Theo turned his head one last time. His gaze didn't just land on Rex; it pierced through him, fueled by a hatred so concentrated it felt like a physical pressure in the air between them.
Through the haze of pain and the blood streaming from his ruptured eye, Theo saw through the mask of the perfect assistant. He saw the architect of the catastrophe.
He saw the cold, calculating monster that had orchestrated every moment of this breakdown. He knew exactly that Rex was a predator wearing the skin of a protector, and he knew that every word Rex had spoken, every 'logical' assessment, had been a calculated move in a game. Theo was only now beginning to understand.
Rex met that stare with terrifying neutrality. His pupils didn't dilate; his breathing didn't quicken.
He looked at Theo not as an enemy but as a specimen under glass.
Something passed between them in that silence, a wordless, venomous acknowledgment. It wasn't a truce, and it certainly wasn't a resolution.
