꧁ • 𝗹𝗮 𝗿𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗲 • ꧂

✧ • chapter thirteen • ✧

okay my WHAT!?

The light was dim, filtered through what looked like thin, industrial blinds. I blinked once, twice—pain spider-webbed behind my eyes as I came to.

I wasn't in the alley anymore.

Instead of cold concrete beneath me, there was a bed—firm mattress, starched sheets, the scent of antiseptic and something faintly metallic. Unfamiliar. And damn unexpected.

My head throbbed like I'd been hit by a freight train. Great.

Through the haze, I registered movement. One figure sat in a chair beside me—Jeremy. Arms folded, chin resting on one hand, his brows creased with worry, tapping his foot in that way he did when he was stressed but pretending not to be.

But there was another.

Leaning against the doorframe was someone I didn't recognize. Tall. Pale-skinned. Blond hair styled like it belonged in some aristocrat's portrait. Dressed in a sleek black formal coat that looked like it cost more than my entire year's worth of rent. But it wasn't his clothes or posture that caught my attention—it was his eyes.

Cyan blue.

A color I'd seen once in a photograph buried beneath torn pages of a family album. Or maybe in a dream I tried too hard to forget. I couldn't place it. My mind was still foggy, like a radio tuned halfway to static.

Then Jeremy leaned forward, snapping me out of it.

"Hey, kid. How you feelin' now?"

Kid? Really? I glared at him. He acts like he's forty. "I feel like a building collapsed on my head," I muttered, slowly pushing myself upright on the bed. "What happened?"

Silence stretched. Tension thickened the air like fog in a graveyard.

Then the stranger moved.

"May I?" His voice was cool, perfectly even. Not a question. More like a formality spoken by someone used to being obeyed.

Jeremy and I both turned to face him. His gaze was fixed solely on me—calculating, unreadable. And that unsettling aura... he carried himself like a ghost that never left the mansion halls.

He stepped forward slowly, to the corner of the bed.

"I would like a moment to speak with my little sister. If you don't mind."

Jeremy's expression shifted in a blink—surprise, realization, then quiet understanding. He stood, giving the man space. "Alright... sir."

"Alone."

Jeremy nodded again. "Yes, sir." He gave me a faint smile before disappearing through the door, closing it with a soft click.

Wait—what?

Sister?

I narrowed my eyes. What the actual hell?  My fists clenched against the sheet. "Excuse me?"

I studied his face. He looked nothing like Adrien- at least not on the surface. Adrien was softer, sunlit, the kind who smiled with the corners of his eyes.

This guy? He looked like winter incarnate. But the more I stared, the more it hit me- the bone structure, the sharp jawline, the way his eyes held centuries of tiredness for someone still young.

No way.

"...You're not Adrien."

"I never claimed to be."