Chapter 233: I’m Not My Father.
The word hung between us on the empty sunlit road.
Venna’s eyes stayed locked on mine, steady and full of something I still didn’t have a name for—something deep, layered, and quietly hungry.
A light breeze moved through the trees lining both sides of the road, rustling leaves in soft waves and carrying the faint, warm scent of grass and dry earth, sun-heated bark, and distant wildflowers.
"Are you sure?" she asked, her voice softer now, almost testing the ground beneath the question. Her head tilted a fraction, blue hair shifting across her shoulder.
That made me pause. Not long, but real. The road stretched silent in both directions, heat shimmering faintly off the asphalt, my pulse kicking up a slow, heavy rhythm in my throat.
"I’m certain," I said, the words coming out low and firm.
I had come through the walls intending to build something new, to leave the plain behind where it belonged. And here was the girl I had come to this cemetery specifically to extract, asking me a question that made me feel like I still hadn’t finished becoming who I was. Like there was another layer of me waiting somewhere in the dark she wanted to open.
[This is slowing your progress. The primordials are moving fast.]
I didn’t answer the system.
Venna seemed to be turning something over in her head too, her gaze drifting down the quiet road as she reconsidered what she’d just offered. Her fingers flexed once at her sides, brushing the dark fabric of her dress, toes shifting slightly in her shoes on the warm pavement.
[The attachment is already there. One move can shift this toward extraction. Host can use the advantage.]
The system was pushing harder than usual, its usual calm cracking just enough to be noticeable, the prompts coming faster, edged with something close to urgency.
"Can we do it now?" Venna asked finally, eyes returning to mine with quiet resolve. "If you’re not in a rush."
[Recommendation: decline.]
"Yes," I said, ignoring the warning completely. The decision felt right in my chest, solid and unshakeable.
There was something about Venna that made the part of me trained on the plain—the part that always calculated exits and weighed every risk—go strangely quiet. I couldn’t explain it, so I stopped trying.
"We’ll need somewhere private," she said, glancing around as if the empty road might suddenly sprout ears. "Somewhere nobody comes. Do you have a place like that?"
I thought about my apartment, the reinforced door, the heavy locks. Celestine had walked straight through a locked door last night like it was nothing. There was no such thing as private when the people you were dealing with were older than the walls themselves, older than most of the blood running through this city.
"No," I said. "You?"
"I know somewhere," she answered, a small, decisive nod. "But we’ll need a car."
I glanced back down the road toward the cemetery. "Should we walk back or do you want me to call my driver?"
"We’re still close," she said, already shifting her weight to turn. "Let’s go back and take mine."
We turned around and started walking back the way we’d come. The trees moved past us slowly, sunlight filtering through the leaves in shifting patterns of gold and shadow across the road, dappling our skin and clothes.
The sun was still high, warm on our shoulders, soaking through the fabric of my shirt, and whatever Venna was about to show me sat quietly ahead of us, like something that had been waiting a long time to be found, patient and inevitable.
We reached the cemetery again, Venna’s car still sitting on the roadside where she’d left it, black paint gleaming dully under the afternoon sun, parked at a slight angle on the gravel shoulder.
"Were you going to come back for it?" I asked as she fished out her keys and opened the driver’s door with a soft click.
"Yes," she said, sliding in. "Probably not today though." She settled into the driver’s seat, dress riding up slightly on her thighs before she adjusted it.
I got in beside her, the passenger door shutting with a solid thunk that sealed us inside the quiet cabin. The scent of her perfume mixed with warm vinyl and faint leather. She started the engine, a low, smooth rumble, and pulled away from the curb.
Whatever place we were heading carried the weight of answers I hadn’t known I needed until she’d offered them, sitting heavy in my chest like an unpulled trigger.
I watched her drive. Both hands easy on the wheel, fingers relaxed but in control, that calm she carried and how she held herself. She reminded me of my mother in that way. Not in how she looked. Just in that quality of hers. The kind of person who absorbed difficulty without making noise about it, letting it settle somewhere deep and private.
[Everything you need to know about yourself is already in your purpose.]
The system pushed into the silence before I could.
"You’re a good driver," I said, breaking the quiet.
She glanced at me, a small smile tugging at the corner of her mouth, eyes flicking back to the road. "Are there bad ones?"
"Yes," I said, looking ahead through the windshield as houses started to slide past. "You drive just like Mercury."
"Mercury..." she repeated quietly, like she’d heard the name before. Something in how she said it, like the name had touched a memory she couldn’t quite reach, a faint crease forming between her brows.
"Yeah. She’s a friend."
"A friend?" Venna looked over at me again, longer this time, one eyebrow lifting slightly.
"Yeah." I shifted in my seat, "Don’t you have friends?"
The car passed Riya’s house, the gates closed, the yard empty and still under the sun, windows dark and reflecting the sky. Venna put her eyes back on the road, jaw tightening just a fraction.
"No," she said simply, and kept her gaze forward, fingers adjusting their grip on the wheel.
"Why not?"
She looked at me once, briefly—eyes meeting mine for a heartbeat, something guarded flashing there—then turned back to the wheel. The question sitting exactly where I’d left it, unanswered, and it was clear she intended to leave it there.
She changed lanes smoothly, signal clicking softly, and pulled into the parking lot of an old building on the edge of the district. The structure loomed, weathered brick and faded signage, two bulky men standing at the entrance like sentinels, arms crossed, eyes tracking our approach.
"We’re here," she said, voice steady as she killed the engine. "That’s the place."
"Okay," I said, watching her step out, the door opening with a creak.
I opened my door and stepped out into the warm air, the sun hitting my skin again. The system came immediately, text burning across my vision.
[Your father wouldn’t do this if he were in your position.]
I’m not my father.
I pushed the prompt down hard, letting it sink into the void as I closed the car door behind me.