The car rolled to a slow stop in front of the house just as the last traces of daylight faded from the sky, leaving everything wrapped in that heavy, in-between darkness.
Two weeks.
It felt longer than that.
Marco turned off the engine and leaned back for a moment, rolling his shoulders as tension eased out of his body. His gaze settled on the familiar shape of the house, something almost like relief crossing his face.
"Finally… home."
Ithilien didn't answer.
She was already elsewhere—her attention turned outward, senses stretching past the walls of the car, searching, reading.
Something in her expression shifted.
Subtle, but immediate.
"We're not alone."
Marco turned his head toward her, the last remnants of exhaustion disappearing from his posture.
"You can feel them?"
She nodded once, slow and certain.
"Kidd. And… Levi."
A brief pause.
Then her eyes sharpened, her focus narrowing.
"And blood."
That was enough.
Marco straightened instantly, alert now, every muscle tightening.
"How bad?"
"Close enough," she replied quietly.
Before he could ask anything more, a pair of headlights cut through the darkness behind them, sweeping across the driveway in a harsh beam of light.
A second car pulled in.
It didn't bother with precision—it stopped abruptly, a few meters away, engine still ticking as it settled.
The doors opened almost at the same time.
Levi stepped out first, quick, tense.
Kidd followed.
Ithilien's gaze locked onto him immediately.
At first glance, he looked steady.
Too steady.
The kind of control that wasn't natural.
Then the scent reached her.
Metallic. Fresh. Sharp.
Blood.
And beneath it—something deeper.
Pain, tightly restrained, forced into silence.
Marco was already moving.
"Inside."
No one argued.
Levi moved to Kidd's side, not quite supporting him, but close enough to intervene if needed. Kidd allowed it—but barely. His jaw was tight, every movement measured, controlled… not entirely clean.
They stepped into the house, and the lights snapped on, too bright after the darkness outside.
Marco gestured toward the living room.
"Sit."
Kidd didn't.
"I'm fine."
Levi let out a quiet, humorless breath.
"Yeah. You look it."
Ithilien closed the door behind them, the sound soft but final. Her gaze hadn't left Kidd once.
"What happened?"
Levi dragged a hand through his hair, still slightly out of breath, his expression darkening.
"Two of them."
Marco stilled.
"Two?"
"Yeah." Levi's jaw tightened. "And not the same kind."
That caught Ithilien's full attention.
"Explain."
Levi glanced briefly at Kidd before continuing.
"The first one—like the one you described. Unstable. Aggressive. No pattern. But the second…"
He hesitated, searching for the right word.
"The second one adapted."
Silence settled for a fraction of a second, heavy and sharp.
"It watched us," Levi went on. "Changed how it moved in the middle of the fight. Started predicting us."
Marco muttered a curse under his breath.
"That's not just mutation. That's evolution."
"We killed them," Kidd cut in, his voice flat, almost dismissive.
Ithilien's eyes flicked back to him.
"Clearly," she said coolly. "You're bleeding through your shirt."
Levi exhaled sharply, gesturing toward him.
"Told him that."
"It's nothing," Kidd said.
Ithilien stepped closer.
Now the scent was stronger.
Not just blood. Torn flesh.
"Nothing?" she repeated, quieter this time.
Kidd held her gaze without flinching.
"I've had worse."
For a moment, neither of them moved.
Something unspoken passed between them—tight, charged, unfinished.
Levi shifted slightly, breaking the tension.
"Ithilien, could you... help him with the bandages?"
Kidd's jaw tightened.
"I said I'm fine."
Ithilien didn't even look at Levi.
Her eyes stayed on Kidd, steady and unyielding.
"Come with me."
When they stepped into the kitchen, Ithilien gestured toward the chair by the table.
"Sit."
Kidd didn't argue this time. The fight had drained something out of him—if not strength, then at least the will to push back.
"Take off your shirt," she added quietly, already moving toward the cabinet.
She pulled out the medical kit—larger than usual, well-stocked. Of course it was. Marco was a doctor. Everything was precise, prepared… controlled.
Unlike this.
When she turned back, Kidd was in the middle of pulling his shirt over his head. The movement was slow, strained. His muscles tensed under the effort, breath catching halfway through as the fabric dragged over the wounds.
For a second, it looked like he might stop.
Then he forced it off.
He dropped into the chair with a rough exhale, leaning back against it, head tilting slightly as if even that small motion cost him something.
Ithilien approached slowly.
She set the kit down on the table, but her eyes didn't leave him.
Her gaze moved over him without hurry.
The sharp line of his shoulder. The tension in his arms. The defined muscles, veins pulsing faintly beneath the skin. His chest—broad, solid—wrapped in a bandage already soaked through in places with dark, drying blood.
She hesitated.
Just for a second.
Then she reached for the scissors.
Her fingers brushed his skin as she caught the edge of the bandage.
Cold against heat.
The contact sent a sharp, electric spark through her.
Kidd flinched.
Before either of them could think, his hand closed around her wrist.
Instinct.
Firm.
Immediate.
"I swear I'm not going to hurt you," he said quietly. "You don't have to—"
"That would be a nice change from the last time we saw each other," she cut in, calm but edged.
Gently, she freed her hand from his grip.
Then, without hesitation, she slid the scissors under the bandage and began to cut.
The fabric gave way slowly.
Kidd didn't watch.
He turned his head to the side, jaw tight, breathing shallow. As if what she was doing didn't concern him. As if the pain wasn't his.
But her scent—
it filled his lungs.
Soft. Clean. Familiar.
And after a few seconds, he realized something that caught him off guard.
He had missed this.
Missed her.
The quiet way she moved. The steady presence she carried with her. The absence of it over the last two weeks had left something… off.
"I know," he said after a moment, voice lower now. "That day… I shouldn't have—"
He stopped.
Exhaled.
"I don't know what got into me."
Ithilien glanced at him briefly, then returned her focus to the wound.
She peeled the bandage away fully now.
The gashes were deep. Angry. Not clean cuts—torn, uneven, still raw.
She reached for disinfectant.
— focus.
That's what this was.
Not him.
Not them.
Just this.
She cleaned the wounds with careful precision, her touch controlled but not distant. Then she reached for fresh gauze.
"Relax," she said quietly. "If you stay tense, the bandage won't hold."
Kidd let out a slow breath.
And against his better judgment, his eyes shifted to her.
She froze.
Just slightly.
Because he wasn't looking at her hands.
He was looking at her mouth.
"Kidd…" she whispered.
His gaze didn't move.
"Don't stop," he said quietly. "I told you—I won't hurt you. I won't even move unless you tell me to."
A beat.
Then, softer:
"Ithilien…"
She closed her eyes for a brief moment.
Her name in his voice—
low, rough, controlled—
did something dangerous to her.
She exhaled slowly and resumed wrapping the bandage around his chest, fingers brushing his skin again and again, each contact more deliberate than the last.
"Don't disappear like that again," he said, his voice quieter now, almost stripped of everything but the truth beneath it. "Not without a word."
Her hands stilled for a fraction of a second.
"Don't… just vanish."
The words hung between them closer now than either of them had planned to be.