Maximilian’s breath came in ragged, wheezing bursts as Kaiden stepped forward.
"N–N–No...This can’t be!!" he whimpered. His voice was unrecognizable even to himself. Sweat poured down his neck in thick beads. "W–W–Why... why are you here?!"
Kaiden didn’t answer.
His boots hit the ground with a slow, steady rhythm.
Step.
Step.
Step.
Every one of them felt as if they landed directly on Maximilian’s chest.
"What- what do you want?!" Maximilian screamed from the bottom of his lungs this time, getting more agitated the closer Kaiden came. He even did his best to scramble backward. His massive body was shaking violently with all the loose fat. The mattress squealed beneath him as he pushed with his heels, trying to escape.
Kaiden’s silence was worse than rage. His face was carved from stone, showing no mercy, no hesitation. Only wrath so cold and certain that it made the air itself feel heavier.
Maximilian’s back slammed against the headboard and then the reinforced wall. There was nowhere else to go. His lungs shrank. His heart thrashed wildly in his chest.
His mind raced, though not with plans, but pure animal terror.
’He’s going to kill me!!’
The bedframe rattled from his trembling. His fingers clawed uselessly at the wall as his vision blurred with tears. His tongue felt dry, glued to the roof of his mouth. There was no smirk left. No arrogance. Just a whimpering, cornered rat.
"Y–You c–can’t!" Maximilian screamed. "Y–You’re awakened! Y–You c–can’t attack a civilian! It’s- it’s illegal! You’ll go to prison! They’ll arrest you-!"
Those words finally, finally, drew a reaction.
Kaiden didn’t stop walking.
His expression didn’t soften.
He only turned his head to the naked, chained woman still lying on the bed next to Maximilian.
She had been silently watching, motionless, eyes wide and glassy. Bruises painted her skin. Blood dried on her lip. Her wrists trembled, but she made no sound, that was, until she realized Kaiden was looking at her.
His voice was calm. Too calm.
"Miss," he asked, "are you in any sort of danger? Is the man next to you a threat to your safety? Do you need me to help you?"
She blinked.
The words seemed to take a full heartbeat to reach her.
’Help me...?’
Her lips parted. A fragile, broken sound escaped her throat. Her eyes overflowed.
Then she screamed from the bottom of her very soul.
"I need saving! Please! Please! I’ll do anything, anything...!" she sobbed, voice scraping against raw vocal cords. "He kidnapped me! He raped me! He was about to kill me!"
Her body convulsed as the dam broke. All the agony, humiliation, and hopelessness poured out in a single, soul-shattering confession.
Kaiden nodded once.
Just once.
His shoulders eased. The storm in his eyes dimmed, but only for the briefest moment, as he looked at her not as a witness, a tool to let him do what he wanted, but as a human being who lived through extreme and unjust misfortune.
"You’re safe now," he said softly.
Then he turned back to Maximilian.
And the storm returned a hundredfold.
His jaw tightened. His gaze hardened into a predator’s wrath. And without slowing, he continued his approach.


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