"Aeris?"
She turned like a ghost caught in the light. Xu Kai stood at the end of the hall, his brows drawn in alarm the second his gaze landed on her. His shirt hung loose, hair slightly damp like he’d just co out of a shower—but his attention was all on her.
"What happened to you?"
His voice was calm. But laced with concern so sharp it cut.
Aeris opened her mouth—but no sound ca. Her lips trembled, but her throat refused to form words. She shook her head weakly instead, like denial could erase the blood, the scratches, and the trembling that had taken over her bones.
"N-Nothing," she finally stuttered. A lie. A fragile, broken one.
But he didn’t push. Didn’t demand answers. He stepped forward with slow, steady movents, as if approaching a wounded creature. And when he reached her, he raised a hand to silently offer comfort.
"If you can’t talk right now... that’s okay," Xu Kai said softly. "Let help you first."
Aeris bit her lip, eyes stinging. Her throat tightened.
He led her gently to the bathroom. She didn’t protest. She couldn’t. She needed this kindness—needed him—and she hated how much.
As soon as the door clicked shut behind her, she leaned over the sink and gripped its edges like it was the only thing holding her up.
She was beyond filthy. Dirt sared across her arms, blood dried into dark patches on her skin, and her reflection... didn’t even look like her. Her hair was a tangled ss, and her eyes held the kind of fear she hadn’t shown anyone. Not even herself.
Aeris didn’t rember how long she stood under the water. Long enough for her skin to turn raw and her legs to shake from exhaustion. When she finally stepped out, wrapped in Xu Kai’s oversized bath towel, the scent of his house clung to her—a strange comfort that made her chest ache even more.
She made a quiet ntal note. I need to leave so of my clothes here next ti.
When she stepped out, the light in the room was dim, and Xu Kai was already waiting with the first-aid kit on the couch. He looked up the mont she walked in, gaze scanning over her without judgnt. Only quiet concern.
"Co here," he said, gently.
She did.
He didn’t say anything as he started drying her hair, careful and patient, like she was sothing fragile that might break if touched too fast. His fingers were warm and steady—so unlike the chaos still raging inside her. Every brush through her damp hair cald sothing she hadn’t even realized was shaking.
Then he reached for her arm.
"Let bandage those."
She didn’t stop him.
His touch moved slowly and precisely as he cleaned the cuts on her elbows and legs. But his hand paused when he reached her forearm.
A faint mark—barely visible, like the ghost of a puncture wound.
His fingers brushed over it, and his brows furrowed.
"...Aeris," he said quietly. "What is this?"
She blinked.
Liora stirred in the background of her mind. That looks like a needle mark, she murmured to herself. Or maybe just a bug bite...
Aeris frowned faintly. "I don’t... know," she whispered, uncertain.
Xu Kai didn’t press. He just nodded slightly, as if deciding it wasn’t the ti to question. He resud bandaging her up, thodical and silent, but his movents were just as gentle.
"Be more careful next ti," he said after a pause. "You scared the hell out of ."
That was it. The words broke sothing inside her.
Her eyes stung all over again, the tears bubbling before she could stop them. Her chest heaved, and the dam finally burst.
Without thinking, Aeris threw herself into his arms.
Xu Kai caught her instantly, holding her like she might shatter. Her face was buried in his chest, arms clutching at him with trembling fingers as sobs tore out of her like a child who had been holding it all in too long.
"I—I didn’t an to—I didn’t—" she choked, voice muffled and broken.
"Shh," he whispered, one hand cradling the back of her head, the other wrapping firmly around her waist. "It’s okay. You’re okay now."
Watching her cry into Xu Kai’s chest like a lost child, Liora’s own heart twisted painfully. She wasn’t ant to feel this much. But it was impossible not to. Not when every tremor of Aeris’s breath, every choked sob, echoed through her like an aftershock.
She had never seen Aeris so exposed.
For a mont, Liora forgot what she was. Forgot what her purpose was. She only knew this: Aeris needed soone. And Xu Kai had beco that soone, without question, without condition.
But just as the mont softened into sothing painfully warm—
The mory suddenly shifted. The scene before her glitched.
She blinked.
And then—
It changed.
The room flickered, like a broken recording. One mont Xu Kai was holding her. The next, he was gone. Aeris was alone. Crying in the dark.
Then another scene—Aeris standing in front of a mirror, eyes bloodshot, hands shaking as she stared at jagged marks crawling up her arms like lightning veins. Marks that hadn’t been there before.
Another flicker.
The taste of chemicals in the air.
Aeris lay unconscious on a cold surface, pale and unmoving. Her body was covered in strange electrodes. Foreign machines blinked silently in the dark, pulsing in tandem with her heart. n and won in sterile coats moved around her, murmuring in voices Liora couldn’t hear.
The scenes played out like fragnts—impossible, scattered fragnts.
Then another—
Aeris woke up in her bed, drenched in sweat, breath caught in her throat, gasping like she’d been suffocating. Her sheets were torn. Her body was bruised.
And her mory? Blank as always, it was also the reason Liora could not see it clearly.
It kept happening. Night after night. Each night brought fresh horrors—new bruises, unknown injuries, places Aeris didn’t rember going. She’d wake up disoriented, terrified, often sowhere unfamiliar.
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