"You're rushing things, Nick."
As she drew closer, Serein caught Kelvin's low, deliberate murmur.
"It would be wiser if we stuck with the original plan."
Yet he wasn't stopping Nick out of goodwill. There was something darker hidden behind his composure, a more insidious design that he wanted buried.
"What plan?" Serein slid back into her chair, feigning innocence, her voice light and airy.
Nick flinched, startled, then quickly pasted on a counterfeit smile. Kelvin raised a hand adorned with a ring, covering a faint cough.
"We were simply discussing the purchase of an apartment on discount." His eyes lingered on her, heavy with suspicion. Why had she suddenly become… lively?
"Oh, that sounds great." She nodded thoughtfully.
"I was planning to ask Clara to hold the deed for a plot of land downtown. You know how it is, Awakeners get tax exemptions and preferential prices."
Nick choked mid-sip on his coffee, barely forcing out a nervous grin. "T-that's… a good idea."
Serein's lips curled. "But I have a better one. What if I exploit that loophole, buying and selling real estate under Clara's name, then reselling at market value? Wouldn't that make for a neat profit?"
"Taking advantage of your best friend like that hardly seems proper, Miss Serein."
Kelvin's brows knit together. His tone was grave, playing at moral authority, as though to guilt her into shame.
"Is that so?" Serein tilted her head, her act flawless.
"Yes, exactly." Nick jumped at the chance to echo him, his words too eager, almost desperate. "How could you profit off another's life like that?"
So, they do know what they are doing.
Her fingers tightened around the porcelain rim of her cup. She resisted the urge to fling the steaming liquid in their self-righteous faces.
"I think it's fair. Clara and I have been close for years, we could share the profits." Her voice dipped lower, laced with steel. "Better me than some stray opportunist leeching off her, don't you think?"
At that, Kelvin, ever the schemer, understood she had overheard their conversation.
"There must be some misunderstanding, Miss Serein." He said.
Nick, not half as perceptive, simply scowled, convinced she was trying to steal his prize.
"Misunderstanding?" Serein arched a brow, sliding Clara's untouched glass toward Nick.
"Then prove it."
Kelvin's gaze iced over. The mask he wore cracked, though he forced his lips into a gentleman's smile. Under the table, his hand clenched so tightly veins bulged.
"We are not so uncouth as to share drinks with a lady we've only just met."
"Not sharing drinks," Serein's laugh cut sharp as glass. Rising slowly, she looked down at them. "But drugging them, that is acceptable, isn't it?"
"You… slanderer!" Nick exploded, slamming the table as he lurched to his feet, jabbing a finger at her face. His mask of refinement shattered.
Serein scoffed inwardly. These buffoons were meant to be successful businessmen? Absurd.
Out the corner of her eye, she caught Clara hurrying from the restroom. Seeing the tense tableau, Clara rushed over.
Better to end this now.
Without hesitation, Serein hurled Clara's drugged glass at Nick's sneering mouth. The liquid splashed across him; he recoiled as though scalded, hacking and spitting onto the floor with no thought for dignity.
Disgusting.
"What's happening, Se?" Clara's first instinct was panic, grabbing her friend's arm in worry.
Setting down the empty glass, Serein seized Clara's hand and marched her toward the exit.
"You should reevaluate your taste in men, Clar." Serein muttered, venom still sharp on her tongue.
Behind them, Kelvin couldn't bear letting prey slip away so easily. He lunged after them.
"Please wait, ladies—this is all a misunderstanding."
His hand clamped around Serein's wrist. She spun, eyes like drawn blades.
"Back off before I call the authorities for drugging an Awakener."
Protected by the CBAA, Awakeners were under strict law. If this was reported, both men would rot in prison.
Kelvin's grip faltered. The composed mask crumbled into fury, but Serein's threat carried too much weight, he reluctantly stepped back.
Nick, however, was not so wise, roared like a beast cornered. "Hold that bitch down! She dared to throw water at me!"
A violent surge of energy rolled through the café. Patrons paled, panic rippling like wildfire.
Clara stepped forward, golden hair lifting in the charged air. After so many years together, she needed no explanation to grasp what had happened.
"She told you to get lost. Are you deaf?" Her voice rang like thunder, heavy with levo.
Kelvin retreated another step, hands raised. Nick froze, his bravado evaporating as he swallowed hard.
Serein stared at her friend in astonishment. Clara's levo saturated the air, thick and oppressive. Glass cups quivered on the tables, faint cracks whispering through them.
Only then did Serein realize, Clara was teetering on the edge of losing control.
The café's levo alarm shrieked, piercing the ears of every customer. All eyes darted toward Clara in terror.
This is bad.
Serein yanked her friend toward the exit.
The CBAA protected Awakeners, yes, but it also bound them. Using powers against civilians was forbidden. If Clara lost control and harmed these men, she'd be fitted with a suppressor collar and suspended.
For Clara—whose very life was devoted to saving others—that punishment would be worse than death.
Bright as the sun, she was not meant for a shadowed existence like Serein's.
She shoved Clara into the car, flooring the engine, steering toward a quieter place free of levo sensors. Somewhere she could guide her properly.
"When did you start losing control?" She demanded.
Clara's breaths came ragged, her chest rising and falling as she forced air into her lungs, fighting back the raging torrent within.
"Maybe… two years ago." She admitted between gasps.
Serein whipped her head, fury flashing. "And you hid it from me all this time?"
"You know… reverse guiding hurts." Clara whispered, trying to smile through the strain. "I… I was scared."
"You think I'm a child?" Serein snapped.
If Clara truly feared pain, she would never have endured the brutal training to become a Hunter. The excuse was a flimsy veil. She was only trying to spare Serein from suffering.
"It's not like physical pain…" Clara insisted weakly, her breath evening out as she regained control.
"Enough. I'll guide you myself once we're home."
"Se…" Clara's protest was little more than a whimper.
Then her wristwatch pulsed crimson, an artificial voice cutting through the car.
"Alert: A Class B Gate has manifested over South District, Route 6, Wall Street. Awakeners of matching rank are required to respond immediately. Repeat—"
Clara pressed her palm to the device. "Hunter Clara Eveline, Rank B, reporting in."
The anguish etched across her face seconds ago was gone, replaced with hard, unyielding resolve.
"You're insane!" Serein shot at her. "You're barely holding yourself together!"
Clara unbuckled her seatbelt. "Don't worry. There will be Guides at the site, they'll stabilize me."
Serein lunged, trying to hold her back. "Don't you dare!"
But Clara was already throwing open the door, gripping the frame as the car sped on. She flashed Serein that damned radiant smile, the one that made her look like sunlight made flesh.
"I won't drag my friend out of her shelter."
And then she launched skyward, her body cutting into the heavens.
"I'll stop by your place later to pick up my car." her voice drifted down, fading into the wind.
A promise disguised as casual words, that she would return.
From afar came the crack of thunder, the acrid tang of a Gate spread on the breeze.
Serein slammed the brakes, stumbling from the car, craning up to follow Clara's receding figure. Her hand reached uselessly toward the empty sky, her chest hollow as if Clara had stolen the very breath from her lungs.
"Damn it!"
The curse ripped from her throat, raw with helpless rage.
Around her, the city pulsed, people streaming past, indifferent. Only Serein stood frozen, eyes to the heavens, fear burning through her veins for her friend's fate.
Life went on. The crowd moved. Even if someone were to die in a dungeon, the world would mourn only with a few typed lines of sympathy on a screen before turning away.
Serein bit her lip hard, copper blooming across her tongue.
She truly did not understand.
Why risk one's life to save a world already rotting from within?
***