The moment the door slammed shut behind the mysterious woman and her team, the air in the room shifted. The tension seemed to stretch, a taut wire ready to snap. Sylus and Lucas exchanged a brief, unreadable glance, but neither spoke.
Rose stood still, her fists clenched at her sides, her heart pounding with the fire of someone who was no longer willing to be controlled.
"That was... strange," Lucas muttered, rubbing the back of his neck as he stared at the closed door. "She didn't act like any of the others we've faced."
"Strange?" Rose repeated, her voice low, sharp. "No, Lucas. What she said... It felt like she knows something about me—something I don't even understand yet."
Sylus's gaze darkened, his jaw tightening. "You don't need to worry about that now," he said quietly, though his eyes betrayed him. There was more to it. There was always more with Sylus.
Rose didn't buy it. "No, I do need to worry. There's too much about this that doesn't add up. Too many things I'm not being told. Why did she know so much about me? Why did she even come here? This isn't just about some 'game'—is it?" Her eyes bore into Sylus, searching, demanding answers.
Sylus opened his mouth but closed it again, as if trying to find the right words—or trying to find a lie strong enough to cover the truth.
Before he could respond, Rose turned to Lucas. "And you, Lucas—how much do you know? How long have you been involved in this game?"
Lucas hesitated, then let out a frustrated breath. "Look, Rose, I didn't ask for this either. But you're right to be suspicious. There's a lot about this world, this 'game,' that none of us fully understand. And honestly?" He looked away, guilt flickering across his features. "I don't know what you've been dragged into, but I can tell you it's not just some power struggle. There are forces at work here that are far bigger than us."
Rose's mind spun. For the first time, doubt seeped in. How much of what they'd told her was a lie? How much was real?
Then, as if to prove her worst fears, her phone buzzed again, breaking the silence in the room. Rose's breath hitched as she looked at the screen, her hand shaking as she unlocked it.
You have no idea how deep this goes, Rose. No one does. Not even Sylus.
Her heart stopped.
Before she could even process the message, another one appeared:
Do you really think you can trust him? Think about it. He brought you here. He pulled you into this mess. And he's been hiding the truth from you all along.
Rose's eyes flicked to Sylus. His face was unreadable, but she could see the edge in his posture, the way his eyes darted toward her phone.
"What is this?" she demanded, holding the phone up. "Why are you involved in all of this?"
Sylus's gaze never wavered. "Rose, this is dangerous. You don't know what you're messing with."
"I know more than you think," she shot back, her mind racing. "And I know you're hiding something. Why did you pull me into this game, Sylus? What was the real reason?"
The air seemed to crackle with the weight of the question. The room felt too small, too confining. Every inch of her screamed for the truth.
Sylus didn't answer immediately. Instead, he murmured, almost to himself. "I never thought it would get this far."
Rose's chest tightened. She could feel it—the lie, the deception. She wasn't just part of some game. She was being manipulated. And Sylus was at the center of it all.
"Tell me," she demanded, her voice breaking through the tension. "Why did you pull me in? How long have you known about me?"
The room felt heavier with each passing second. Rose's demand for answers lingered in the air like a crackling storm cloud, and Sylus's silence only made it worse. He stood before her, his hands clenched at his sides, his eyes shadowed by something he wasn't ready to say.
Rose didn't back down. She crossed her arms and fixed him with a glare, her voice sharper now. "Sylus, answer me. Why did you pull me into this? Was this always your plan? Was I just some... piece to move around in your game?"
Sylus's gaze faltered, just for a moment. He looked away, his jaw tightening. The truth sat on the tip of his tongue, but it wasn't the truth she was expecting—or ready to hear. He couldn't tell her everything, not yet.
But what he could do was let her see a glimpse of the man behind the guarded mask.
"I didn't know," he said quietly, his voice almost breaking. "I didn't know it would turn into this. I didn't know you were the key, or that they'd come after you. None of this was supposed to happen."
Rose narrowed her eyes, her sharp mind catching the cracks in his words. "Then why? Why drag me into this in the first place?"
Sylus hesitated. How could he explain it? How could he put into words the way she had captivated him from the moment he first saw her? The way her strength, her fire, her very existence had made him break the rules he'd always lived by? He didn't pull her into the game because she was a pawn; he pulled her in because she was Rose. Because he couldn't help himself.
But he couldn't tell her that. Not now.
Instead, he gave her the only answer he could. "Because you're different. I didn't know why at first—I still don't. But I couldn't ignore it. There's something about you, Rose. Something that doesn't belong in their world or ours, and I… I couldn't walk away."
Rose took a step closer, her brow furrowing. His voice was earnest, but there was something he wasn't saying. She could feel it, even if she couldn't put it into words. "Different how?" she pressed. "Sylus, if you're not telling me the whole truth, then you're just as bad as the people hunting me."
Sylus flinched, her words hitting him harder than he expected. His hands tightened into fists, but he kept his voice even. "You think I'm like them? After everything I've done to protect you?"
"I think you're hiding something," she shot back. "And I think you're scared I'll figure out what it is."
Sylus opened his mouth to argue, but then he stopped himself. She wasn't wrong. He was hiding something. Not the fact that she was the key—because he didn't even know that when he brought her into this—but his feelings. The truth of why he'd broken every rule he'd ever followed just to keep her close.
He let out a slow breath and softened his tone. "You deserve answers, Rose. And I'll give them to you, as much as I can. But right now, you need to trust me when I say this isn't just about you. It's about everything. And if we don't keep moving, none of us will survive long enough to figure it out."
Rose stared at him, her mind racing. She hated how much sense he made. She hated that she still wanted to believe in him, even after everything. But most of all, she hated that she could feel herself falling into the same trap she'd sworn to avoid: relying on him.
Finally, she nodded. "Fine. I'll trust you. For now. But I'm not sitting on the sidelines anymore. If I'm in this, I'm going to fight."
Sylus's lips curved into the faintest smile—just for a second—before his expression turned serious again. "That's what I like about you, kitten. You don't back down."
Rose didn't respond. Instead, she turned and walked toward the couch, grabbing the notebook she'd been using earlier. She sat down and began scribbling notes, her mind working through every thread she could grasp.
Sylus watched her from across the room, his heart a conflicted mess. She was stronger than anyone he'd ever met. Smarter, too. And as much as he tried to focus on the danger around them, he couldn't stop himself from thinking about her. About how much she'd already come to mean to him.
He clenched his jaw and turned away, refusing to let himself dwell on it. This wasn't the time for feelings. It wasn't the time to think about how much he wanted to protect her, not just because of the game but because of her. It wasn't the time to think about how her fiery determination made him fall harder every day.
But as he sat in the quiet, watching her scribble notes and bite her lip in concentration, the words he couldn't say echoed in his mind.
You're not just different, Rose. You're everything. And I can't lose you—not to them, not to this world, not to anything.
He stayed awake long after she fell asleep, his mind restless with thoughts of her. When he was sure she was deep in her dreams, he moved closer, sitting beside her. Her hair spilled across the pillow like a river of silk, and without thinking, he reached out, brushing it back gently.
"Rose," he whispered, his voice barely audible. "You'll never know how much you mean to me."
Leaning down, he pressed a soft kiss to her forehead, lingering for a moment before pulling away. His chest ached with the weight of his unspoken feelings, but he forced himself to stay silent.
When morning came, Rose stirred, her mind fuzzy with fragments of a dream. She sat up slowly, her heart racing as an image flashed through her mind: someone brushing her hair, someone kissing her forehead with tenderness she couldn't explain.
She shook her head, her cheeks flushing. "It was just a dream," she whispered to herself, trying to push the strange warmth in her chest away.
But as she looked across the room and caught Sylus watching her with that same unreadable expression, she couldn't shake the feeling that it wasn't just a dream.