CHAPTER 266: CHAPTER 266: EACH NIGHT BROUGHT FRESH HORRORS

"Aeris?"

She turned like a ghost caught in the light. Xu Kai stood at the end of the hall, his brows drawn in alarm the second his gaze landed on her. His shirt hung loose, hair slightly damp like he’d just come out of a shower—but his attention was all on her.

"What happened to you?"

His voice was calm. But laced with concern so sharp it cut.

Aeris opened her mouth—but no sound came. Her lips trembled, but her throat refused to form words. She shook her head weakly instead, like denial could erase the blood, the scratches, and the trembling that had taken over her bones.

"N-Nothing," she finally stuttered. A lie. A fragile, broken one.

But he didn’t push. Didn’t demand answers. He stepped forward with slow, steady movements, as if approaching a wounded creature. And when he reached her, he raised a hand to silently offer comfort.

"If you can’t talk right now... that’s okay," Xu Kai said softly. "Let me help you first."

Aeris bit her lip, eyes stinging. Her throat tightened.

He led her gently to the bathroom. She didn’t protest. She couldn’t. She needed this kindness—needed him—and she hated how much.

As soon as the door clicked shut behind her, she leaned over the sink and gripped its edges like it was the only thing holding her up.

She was beyond filthy. Dirt smeared across her arms, blood dried into dark patches on her skin, and her reflection... didn’t even look like her. Her hair was a tangled mess, and her eyes held the kind of fear she hadn’t shown anyone. Not even herself.

Aeris didn’t remember how long she stood under the water. Long enough for her skin to turn raw and her legs to shake from exhaustion. When she finally stepped out, wrapped in Xu Kai’s oversized bath towel, the scent of his house clung to her—a strange comfort that made her chest ache even more.

She made a quiet mental note. I need to leave some of my clothes here next time.

When she stepped out, the light in the room was dim, and Xu Kai was already waiting with the first-aid kit on the couch. He looked up the moment she walked in, gaze scanning over her without judgment. Only quiet concern.

"Come here," he said, gently.

She did.

He didn’t say anything as he started drying her hair, careful and patient, like she was something fragile that might break if touched too fast. His fingers were warm and steady—so unlike the chaos still raging inside her. Every brush through her damp hair calmed something she hadn’t even realized was shaking.

Then he reached for her arm.

"Let me bandage those."

She didn’t stop him.

His touch moved slowly and precisely as he cleaned the cuts on her elbows and legs. But his hand paused when he reached her forearm.

A faint mark—barely visible, like the ghost of a puncture wound.

His fingers brushed over it, and his brows furrowed.

"...Aeris," he said quietly. "What is this?"

She blinked.

Liora stirred in the background of her mind. That looks like a needle mark, she murmured to herself. Or maybe just a bug bite...

Aeris frowned faintly. "I don’t... know," she whispered, uncertain.

Xu Kai didn’t press. He just nodded slightly, as if deciding it wasn’t the time to question. He resumed bandaging her up, methodical and silent, but his movements were just as gentle.

"Be more careful next time," he said after a pause. "You scared the hell out of me."

That was it. The words broke something inside her.

Her eyes stung all over again, the tears bubbling before she could stop them. Her chest heaved, and the dam finally burst.

Without thinking, Aeris threw herself into his arms.

Xu Kai caught her instantly, holding her like she might shatter. Her face was buried in his chest, arms clutching at him with trembling fingers as sobs tore out of her like a child who had been holding it all in too long.

"I—I didn’t mean to—I didn’t—" she choked, voice muffled and broken.

"Shh," he whispered, one hand cradling the back of her head, the other wrapping firmly around her waist. "It’s okay. You’re okay now."

Watching her cry into Xu Kai’s chest like a lost child, Liora’s own heart twisted painfully. She wasn’t meant to feel this much. But it was impossible not to. Not when every tremor of Aeris’s breath, every choked sob, echoed through her like an aftershock.

She had never seen Aeris so exposed.

For a moment, Liora forgot what she was. Forgot what her purpose was. She only knew this: Aeris needed someone. And Xu Kai had become that someone, without question, without condition.

But just as the moment softened into something painfully warm—

The memory suddenly shifted. The scene before her glitched.

She blinked.

And then—

It changed.

The room flickered, like a broken recording. One moment Xu Kai was holding her. The next, he was gone. Aeris was alone. Crying in the dark.

Then another scene—Aeris standing in front of a mirror, eyes bloodshot, hands shaking as she stared at jagged marks crawling up her arms like lightning veins. Marks that hadn’t been there before.

Another flicker.

The taste of chemicals in the air.

Aeris lay unconscious on a cold surface, pale and unmoving. Her body was covered in strange electrodes. Foreign machines blinked silently in the dark, pulsing in tandem with her heart. Men and women in sterile coats moved around her, murmuring in voices Liora couldn’t hear.

The scenes played out like fragments—impossible, scattered fragments.

Then another—

Aeris woke up in her bed, drenched in sweat, breath caught in her throat, gasping like she’d been suffocating. Her sheets were torn. Her body was bruised.

And her memory? Blank as always, it was also the reason Liora could not see it clearly.

It kept happening. Night after night. Each night brought fresh horrors—new bruises, unknown injuries, places Aeris didn’t remember going. She’d wake up disoriented, terrified, often somewhere unfamiliar.