Cage Of Glass

Chapter 9.5- First Encounter

Adrian P.O.V

Adrian Vale had long mastered the art of patience. Time, for him, was a fluid thing—stretching and folding back on itself, an endless current that washed over him without urgency. And yet, there were rare moments that stood out sharply, where the passing hours crystallized, bright and undeniable.

The day he first saw Brielle was one of those moments.

He hadn't planned to go to the gallery. Adrian rarely ventured into the mundane world unless absolutely necessary, and on that evening, the world felt more mundane than ever. 

But something—a vague impulse or perhaps some intuition that had grown sharper over the years—pulled him there.

He moved through the crowded room like a ghost, unnoticed and untouchable, his black coat blending into the shadows cast by low-hanging lights. 

The hum of voices droned around him, conversations about art, technique, and the meaning of creation. All hollow words, empty gestures that Adrian found tiresome.

Then he saw her.

She stood alone in a corner, beside a painting that no one else seemed to care for—a large, abstract canvas smeared with muted grays and deep blues. It was the kind of art that people glanced at once and dismissed. But not her.

Brielle studied the piece as if it were whispering secrets only she could hear. Her gaze was intent, her head tilted slightly, strands of dark hair slipping from behind her ear. 

She looked...lost, not in an aimless way but as if she were searching for something only art could give her—something just beyond her reach.

Adrian knew that feeling intimately.

He stood back for a moment, watching her, unnoticed. There was a quiet determination in the way she looked at the world, even in her stillness. He had seen countless people pass through the gallery that night, skimming the surface of things. 

But Brielle didn't skim—she dove. She let herself sink into the meaning, even if no one else understood it.

She intrigued him instantly.

Adrian made his approach slowly, weaving through the shifting crowd. As he neared, she glanced over at him—briefly, distractedly—before turning her attention back to the painting.

"You see it, don't you?" Adrian said softly, standing just far enough away not to intrude.

Brielle blinked, startled by the interruption. Her eyes, a deep hazel flecked with gold, met his briefly before flickering back to the painting. "See what?" she asked, her voice quiet but guarded.

Adrian tilted his head, studying the canvas alongside her. "The way the colors move—not just what they show, but what they leave unsaid."

Her lips pressed together, the faintest flicker of a smile teasing at the corners. "Most people just say it looks like a storm."

"And they're not wrong," Adrian replied with a slight smile of his own. "But that's not all it is. You see the tension, don't you? The way everything is on the edge of breaking, but it hasn't yet."

Brielle gave him a sidelong glance, cautious but curious. "That's...exactly what I thought." She paused, frowning slightly, as if she couldn't believe someone else had understood. "But most people don't really look, do they?"

"No," Adrian said softly. "Most people are afraid to look too deeply. They're afraid of what they might find."

She studied him then, as though weighing his words. He felt her gaze move over him, not in the way people usually looked—superficially, to assess his appearance—but with real curiosity, as if she were trying to understand what kind of person would say something like that.