Chapter 1: The Bar That Changed Everything
The air in The Rusty Anchor was thick with the ghosts of salt spray and forgotten promises. It smelled of stale beer, fried food, and the faint, clean scent of lemon polish someone had used half-heartedly on the bar. Yellowed photographs of decommissioned ships and faded unit patches stared down from the walls like silent sentinels. In the back corner, nestled in a booth of worn crimson leather that sighed when you sat, Lex traced the rim of her ginger ale with a finger.
Across from her, DJ nursed a dark ale, his massive hands making the tankard look like a child’s cup. His eyes, sharp and missing nothing, scanned the room every few minutes—a habit neither of them had shed.
“He’s late,” DJ rumbled, his voice a low vibration.
“It’s a ‘whenever’ thing, D. Not a briefing.” Lex didn’t look up. Her platinum hair, swept over one shoulder, gleamed dully in the amber glow of the single bulb hanging above their table. The shaved sides were growing out a little, a shadow of dark roots against her tan skin.
“A ‘whenever’ thing with some guy you met at the gym. The fancy one downtown. Who even goes there?”
“People who like working out without smelling like despair and mildew.” A faint smile touched her lips. “He’s… different. Civilized.”
DJ’s skepticism was a physical presence. “Civilized men don’t look at women the way you said he looked at you.”
“How did I say he looked at me?”
“Like he’d found something he didn’t even know he was searching for.” DJ took a long pull of his ale. “Sounds like a line. Sounds like trouble.”
Before Lex could retort, the ambient murmur of the bar dipped, just for a second. It wasn’t silence, but a subtle recalibration of attention. DJ felt it on his skin, the old operational awareness kicking in. He turned his head.
The man moving through the clutter of tables didn’t belong. It wasn’t his clothes—dark trousers, a simple charcoal sweater that probably cost more than DJ’s car—it was the way he moved. A flowing, effortless grace that seemed to part the crowd without any visible effort. He was tall, leanly built, with silver hair that should have looked out of place on a man with such a youthful, refined face, but instead just made him look unsettlingly unique. His eyes, a cool, luminous amber, swept the room and landed on their booth with the precision of a targeting system.
On Lex.
DJ saw her spine straighten a fraction, saw the way her green eyes lifted and locked. Something in her expression, usually so carefully guarded, flickered—not with fear, but with a wary kind of recognition.
“That’s him,” she murmured, almost to herself.
Frankenstein reached their table. He didn’t smile, but his gaze softened as it rested on Lex. “Alex. My apologies for the delay. An experiment required… monitoring.” His voice was calm, melodious, carrying an accent DJ couldn’t quite place.
“No problem,” Lex said. Her voice was steadier than DJ expected. “This is Damien Jones. DJ, this is Frankenstein.”
DJ didn’t offer his hand. He gave a slow, deliberate nod, his eyes never leaving the other man’s face. “Frankenstein. That a family name?”
A ghost of amusement touched the man’s mouth. “In a manner of speaking. It is the one I have chosen.” He then did something that threw DJ completely; he turned that penetrating gaze on him, acknowledging his size, his protective posture, his suspicion, and gave a small, respectful incline of his head. “It is good to meet you, Damien Jones. Alexandra speaks very highly of your friendship. It is a valuable thing to have in this world.”
The directness, the lack of posturing, disarmed DJ’s next aggressive thought. He just grunted, slamming his tankard down a little harder than necessary. “Yeah. It is.”
Frankenstein slid into the booth beside Lex, not crowding her, but closing the distance. The booth was meant for four, but with his presence, it suddenly felt intimate, contained. He ordered a mineral water from a passing waitress who stared a beat too long.
“So,” Lex said, filling the space. “An experiment?”
“Cellular regeneration rates under specific frequencies of light,” he said, as casually as another man might mention traffic. “The results were… noisy.”
To DJ’s astonishment, Lex laughed. It was a short, bright sound he hadn’t heard in years—not since before her marriage, before the light in her had been systematically dimmed. It transformed her face, smoothing the tension from her brow.
“Noisy cells,” she said, shaking her head. “That’s a new one. My experiments usually just involve seeing if I can lift more than I could last week.”
“A noble pursuit,” Frankenstein said, and now he did smile. It was small, but it changed him utterly, making that otherworldly composure suddenly, intensely human. “The discipline of the body is a testament to the will. Yours, I observe, is considerable.”
The conversation flowed around DJ like a river. He sat back, sipping his ale, watching. Frankenstein asked Lex questions about her training, listened with a focus that was absolute. He didn’t flirt. He engaged. He challenged her on a point of biomechanics, and she fired back, her hands sketching shapes in the air. He corrected her gently, citing a obscure mid-20th century paper, and she called him a know-it-all with no heat in it, only delight.
DJ saw it. The charge wasn’t the loud, aggressive thing he’d been braced for. It was quiet, a circuit completed between them, humming with an intellectual and unspoken kinship. Frankenstein looked at Lex as if she were a fascinating, complex equation he was delighted to solve. Lex looked at him like she’d been speaking a lonely language for years and had finally found someone who understood it.
The protective wall in DJ’s chest didn’t crumble, but it developed a fissure. This wasn’t some player. This was something else. And the joy on Lex’s face… he couldn’t weaponize himself against that.
The moment fractured when Lex reached for her drink and her sleeve rode up. Just an inch. Frankenstein’s eyes, sharp as a scalpel, caught what DJ knew was there: the faint, silvery start of scar tissue that laddered up her forearm. Her movement hitched. A shadow, cold and familiar, drained the warmth from her expression. She pulled her sleeve down.
Frankenstein’s gaze lifted from her wrist to her eyes. He said nothing about the scar. His voice, when he spoke, was softer than before. “You mentioned the new climbing gym on the waterfront. I hear the vertical pitch is technically demanding.”
The conversation found its feet again, but the mood had shifted. The charge was still there, but now it was threaded with something delicate, something vulnerable that Lex had just exposed.
After Frankenstein excused himself to use the restroom, DJ leaned forward. “Lex.”
“Don’t,” she whispered, staring at the table.
“I wasn’t going to.” He waited until she looked at him. “He saw it. He didn’t flinch. Didn’t ask. Didn’t pretend he didn’t see it.”
“I know.”
“That’s something.”
“Is it?” Her green eyes were haunted. “It’s just a scar, DJ.”
“It’s not. And we both know it.” He sighed. “He’s… not what I expected.”
“What did you expect?”
“A guy. This is not just a guy, Lex.”
She was silent for a long moment. “I know that, too. It scares me. Because I want to talk to him again. And that… that scares me more.”
Frankenstein returned. He didn’t slide back in. “I have taken enough of your evening,” he said, his gaze including DJ but settling on Lex. “Thank you for this.” He placed a simple black card on the table between them. No number, just a name engraved in silver: Frankenstein. “My direct line. Should you ever wish to discuss… anything. Noisy cells or otherwise.”
He left as he came, a ripple of quiet through the noise.
DJ picked up the card. It was cold, heavy. Not paper. “What the hell is this made of?”
Lex took it from him, her fingers brushing the engraving. She didn’t answer. She was watching the door where Frankenstein had disappeared, her expression a battlefield of hope and terrible, old fear.
DJ finished his ale. The protective instinct was still there, a drumbeat in his blood. But for the first time, it wasn’t screaming danger. It was whispering, cautiously, to wait and see. The night outside the bar’s grimy windows felt larger now, full of shadows and strange, elegant possibilities. And in the quiet of the booth, Lex closed her hand tightly around the black card, as if it were a lifeline or a secret, and held on.