Adrian's POV
The house felt quieter than usual.
Which was already wrong. Because silence in this house never meant peace. It never meant calm or relaxation. Silence here meant absence. It meant someone was missing.
And today,
She wasn't here.
I stood by the window in the living room, my arms loosely crossed, my eyes fixed on the front gate like it had answers it refused to give me. The sunlight had shifted three times since I first came to this spot. The shadows had moved from one side of the yard to the other.
I hadn't moved from this position.
She left after breakfast. No noise. No argument. No dramatic farewell or last-minute insults.
Just
"I'm going out with my friends."
And then she was gone.
The door had slammed behind her,
And I had been standing here ever since.
Papa walked past me with a cup of coffee in his hand.
"You look like someone stole your lunch," he said, not even slowing down.
"I am thinking," I said.
"That is worse," he muttered, disappearing into the kitchen. "Much worse."
I ignored him.
My eyes stayed fixed on the gate.
Section Z.
That was where she went. I knew because I had heard her on the phone this morning, her voice lighter than usual, her words faster, her laughter easier. Ever since the festival started, she had been with them constantly. Josh, Nika and Zayn. The ones who watched too closely. The ones who looked at her like she was a puzzle they were excited to solve.
I exhaled slowly, my jaw tightening.
"How?"
That was the part I could not figure out.
Not how she met them, that was not surprising. She drifted toward chaos like a magnet toward metal. She did not find trouble; trouble found her, and then she made it worse, and then she walked away like nothing had happened while everyone else cleaned up the mess.
The problem was how easily she fit in.
How fast she adapted. How naturally she moved around them, like she had already learned their rhythm,their unspoken rules. Like she had been part of their group for years instead of days.
I leaned back against the wall, my arms tightening across my chest.
"She is getting comfortable."
That was not new. That was the goal. Everyone wanted that Mama, Papa, Kuya. They all wanted her to laugh more. Talk more. Live without holding herself back every second of every day.
To be normal.
But I had seen what comfortable looked like on her before.
And it never stayed simple.
Never
The memory came without permission, the way memories always did when I least wanted them.
Not clear. Not complete. But sharp enough to make my chest tighten, sharp enough to make my breathing change, sharp enough to remind me why I watched her so closely.
She had trusted someone.
Completely.
And she had started to change.
Not the way she changed when she was angry. This was different. She became louder, sharper, more unfiltered. She laughed without checking to see who was watching. She made jokes that were not safe. She pushed boundaries that she had always respected before.
Not careless.
Just free.
Like she was finally becoming herself again.
And then he disappeared.
No explanation. No goodbye. No closure. No fight, no argument, no slow unraveling. Just silence. Like nothing had ever existed between them. Like she had meant nothing at all.
And Ruz
Did not break loudly.
That was the thing about her that people did not understand. When most people broke, they screamed. They cried. They fell apart in public, in obvious ways, in ways that made other people gather around and offer comfort and say things that did not help.
Ruz broke inward.
She collapsed into herself. No noise. No warning. Just silence, again, the same silence she had worn like armor since she was ten years old.
No one noticed.
Except me.
Because I was there. I had always been there. From the beginning, from the worst parts, from the nights when she woke up screaming and I was the only one who heard because my room was next to hers and I had learned to sleep with one ear open.
From the night she was kidnapped at ten years old.
The night we found her standing in an empty warehouse, covered in blood that was not all her own, her eyes empty, her expression blank, her small hands trembling at her sides. Not crying. Not scared. Not relieved to see us.
Just standing there.
Like whatever had happened inside that building had already changed her into someone else, and the girl we had known was already gone.
Her mother had fought to save her that night. Had done something I never learned exactly what that had distracted the men who took her, had given Ruz time to run, had given her time to escape.
And then her mother had disappeared.
No body. No ransom note. No explanation. Just gone, like she had never existed.
After that, Ruz lived with our grandmother.
A house that never really accepted her. Relatives who whispered too loudly when they thought she could not hear. Words like "burden" and "unwanted" and "not one of us."
Lola fight with them for her. She always with her, she rised her, love her a lot but she didn't understand her, never.
She heard everything. Whatever relatives talking about her.
Every word. Every whisper. Every silence that meant more than words ever could.
And slowly she changed.
Reckless. Wild. Fighting street boys and gangs and anyone who looked at her wrong. Fights she never started but always finished. Fights she won, mostly, but not always. Fights that left her bruised and smiling like she had enjoyed every second of it.
Like she did not care if she got hurt.
Like she did not care about anything at all.
Until she met him.
The one who made her soft again. The one who made her laugh without irony, without defense, without the sharp edges she used to keep people away. For a while, a brief while, she started living like a normal person.
And then he left.
And whatever came after was worse.
Moments where she snapped too far. Moments where I had to pull her back, hold the line, remind her that there were consequences to the things she wanted to do. Moments where the look in her eyes made me remember that warehouse, made me remember the blood, made me remember the girl who had stood there like she had already died inside.
And then
That night.
The one I never talked about.
The one where she was not just out of control.
She was something else entirely.
I remember being afraid. Not for her.
I was afraid of her.
The way she moved. The way fight with a gang alone, the way she convert a monster in human form.
That version of her still showed up in my head sometimes. Like a reminder of what she was capable for.
I ran a hand through my hair, forcing the memory away.
"And now she is going back."
Not to the same way. Not to the same people. But close enough. Close enough to make me uneasy. Close enough to make my chest tight.
Because what if this time, she did not stop?
What if she got hurt again? What if she trusted someone again, and they left again, and she broke again.
And this time, I could not fix it?
Papa returned from the kitchen, leaning against the doorway with his coffee cup still in his hand. His expression was calm. Too calm.
"You have been staring at that gate for fifteen minutes," he said.
"I am not," I said.
"You are," he said.
"I am thinking," I said.
"That is still worse," he said. "Thinking means planning. Planning means action. Action means something in this house gets broken."
I finally looked at him.
"You are not worried?" I asked.
He blinked once. Once was all he allowed himself.
"…No," he said.
"That is it?" I asked. "That is all you have to say? Just 'no'?"
"That is it," he said.
"She is with Section Z," I said. "People we barely know. People who showed up out of nowhere and started acting like they have known her for years."
"And," he said.
"She barely knows them," I said.
"And," he said.
"She is getting too comfortable," I said. "Too fast. Too easily. She is not being careful."
"And" he said again,his voice unchanged.
"…And you are not worried?" I asked.
He took a slow sip of his coffee. The steam curled up around his face, softening his features.
"She looks happy," he said.
That stopped me.
Completely.
Because he was right. She did look happy. She looked happier than I had seen her in a long time.
"…That does not mean it is safe," I said.
Papa tilted his head, studying me with those calm eyes that saw too much and said too little.
"Since when did you confuse safe with living?" he asked.
I did not answer.
Because I did not have one.
She came back around sunset.
The door opened. Footsteps echoed through the hallway. Voices followed Liam's complaining, the easy noise of people who had spent the afternoon together and were not ready to say goodbye.
And then
Laughter.
Real laughter.
Not controlled. Not measured. Not the carefully calibrated sound she used in public, the one that meant she was performing politeness instead of feeling joy.
This was different. This was genuine. This was the kind of laughter that happened when she forgot to be careful.
I did not move from my spot by the window. I just listened.
"I told you I would win again," she said, her voice carrying through the house.
"That was not winning," Liam complained. He was holding a stuffed toy, judging by the uneven stitching. He clutched it like a child clutching a security blanket. "That was dominance. That was unfair. That was illegal."
"It was skill," she said.
"It was luck," he insisted.
"It was both," she said. "Luck and skill. They are not mutually exclusive."
She walked into the living room.
Hair slightly messy from the wind. Expression relaxed. Eyes bright and alive and present how she used to with me only, only her trusted or closed person.
That version again.
The one I did not fully trust.
The one I was afraid of.
She saw me standing by the window. Paused. Her eyes narrowed slightly,
"…You are staring," she said.
"I am observing," I said. "There is a difference. Staring is passive. Observing is active. I am actively gathering information."
"That is worse," she said.
"I learned from you," I said.
She smirked. "…Bad example."
"Accurate," I said.
Liam looked between us, already exhausted, his stuffed toy hanging limply from his hand.
"…Do you both always talk like this?" he asked.
"Yes," we said at the same time.
He sighed, long and loud. "I need new friends. I need different friends."
Kuya walked in, calm as always, his presence shifting the energy of the room without him saying a word.
"Everyone is loud again," he observed.
"Because she is back," I said.
He glanced at Liam, exchanged a few words something about homework, something about schedules, something I did not pay attention to because my focus kept drifting back to her.
Then his attention returned to Ruz.
She had dropped onto the couch,
"Missed me?" she asked, not looking at anyone in particular.
"No," I said.
"Liar," she said.
Kuya studied her quietly for a moment. His expression was unreadable, but something in his posture softened.
"…You had fun," he said.
Not a question. A statement.
"Yeah," she said.
He nodded. "Good."
That was it. No warning. No lecture. No reminder to be careful or watch her back or remember who she was dealing with.
I frowned.
"That is all?" I asked.
Kuya looked at me. "What do you want me to say?"
"She is getting too comfortable," I said. "With people we do not know. In places we cannot watch. At a speed that is not safe."
Ruz sat up immediately, her eyes sharp.
"…Excuse me?" she said.
"Not you," I said.
"Then who?" she asked.
"Everyone," I said. "The situation. The circumstances. The variables."
"That does not make sense," she said.
"It does not need to," I said. "It is a feeling. Feelings do not require logic."
She stared at me, her expression caught somewhere between confusion and annoyance.
"…You are being weird," she said.
"I am being realistic," I said.
"You are being dramatic," she said.
"I learned from Liam," I said.
Liam, who was still standing in the doorway, looked up in alarm.
"Do not drag me into this," he muttered. "I am leaving. I am taking my stuffed animal and going home."
She rolled her eyes and stood up from the couch.
"I am going upstairs before this turns into a therapy session," she said.
She walked past me without looking at me.
Later that night, the house quieted.
Liam had gone home, clutching his derpy stuffed animal like a trophy. The dishes had been washed. The lights had been dimmed. Ruz had retreated to her room and had not come out for hours.
I stepped onto the balcony off the living room, needing air, needing space, needing to stop thinking about things I could not change.
Kuya was already there.
Of course he was. He always was, on nights like this, when the silence felt heavier than usual and neither of us could sleep.
"You are overthinking," he said without looking at me.
"I am not," I said.
"You are," he said. "I can tell. Your shoulders are tense. Your jaw is tight. You have been standing in the same spot for ten minutes without moving."
I leaned against the railing, looking out at the dark street below.
"She is changing again," I said.
"…She is healing," he said.
"That is not the same thing," I said.
"It can be," he said.
"You did not see her then," I said. "You were not there for the worst parts. You came after. You saw the aftermath, not the event."
A pause.
"No," Kuya said quietly. "But I saw the result. I saw what she became. I saw the walls she built and the distance she created and the way she refused to let anyone close."
"You do not understand," I said.
"Then explain," he said.
I did not.
Because explaining meant telling things we did not say. Things she did not remember and things she pretended not to remember.
"You have always handled her," Kuya said after a long silence.
"Yes," I said.
"And you still are," he said.
"…I am trying," I said.
A pause.
"We all want her to live normally," he said.
I did not argue. Because it was true. We all wanted that. We had wanted that for years since the night she came back from that warehouse, since the day her mother disappeared, since every small tragedy that had piled up on top of her like stones.
"Then do not pull her back just because you are afraid," Kuya said.
My jaw tightened.
"I am not afraid," I said.
"You are," he said. "That is not an insult. Fear is not weakness. But pretending you are not afraid, that is weakness."
Silence stretched between us.
Then, quieter, almost against my will
"…What if it happens again?"
"…Then we handle it again," Kuya said.
"It will not be that simple," I said.
"It never was," he said.
The wind moved between us, cool and gentle, carrying the smell of the garden below.
"She does not remember everything," Kuya said.
"I know," I said.
"Then why do you not talk to her about it?" he asked. "Why do you carry this alone when she might be able to help?"
I hesitated.
"…Because what if she loses control again?" I said. "What if I say the wrong thing, and she falls apart, and I cannot put her back together?"
Kuya looked at me steadily. His expression was calm, but there was something underneath something that might have been understanding, or might have been sadness, or might have been both.
"Let her," he said.
That
I did not like that.
"Let her face it," he continued. "Let her remember. Let her feel whatever she needs to feel. You cannot protect her by keeping her small. You cannot save her by holding her back."
He turned and walked back inside, his footsteps soft against the floor.
"You have no idea what she is holding back," I said to the empty balcony.
Not just her rage.
Not just her recklessness.
Something deeper. Something darker. Something that had been inside her since she was 10, waiting for the right moment to come out.
Later that night, I passed her room on my way to the kitchen for water.
The door was slightly open. Not all the way just a crack, just enough for light to spill out into the dark hallway.
She was inside.
On her phone. Laughing.
"…Idiot," she muttered, smiling at whatever was on her screen.
That smile it was real. Not the careful smile she wore in public. Not the dangerous smile she wore when she was about to destroy someone. Just a smile. Small. Genuine. Alive.
I stood there for a moment, watching through the crack in the door.
Then I looked away.
"…She is fine," I said quietly.
A pause.
"…For now."
I walked down the hallway slowly, each step quieter than the last, each breath heavier than it should have been.
"…Just do not break again," I whispered.
Because if she did
I was not sure I could put her back together this time.