walk away from the agency."

"Why not?" Grażyna asked, looking at her children pleadingly. "You are young, and you can do whatever you want. If you insist on working in public service, join the regular police. Choose the option that gives you at least a sliver of a chance for a normal, happy life."

"Let's say we do this." Aleks nodded. "And we would probably not be the only ones. GSO would have just a few experienced agents, and their ability to thwart deviants would be minimal. What if the deviants grew in numbers and became an unstoppable threat to public order? Who will stop them if the gifted are too afraid to use their powers?"

"They will all die eventually. You said it yourself; it's a death sentence. Let them kill themselves if that's what they want to."

"It's not that simple," Toni scoffed. "If the Rioters and other deviants sniff so much of shadow of the weakness in GSO, they will stage a coup to take over the governing power in the city, or maybe even the whole country. I saw them, Mum. They can easily do it if no one tries to stop them."

"But why does it have to be you? Had our family not done enough for this country? Your father lost his life in the service. If you... I can't...." A sob escaped her lips, and she hid her face in her hands.

Aleks moved around the table and wrapped her arm around her mother's trembling shoulders. "It's alright, Mum. We're not going anywhere."

Toni downed his wine and looked away; his jaw clenched. "You knew we wouldn't be able just to walk away. Even if we withdrew from GSO, the moment we saw a danger from deviants, we would not just stand by and watch. It's not in our nature."

"Wielding fire is not in human nature!" Grażyna cried, looking up at her son. "When that damned factory exploded, I prayed to God to save my children from the ill effects of human greed. When you discovered your gifts, I wanted to believe it was a blessing. That perhaps something beautiful would grow from the wickedness of small-minded." She shook her head. "Now I see I was naïve. It is not a blessing, but a curse."

"Mum..." Aleks tried to stop her mother's heated monologue, watching her aura turn from angry red to the darkest shades of despair.

"Those powers... they are ungodly. If God wanted humans to be this strong, he would make them so. But even after learning it's a poison slowly spreading through your body, you still insist on using it."

"God has nothing to do with it, Mum," Toni said through clenched teeth. "Gifts are not good or evil. They are just new cards in humanity's deck, like high-technology weapons. It's up to us how we use it. Is it so bad that I want to protect innocents and stop crazed lunatics from taking over our home?"

"And what makes you so sure you can?" Grażyna countered. "What if this revelation of your gift's nature is a warning sign? It's unnatural, and we know next to nothing about it. What if, by trying to stop the deviants, you plunge our home into a never-ending war that will eventually destroy us? Did you even consider such an outcome?"

Toni turned to Aleks. "I told you it was a bad idea to share this now."

"Mum deserves to know," Aleks said quietly, rubbing Grażyna's shoulder. "Ultimately, this is our decision to make. But I must admit, I'm also wondering if it's a good idea for you to keep working as a field agent."

Toni's jaw dropped. "What?"

"I'm worried about you. Your gift is dangerous because it's so powerful. When you ran off fighting the deviants, I was going mad with worry about you. The thought of losing you is unbearable."

"Alright, I'm done here." Toni got up rapidly. "I need some air."

"Toni, wait!" Aleks wanted to follow him but hesitated to look at her crying and trembling mother.

Grażyna blew her nose loudly and wiped her face with a tissue. "I'll be fine. Go after him. Make sure he won't do anything stupid."

Aleks nodded and, grabbing her coat, rushed out of the house just in time to see Toni's disappearing at the end of the street. She didn't have any trouble catching up to him. He wasn't exactly running away. With hands in his pockets, he stalked the pavement kicking at the stones and litter.

"Running away like a little kid?" Aleks taunted. "Come on, Toni. When did that solve anything?"

"I'm just bloody tired, okay?" He stopped and turned to Aleks. "I'm fed up with people looking at me and seeing only my gift. They are either jealous or scared, or enamoured. Freaking fire boy!" he said bitterly and sighed. "I'm a person, and I can make my own decisions. I may not be the brightest, but I can certainly think for myself and don't need a bunch of people telling me constantly how I should live my life."

Aleks wanted to protest, reassure him, and promise everything would be alright. But she knew it would be just empty words that won't be able to calm the fiery red of his aura. So instead, she hugged him tightly.

At first, he just stood there, surprised she didn't pick up a fight with him, but slowly, his body relaxed, and he hugged her back. They just stood in the middle of the street, taking comfort from each other's presence.

"I didn't mean to make you angry," Aleks said quietly. "But all those revelations... It scared the shit out of me."

"Me too," he admitted.

"But whatever you decide, I will support you."

"Thank you, sis."

"Shall we go home now?"

But before Toni responded, the quiet of the night was broken by a muffled scream. Alex stiffened and pressed her hand to her temple.

"Gifted," she gasped. "Not far from here."

"Do you have a gun?"

"No. Do you?"

"No. But still, we should check it out." He grabbed his sister's hand and smiled. "Lead on."

They ran through the empty neighbourhood streets getting close to the town centre, where streets became narrower and darker. Aleks was following pure instinct. She could sense multiple flared gifted auras getting slowly getting closer to them. When they were just around the corner, she raised her hand to stop Toni and peeked over the street corner just in time to see two masked men showing a struggling person into a black van.

"Rioters!" she whispered, barely breathing. "I think they are kidnapping someone."

Toni tried to rush around her, but she grabbed his elbow.

"What are you doing?" he hissed. "If they are abducting an innocent person, we must stop them!"

"With what? I don't have a gun, and you are still exhausted! There are three deviants there. We don't stand a chance."

"So what? Are we going to watch as they drive away?"

"No," Aleks smiled mischievously. "We'll follow them and hopefully find their trafficking point."

It took Toni a moment to realise what she was talking about, but once he did, he sprung to action immediately. "They are leaving. We can't lose them."

As the dark van started with a roar of the engine, Toni jumped out of the narrow alley where they watched the criminals and looked around. His eyes stopped on the battered pink Vespa, and he dashed towards it without wasting time.

"A scooter? Really?" Aleks raised her brows.

"Can you start up anything else?" Toni countered and took off a part at the front with a strong pull, revealing the ignition mechanism. He fished a narrow wire from his pocket and stuck it into a little plastic cube covering the cable ends. "If not, shut up and watch where they are going." He closed the front and pushed the switch, moving the throttle slightly. With a little rattle, the engine came to life. "Now hop on. There's no time to lose."

Aleks jumped on a little pink vehicle wrapping her arms around Toni's waist, and they rushed down the street where the van just disappeared. There was not much traffic at night, so they quickly caught up to the undescriptive dark vehicle. Toni kept his distance, letting other cars pass him so their surveillance wasn't too noticeable. Surprisingly his skills in tailing cars were much better than following people.

They left the residential part of the district and moved toward the industrial park. Toni turned off Vespa's light and tried to keep himself as far as possible from the van while ensuring not to lose its rear lights. They drove five miles more when the van slowed down and turned into a back alley around one of the decrepit old warehouses. Toni steered the scooter to the hard shoulder, and the twins hopped off the vehicle and stalked carefully toward the poorly lit warehouse.

The alley around the old storeroom was littered with rusting remnants of loading machines and crates half eaten by mould, which made sneaking undetected much easier. Aleks and Toni got close enough to see the masked men pulling two smaller people, with their hands bound behind their backs, from the van and pushing them towards the open gates of one of the loading bays of the hangar.

"You were right," Toni whispered. "It is their trafficking point. Should we get inside and try to rescue those poor people?"

Aleks shook her head even though everything inside her propelled her to take action and quit standing idly by. "There are a lot of gifted people inside. I can't tell deviants from their victims, but I can see at least twenty different auras. We can't do anything on our own."

"What do we do then?"

"We get back to GSO and tell them everything we saw. It's time to prepare an assault at the Rioters' base."