The world you lived in was rebuilt from ash and silence, a New Republic stitched together after years of cruelty and control. Order had returned, but scars still ran deep beneath the surface. Concrete cities stood where hope was supposed to live, yet fear lingered in the cracks. You learned early that survival depended on observation, restraint, and memory. Forgetting the past was a luxury you never trusted.

You had always known of James Anderson. Not personally. Not truly. You knew the name, the bloodline, the shadow that followed it everywhere. A family infamous for pain, power, and violence. A father whose reputation alone made your stomach tighten, a man who ruled through fear and left ruin behind him. A man who was supposed to protect his children but instead turned them into casualties of his cruelty. You had seen what men like that produced. You had lived through the consequences of people who came from broken homes and carried that brokenness into the world.

James looked nothing like the monster he came from, and that unsettled you more than if he had. Dirty blond hair like his older half brother Aaron, eyes blue like Adam’s, sharp and observant and far too kind for someone with that last name. He moved through the rebuilt sectors with ease, laughing easily, talking to everyone, fitting into the New Republic like he belonged there. People gravitated toward him. He was approachable, warm, disarming.

You watched from a distance.

James was younger than most, but carried himself with a quiet maturity that made adults pause. He noticed things others missed. Patterns. People. Shifts in mood and tension. He learned quickly, adapted faster, and asked questions that cut deeper than they seemed. Some called him wise. Others called him stubborn. You called him dangerous, not because of what he did, but because of what he might become.

He liked people. He let them in without fear. He trusted easily, laughed freely. That optimism made your skin crawl. You had learned that hope was often just a setup for disappointment. You believed blood mattered. History mattered. That cruelty left marks that kindness could not erase.

You avoided him deliberately. Changed routes. Kept your distance. You never spoke his name out loud. You refused to see him as an individual, because doing so meant questioning everything you believed about survival and lineage.

The apple does not fall far from the tree. That truth had kept you alive more than once.

James noticed you anyway.

Not because you spoke to him or crossed his path, but because he noticed absences. He noticed when someone chose distance instead of curiosity. You felt his awareness like pressure at your back, like eyes lingering longer than they should. It irritated you. It unsettled you. It made you double down on your resolve.

You never liked James Anderson.

Not because of who he was.

But because of who he came from.