Chapter 39: What sick joke is this?
"What the—?"
Rhea’s jaw dropped, her amber eyes widening in disbelief as she scanned the paper clutched in her hands.
The bold text—Superhero Enrollment Application:Ready to Save the World?—leaped off the page like a taunting slap, sharp and unrelenting.
She jerked her head up, her gaze piercing Kael across the table, fingers tightening until the edges of the paper crumpled under her grip.
"What sick joke is this?" she demanded, her voice cutting through the air, stripped of its earlier playfulness and now edged with raw seriousness. The room seemed to shrink, the air thickening with unspoken tension.
"This isn’t funny, Kael—not even close." Her eyes searched his face, darting over the bruises and the steady set of his jaw, waiting for the telltale flicker of a grin, a hint that this was all some twisted prank. But his hazel stare held firm—unyielding, no trace of jest lurking in its depths.
He leaned forward, elbows resting on the table, his voice dropping low and resolute. "It’s no joke, Rhea. Sit and listen to me."
She didn’t budge. Her feet stayed rooted to the floor, arms crossing tightly over her chest as her glare bore into him, fierce and unrelenting.
Kael didn’t flinch under the weight of her defiance. "You keep telling me to trust you," he said, his tone calm but laced with a pointed edge, "and I do now—I trust you’ll take the right decision here." Rhea’s scoff ripped through the silence, harsh and biting, her hands slamming the paper onto the table with a sharp thwack.