Hope's gaze dropped to the cards, her eyes narrowing as she absorbed his words. The cards lay there, stark against the wooden table, each one a deliberate choice, and each carrying an implication she couldn't ignore. Her sharp, red eyes flicked back up to White's face, trying to read the calm, unreadable mask he wore so well. For anyone else, this silent game would be unsettling—a steady dissection of a life laid bare in symbolic form—but for Hope, it was as if she were looking at her own file in a language only they understood.
"Each card represents the danger you present to me and to others," he said, his tone calm, measured. He tapped the first card, a ten of hearts. "The ten. Your background is shrouded in secrets. Information that's highly classified, with gaps too large to be overlooked."
As he tapped the ten of hearts, she tensed almost imperceptibly. Secrets, he'd said. The gaps, the blank spaces left by memories she could no longer access. These were the fault lines in her identity, sections she'd walled off but that he somehow sensed, as if they emanated from her like smoke from a fading ember.
When his finger moved to the jack, she caught her breath, just barely. Brain damage, questionable health. It was the truth, though she preferred to call it conditioning. Project Eidos had reshaped her mind, yes, but it had also rewired it in ways no one could fully comprehend, least of all her. She could see the residue of emotions, colors swirling around people, but it left her own emotions… scrambled. Muted.
The queen fell in place, and her hands clenched under the table. Her family. Her father. The twisted roots of the JCO and the tendrils they'd wrapped around her life. The scars, both visible and buried deep within. She remembered the hollow, stifling darkness of those years, memories blurred with trauma but vivid in sensation.
Then the king, and his mention of experiments. Her heartbeat quickened just slightly. No one truly understood what Project Eidos had done to her, how it had left her feeling both more and less human. An odd mix of power and hollowness—a creature with abilities at once miraculous and monstrous. She was both an experiment and its outcome, and she was painfully aware of what that meant.
Finally, the ace. Bloodshed. Survival. Success, they had called her, but it had come at a price only she knew. That list of casualties, test subjects who hadn't survived—she remembered their faces, sometimes even in dreams, but never clearly, only as fading impressions of suffering.
White's words hung in the air, lingering like the faintest breath of smoke. The rain pattered steadily outside, creating a fragile barrier between them and the world beyond. She kept her face impassive, refusing to betray the flicker of curiosity that his assessment had sparked.
"A royal flush," he murmured, and she caught the barest hint of something—a glint in his eye, a trace of admiration or perhaps fascination. It was a strange moment of recognition, one she hadn't expected.
"You're very special, Hope," he said, the words resonating with a complexity she couldn't quite unravel.
Hope looked down at the cards, her finger hovering over the ace. "Special," she echoed, her voice quiet, almost sardonic. "That's a nice way to put it." A shadow of a smile played on her lips, one that didn't reach her eyes. "But a royal flush is just a game, Detective White. It's all about luck."
He met her gaze, unflinching, his expression unwavering. "Sometimes," he replied, "the right hand isn't about luck. It's about skill."