Chapter 267: Anxiety
Sasha was the first to show signs of breaking.
She erupted into a manic laugh that was high-pitched and entirely unhinged as if someone had just told her the funniest joke in the world while also dangling her over a pit of spikes.
"Oh. My. God! We’re trapped. We’re actually trapped! Hahaha! Fucking classic!" she wheezed, doubling over and gripping her bow. "This damn place has a heartbeat now?! It restructures the environment so we can’t leave?! What the hell kind of joke dungeon is this?!"
Unlike his red-haired teammate, Jack didn’t laugh.
He stood rigid as his gauntleted fingers flexed open and closed around the handle of his hammer and shield. A thin tremor ran through his arms. He didn’t say anything at first. Instead, he just turned his head slowly toward Leon.
The man looked like he was about to fall apart.
He stood with hunched shoulders, one hand clutching at the skin where the parasite had slipped inside him. His other hand was balled into a shaking fist.
Jack’s gaze moved next to Vaelira. The woman who always had a plan. The stuck-up, commanding, irritating genius of a leader whose mouth never seemed to close once it opened to spout one self-entitled, arrogant word after another.
But she wasn’t barking orders now. She wasn’t even commenting to her viewers despite the big change occurring, warranting an exposition of her thoughts for the viewers.
Instead of all that, she was frozen in place with her pupils dilated as she stared at the changing dungeon around them. No witty remark. No confident stride. Not even a half-assed strategy that boiled down to ’let me shine bright, extras.’
Just silence.
And Jack realized, to his dismay, that for the first time... he missed that damn smirk of hers. That cocky, condescending, unbearable smirk that always meant she had some kind of edge.