I asked the one question that had boggled my mind for weeks to fill in the silence…
"Adrian, why did you let me escape alone on that night of the attack on the road?" I asked calmly, preventing none of the shakiness I felt from seeping in.
He turned toward me and stared hard. I could feel his gaze roaming around my features. Elena, I know you are strong and capable. I appreciate you, but you were still new to all this. I didn't want to overwhelm with too much at the same time.
"So, you told me to run? Like a coward." I stated, standing up to face him, anger seeping into my tone.
"A coward?" Adrian burst into a bitter laugh. Elena, you can be anything, but cowardice has nothing on you.
"Remember, you just had a sense overload some days before the meeting. I was watching out for you like I promised. Not just to immerse you in a range of activities.
After the fighting in the hall. It would be compromising for both of us if you head first into another battle without taking a break."
I listened and I could sense the wisdom of his words, but really, I felt weak at the same time. I couldn't help but pace around his strategy room, thinking.
"Ok, I see where you are coming from, and as my trainer, you get to make certain decisions due to your experience, but I would prefer you communicate that first. I replied to him.
Adrian's eyes crinkled at the corners, more like a half smile; "sure, I will do that, but I need you to believe me, ok?
Alright, I said, smiling back at him.
****
"Sit," Adrian said, motioning toward the chair opposite him. His hand hovered over a stack of encrypted files, as if daring me to breach the surface.
Every file seemed to vibrate with anticipation, waiting for me to touch it. I obeyed, heels clicking against the wood floor, eyes never leaving his.
"You're tense," he said softly, his words casual, but I felt the tug of his mind like a thread teasing at my own.
I tilted my head. "I'm observing that's all. You should be tense too."
A faint smirk curved his lips. "Observation is different from paranoia."
I let a breath escape, shallow and deliberate, letting him taste the space between my words. There was nothing paranoid here. Just awareness, honed, sharp as a scalpel. A presence like his could tempt anyone into weakness, but not me. Not anymore.
He leaned forward, chest brushing the edge of the table, and I felt it, the faintest spark of proximity that wasn't meant to exist. "Someone inside your circle," he said quietly. "Feeding information. I know it."
I caught the nuance in his thought; careful, calculating, but just shy of fear. "I know it too," I replied, letting my psychic threads ripple faintly toward him, just enough for him to feel my certainty. "I felt a new sense of beings watching me this evening. They seem to be the ones pulling the strings, too."
His eyes darkened. "Then we move fast. One misstep and…" His hand brushed mine briefly, a flicker of contact that sent a shiver along the spine. I kept my composure, but inside, something tightened, coiled, a mixture of thrill and warning.
I let my gaze wander to the screens — a gallery of staff schedules, gala footage, emails, fragments of thought I had captured in psychic glimpses.
Each pattern, each inconsistency, pulsed with subtle intent, deliberate, hiding in plain sight.
"Look at this," I said, pointing to a series of surveillance captures. "Notice the timestamp. Someone accessed the west wing at precisely 19:47. It's… unusual. Too calculated to be random."
Adrian leaned over my shoulder, and our shoulders brushed lightly. A pulse of warmth, a thread of connection I could almost taste. "And who had access?" he murmured.
I let the words linger in the air. "Several people. All with security clearance. But only one with motive."
His eyes flicked to mine. "And your psychic… impressions?"
I smirked faintly. "They align. Someone's tampering. Subtle, almost undetectable unless you know how to listen."
He pressed his lips together, frowning. "Subtle doesn't mean harmless. Whoever this is… they're patient. Too patient. They've been planning long before we even arrived."
I leaned back slightly, letting my fingers trace the rim of a coffee cup I hadn't touched. "These people thrive on patience. And chaos. Their reach is… infinite. But they can't fully control what they can't touch."
Adrian studied me, something unreadable flickering across his eyes. Desire, caution, curiosity. I felt the pull, magnetic, but I resisted it.
Yet the brush of his aura lingered, teasing, reminding me how human we still were beneath the psychic strings.
I pointed to a new set of files. "Adrian, look at this encrypted message. Someone tried to mask their identity. But the pattern is repeated in subtle glyphs in the metadata. A signature."
He leaned closer, voice low, nearly a whisper. "A signature?"
I tilted my head. "This group or persons leaves fingerprints, Adrian. They're careful, but not perfect. I see them."
He let a slow breath escape, then straightened, hands pressed flat on the table. "And you're certain of this?"
I met his gaze, unwavering. "Certain enough to act."
We sat in silence, a tense calm. The room shrank around us as if the walls themselves listened.
Outside, the night deepened, stretching the estate into shadows. Inside, the charge between us taut, vibrating like a drawn bowstring.
Then the first anomaly flickered on the monitors — a shadow, subtle, almost imperceptible, moving in the periphery of the gala footage. My pulse accelerated. Not human. Not fully.
Adrian's eyes narrowed. "They're close."
"They always are," I whispered, feeling the faint tug of the static at the edge of my perception.
I brushed a hand near his, light, accidental. The spark between us intensified. His mind probed mine, gentle, teasing, brushing against edges I didn't entirely reveal. I met his mind with the barest flicker of resistance, just enough to tease.
Staring at the screen, I could see a static pulse; it was subtle, almost like a heartbeat. A ripple in the psychic currents, faint but real. Someone was moving. Someone else.
"Wait," I murmured, frowning at the screen. The footage, previously frozen, flickered violently. A blurred figure appeared — moving, precise. "Stop. That… that's impossible."
Adrian's gaze followed mine. "What?"
"That figure. It's me… or looks like me. Moving before the chaos at the gala began."
His brow furrowed. "Impossible. You weren't there yet."
I felt it then — the ripple in reality, subtle, malicious. These people are manipulating perception, twisting evidence, bending truths like smoke. My heartbeat quickened. "They're testing us."
"Or planting doubt," Adrian said sharply, leaning closer. "Or both."
A flicker of unease twisted in his mind. I felt it like a blade against my consciousness. It might be difficult to trust — the fragile human thread between us, I hope it doesn't strain.
I swallowed, forcing calm. "You might need to investigate the source of this recording, seeing me with you that night, they might try to turn us against each other. Against ourselves. We can't let them."
Adrian's eyes darkened. "That's a possibility, I just wonder why you and why now?"
I reached for him again, fingertips grazing his. He didn't pull away. "Then trust me," I said softly, letting psychic resonance underline the words. "Together, we can untangle this."
He gave a slow nod, the tension in his jaw easing slightly. "Together," he echoed, almost humbly.
Hours passed as we combed through data, matching subtle inconsistencies in behavior with psychic impressions. Every so often, our hands brushed. Every glance carried threads of tension, warning, and desire.
Then a small alert flashed on his phone. Seemed like a report from the message he got before. Adrian's voice was a low hiss: "They're already in motion again."
I felt the static coiling in the air, the psychic pressure. Faint, deliberate, invasive. Not human. Yet precise. Calculating.
My fingers tightened on the edge of the table. "Then we proceed carefully. Watch, wait, and strike when they slip. But…" My eyes found his, sharp, cold. "Do not underestimate them. Or each other."
He leaned closer, voice soft, brushing my thoughts. "And Elena… stay close. Not just for strategy or training. For me too."
I let a shiver pass, deep and electric, and yet, like everything else, I held back. My mind pulsed with power and restraint, yet a need to own up to how I feel was intense too, but I can't, not now, not yet, when I am trying to find myself in all of this chaos.
I inhaled deeply, shaking off my thoughts, and stood up to resume pacing again. The electric hum between us, the psychic threads, the unspoken desire and trust — all coiled together as one.
And then my own phone vibrated sharply too, breaking the silence. I received a shocking message from an unknown number, a blink-and-it's-gone type of alert. The static in my mind flared. It was a call to something I never thought possible.
Adrian stared at me, "What was the message about? You look like you saw a ghost." I stared at him in silence, speechless and in shock.
I replied to him absently, "It's a bit personal, not certain it's related to all this, but when I get more information, I will share it with you."
I could feel the pull of Adrian's mind against mine — all wrapped into a tight coil of ice and fire.
I ignored it.
As the shock wore off, all I could feel was a new sense of thrill of the hunt, and the edge of danger, coming alive in me.