Serein longed to go home, to collapse onto her bed and shake off the restlessness clawing inside her.
But she couldn't. She still had an appointment with that reckless trainee Hunter, to retrieve her wallet, and hopefully, to silence him.
She drove Clara's car toward the meeting point. Taurus Street lay at the city's edge, neither slum nor safe haven. It was a place where the city's rejects gathered—the kind of people discarded by the metropolis's relentless tide.
And there stood the headquarters of Maledictus, a guild that answered neither to law nor to the CBAA.
The name alone made Serein's skin crawl.
Anxiety coiled tight inside her, feeding her with dozens of possibilities as to why Kai had chosen this place. She had already imagined the worst-case scenario, but even so, she could not turn back.
If she lost her ID, reissuing it now would be a nightmare. The process involved a levo evaluation, since there were always cases of late awakening.
Worse still, if Kai leaked her identity to outsiders or sold it on the black market, she would be hunted like a rabbit among wolves.
When Serein arrived, the clock had just passed 6:05. She remained seated in the car, cautious, and called Kai while scanning the surroundings.
The phone barely rang before he picked up.
"Where are you?" His voice was sharp, impatient.
"Where are you standing?" She demanded, eyes sweeping the street.
"Outside the antique shop, Clock Tower." He already knew she had arrived.
Her gaze swept past shuttered storefronts until she saw him: crimson hair catching the flickering streetlight, a lanky figure leaning against the locked door of a store now bearing a 'For Lease' sign.
Before stepping out, Serein needed clarity.
"What do you want from me?" Her tone was like steel.
"Can't we talk face to face?" He straightened from the door, eyes darting nervously around.
"No." The word left her lips without hesitation.
If he had ties to Maledictus, he might be luring her out for abduction. She had lived one lifetime as a Guide; she knew too well the fate of unregistered Guides.
Sold like slaves. Or locked in cages as living batteries for Hunters.
Her pulse skipped when Kai's searching gaze found her car. He approached while still speaking into the phone.
"I'm not going to hurt you. I have a deal for you."
He stopped by her window, rapping his knuckles against the glass.
"If you don't feel safe, then let me sit inside with you."
Serein hesitated. Her mind spun with dark scenarios.
Yet when she looked at him through the glass, when her eyes met his unsettled amber gaze, something faltered.
That same fire had shone last night when he stood, again and again, against certain death—only to shield her. To shield those children.
After a long pause, she unlocked the car. The sharp click shattered the suffocating silence.
Kai slid into the passenger seat, his wounds already healed clean of battle's stain.
"My wallet?" Serein wasted no time, cutting straight to the point.
He kept pace easily, pulling the blue wallet from his coat and waving it before her to prove he hadn't deceived her.
She instinctively reached for it. He pulled it back, quick as a fox.
"We had a deal, remember?" His lips curled into that familiar cocky grin.
Serein clicked her tongue, retreating. "What deal?"
Kai tucked the wallet back into his coat, the mischief in his face giving way to sobriety.
"Guide me tonight. Just one match. After that, the wallet is yours."
Her brows drew tight. She knew exactly what kind of match he meant.
The underground battles of Maledictus. Entertainment for shadowy tycoons, a hunting ground for talent to be recruited into dungeon raids.
Unlike the CBAA, which prized civilian safety, or Eclipse, which vowed to protect Awakeners, Maledictus was nothing but a shadow syndicate, profiting off black-market trades of dungeon spoils.
Their Awakeners were free of hierarchy. No ranks, no caps. Rewards were calculated from dungeon spoils—half for the guild, half for the Hunter.
In her past life, Serein's guild had taken contracts like these. Always suicide missions. Always over-rank Gates.
But why would a boy like Kai, whose potential could easily reach B-rank or even A after proper training, choose this path? He had other options. Better guilds. Safer futures.
Her silence deepened, troubled. He mistook it for doubt.
"I'm serious. Help me win and it's yours. I swear." He even raised a hand in earnest oath.
Serein straightened, eyes fixed on the flickering street beyond the windshield.
"Why do you want to fight there?"
Those who stepped into Maledictus's arena signed their death warrants. If they fell in the ring, there was no accountability, no compensation. Only a corpse.
But the winnings, if they survived, were enormous. Better odds than a lottery ticket.
Kai's eyes slid away. His lips pressed, parted, pressed again. He drew a breath, as if bracing himself.
"Because—"
Rring!
His phone cut him off.
He flinched, answered quickly. A roar burst through the speaker before he could speak.
"You said you'd pay up today! Where the hell are you hiding?"
Kai turned aside, curling in on himself, voice lowered.
"Before midnight, I'll bring the money. I promise."
"You'd better. Or I'll burn down your mother's shop. Do you hear me?"
The car was small, silent. Every vicious word carried clearly to Serein.
Kai ended the call slowly, shoulders trembling, his back rigid as if he were holding something in.
And Serein understood. The boy wasn't reckless for glory. He was desperate.
When he could have extorted her secret, sold her identity, he chose instead to beg her help and to fight for the money himself.
Too stupid to be a hero.
But brave enough to be called a fool.
Serein bit her nail, the nervous habit betraying her inner turmoil.
If she agreed to help, she would expose herself again, this time before predators far more dangerous.
Her gaze drifted to Kai. He sat rigid, his thumb brushing the phone screen where a wallpaper showed him beside a smiling middle-aged woman. His amber eyes flickered like a candle about to snuff out.
"Forget it."
He muttered suddenly. His voice had dropped, stripped of the reckless edge that had faced down orcs the night before. "I don't have the right to demand anything of you."
He drew her wallet from his coat and offered it back. "Sorry."
She accepted, hesitant, confusion and worry tangling in her chest.
He had dragged her here, demanded a bargain, only to collapse back into defeat.
"Your secret's safe. I won't tell anyone." He pushed the door open, stepped out.
He knew she wanted to vanish into obscurity. And yet he had tried to drag her into a wolf's den for his own selfish cause.
The door shut behind him. Hands stuffed into his coat pockets, Kai lifted his gaze to the Maledictus building glowing against the ruin street. Resolve hardened in his shoulders as he walked toward it.
Serein looked down at the wallet in her hand, still faintly warm from his touch. Or was it the lingering trace of his levo, clinging weakly to the leather?
Perhaps because their levo had once intertwined, she felt his despair seeped into it, etched deep.
He could have left her behind last night. He could have sold her secret today.
Instead, he had stood in the light.
It was she who owed him her life.
Her forehead thudded softly against the wheel, a muffled groan escaping her lips.
All she wanted was peace. A simple life untouched by Hunters. Why did everything have to collapse into chaos again?
She lifted her head slightly, eyes following him through the windshield.
His steps faltered, fear tugging at his gait, but he did not stop. His shadow stretched long across the cracked pavement, blinking in and out beneath the sputtering lamps. Like the fragile flame inside him, refusing to die.
An untested trainee Hunter. He wouldn't last a moment in that pit.
If she drove away now, would her conscience ever be quiet again?
Kai checked his phone, staring at the lock screen once more. At his mother's smile. The woman who had shouldered that monstrous debt to raise him.
The law had never protected people like them.
He drew in a breath so sharp it cut his lungs. His grip on the phone tightened. There was no one left to rely on. Only himself.
"Hey."
A voice called behind him.
He stopped and turned. Surprise, disbelief, and something perilously close to hope flashed in amber.
Serein stood there beneath the dim streetlight, her eyes averted, as though still uncertain of her decision.
"I'll guide you."
The words tasted like madness on her tongue. She wanted to bite them back.
What kind of fool volunteered to step into a snare?
Apparently, she did.
***