Chapter 178: A Cockroach?
"Oh, I just followed a cockroach that scurried in here. I wonder where it went."
Saying so, Kael acted like he stepped out again, his boots scuffing the floor lightly, the door creaking open and slamming shut with a hollow thud, the Haven’s silence swallowing the sound.
"What? Cockroach?" Tila’s voice rang out, loud and sharp, her blindfolded head jerking, her cuffed hands twitching behind her back, the power-suppressing collar glinting faintly.
"I know you’re lying, you bastard!" she yelled, her words meant to provoke, but her voice shivered, a crack betraying the fear seeping through her defiance.
Kael stayed silent, pressed against the wall, his breathing inaudible, watching her closely, her trembling form small in the dim room.
Tila crawled across the cold floor, her knees scraping, her breaths ragged, until her head bumped the bed’s wooden leg with a dull thunk.
She flinched, then scrambled up, dragging herself onto the sagging mattress, the springs groaning.
She rolled herself into the thin blanket, wrapping it tight around her like a cocoon, her cuffed hands pinned awkwardly, her body a shivering bundle, the collar pressing against her throat.
She wasn’t breaking, not fully, but the edge was close—her defiance a brittle shell, her fear pulsing beneath, raw and real.
Kael’s chest tightened, the sight hard to stomach.
Tila, for all her venom, looked like a scared kid, her tough facade crumbling under the blindfold’s weight, her shivering a quiet plea she’d never voice.