Chapter 6

Kaylee couldn't breathe. Her lungs felt paralyzed under the weight of that golden, predatory stare.

Elijah's gaze slowly tracked from her hand, hovering inches from his face, down to the clean linen robe she wore, and finally up to her face. He noticed the fresh, bleeding scratch on her cheek.

The murderous intent in his eyes didn't fade. Instead, it twisted into a look of extreme, hyper-vigilant paranoia.

He violently jerked backward, trying to scramble away from her.

The sudden, brutal movement tore at his freshly medicated wounds. A muffled groan escaped his lips as his face drained of all color, turning a sickly, translucent white.

Kaylee's instincts overrode her fear. She leaned forward, her hands outstretched. "Don't move! You'll tear the wounds open!"

The sound of her voice acted like a physical strike. Elijah's entire body went rigid, snapping taut like a bowstring.

He didn't look down at his bleeding chest. He kept his golden eyes locked onto Kaylee, watching her hands as if she were holding a venomous snake.

"Warning!" Alex's alarm shrieked in Kaylee's mind, the sound like shattering glass. "Target individual Chaos Index surging! 85%! 86%!"

Kaylee's stomach dropped. She didn't understand. She had just saved him. She had cleaned him, medicated him, and fed him. Why was his energy spiraling out of control now?

Elijah's voice broke the silence. It sounded like sandpaper grinding against stone, raw and broken. "What do you want?"

He looked at the clean fur covering his legs. He inhaled the strange, sterile scent of the medicine on his chest.

None of it brought him comfort. In his deeply traumatized mind, it only confirmed his worst fears.

In Elijah's reality, Kaylee Melendez did not do kindness. She did not heal. Therefore, this had to be a new, infinitely more twisted psychological game.

"You want to give me hope," Elijah rasped, a bitter, bloody smile twisting his lips. "You want me to think I'm safe, just so you can watch my face when you rip it all away again. Isn't that right?"

Kaylee shook her head frantically, holding her hands up in surrender. "No! I just... I cleaned your wounds. I saved you from Silas. I brought you back here to heal."

The mention of Silas caused Elijah's pupils to contract into tiny pinpricks.

He darted a look around the room, confirming he was indeed inside her hut and not hanging from the totem pole. He realized she had actually intervened.

But his twisted logic immediately found the darkest explanation.

"So," Elijah whispered, his golden eyes burning with a terrifying, hollow light. "You thought Silas was going to kill me too quickly. You want to take your time. You want to peel my skin off yourself."

"Chaos Index breaching 88%!" The system's voice was now a blaring red siren. "Soul-detonation critical threshold approaching!"

Kaylee's heart lodged in her throat.

She suddenly understood. The original owner had traumatized him so deeply that any display of genuine kindness was perceived as a horrific threat. Her gentle tone, her soft touches-they were triggering his PTSD. Her empathy was literally pushing him toward a mental breakdown that would kill them both.

If she kept acting like a nurse, they would be dead in less than five minutes.

She had to break his paranoia using the only logic his broken mind could accept.

Kaylee sucked in a sharp breath. She closed her eyes for a fraction of a second, burying her terror and her pity deep down in her chest.

When she opened her eyes, they were entirely cold.

She pushed herself up from the dirt floor, standing tall. She looked down at Elijah, who was curled in the corner, waiting for the torture to begin.

Kaylee crossed her arms over her chest, tilted her chin up, and let out a harsh, mocking scoff.