Kai lay awake again.
His room was dim — moonlight slipping through the blinds, cutting across the mess of notebooks and sketches on his desk.
He hadn't drawn since last night, but Velithra's face still haunted the page.
He sighed and sat up, raking a hand through his hair. His chest felt tight, like something was crawling underneath his skin, restless and cold.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her standing there — small, quiet, defiant. The way she looked at him when he'd told Lila to shut up. Not shocked, not scared — seen.
He wasn't used to that.
The world had a way of turning people like him into something to be feared, avoided, or pitied.
But Velithra didn't look at him like that.
She looked at him like she recognized the silence that lived inside him.
Kai stood, walking toward his desk. His fingers brushed over a small photograph half-buried under papers — an old picture. Faded. Torn at the edges.
He turned it over.
Couldn't look at it anymore.
The past never stayed buried — it clawed its way up at night, whispering in the dark.
And tonight, it whispered her name.
Not Velithra's.
Someone else's.
He shut his eyes hard and pressed a palm to his chest, as if he could shove the memories back down.
He couldn't.
He never could.
His phone buzzed once on the desk. A message from an unknown number.
He hesitated before opening it.
Unknown: You still there, Kai?
Unknown: You can't run from it forever.
He stared at the screen until the glow burned his eyes. Then, without replying, he turned the phone face-down and sat back in silence.
Outside, the wind rattled the window slightly.
He let his head fall back against the wall, whispering to no one,
"I know."
Because deep down, he wasn't sure if he was protecting Velithra from the world…
or from himself.