Chapter Text
Kleya had learned how to slip past her father’s rules the same way she learned everything else in that mansion — quietly, precisely, and alone.
Her dad had tightened security since her escape, but the stricter he became, the easier it was to read the patterns.
The guards circled the back garden first.
The eastern hallway camera had a blind corner.
The kitchen’s side gate buzzed open every night at the same minute when staff took out the trash.
She didn’t rebel loudly.
She moved like a whisper.
A servant’s coat hid her clothes.
Soft-clicking locks.
Careful timing.
Every visit to Zeuss wasn’t luck — it was calculation.
Not freedom… but will.
Enough to carry her across the cold city and into the only place that didn’t feel like surveillance.
The mechanic shop smelled like rain-soaked concrete and gasoline — a sharp contrast to the lavender-polished hallways Kleya was raised in.
But lately, she found comfort here.
In the noise.
In the grit.
In him.
Zeuss ignored her the moment she stepped in.
He was crouched beside a half-dismantled motorcycle, black tank top clinging to his back, muscles shifting under skin dusted with engine grime. His jacket hung over a chair, the leather worn at the edges, smelling faintly of smoke and something darker — something lived in.
“You’re here again,”
he said without looking up.
It wasn’t a question.
More like a warning.
Kleya smoothed her damp hair behind her ear.
“Just… passing by.”
“Right.”
His voice was flat.
The kind of flat that said don’t lie to me.
There was no heat in it.
Just cold truth.
But she didn’t retreat.
She walked around the shop slowly, pretending to examine tools she couldn’t name.
He didn’t watch her, but she felt every inch of his awareness pressing against her movements.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
He tightened a bolt.
“I know.”
He wiped his hands on a rag.
“So leave.”
She stood her ground, clasping her hands behind her back.
“I don’t want to.”
He finally looked at her.
Sharp eyes.
Sharper expression.
Beautiful in a way that didn’t feel real — the kind of beauty carved from surviving.
He looked at her like she was an inconvenience.
A problem he didn’t ask for.
A softness he didn’t trust.
“Kleya,” he said, low, tired, “I don’t have time for whatever you’re doing.”
She stepped closer, softly.
“I’m not doing anything.”
“That’s the problem.”
A beat.
Then — unexpectedly — he stood, towering over her. His height, his frame, the quiet intensity of him stretched the silence thin.
“People like you,” he said, voice steady, “don’t show up in places like this. Not by accident. Not twice. Not four times.”
Heat bloomed in her cheeks, but she held his gaze.
“Maybe I just… want to understand.”
“Understand what?”
His tone wasn’t curious. It was a blade.
“You,” she whispered.
His jaw flexed.
Not a good sign.
Not a softening — a reminder that he didn’t want to be understood.
“I don’t need you to understand me.”
“I know,” she said gently, “but I want to.”
He exhaled sharply — frustration, disbelief, something she couldn’t name.
She reached for the lunch box on the table and pushed it toward him.
“I brought food again.”
He didn’t even glance at it.
“Stop bringing me things.”
“You don’t have to eat it,” she murmured, “but… it’s okay to let people care, you know.”
His eyes went still.
Then he stepped closer — one slow, deliberate step that erased the space between them, their breaths brushing the same air.
“Kleya,” he said, voice low enough to scrape,
“I don’t need your care. I don’t need your pity. And I don’t need you here.”
There it was.
The wall.
The steel.
The truth.
She swallowed, but her voice didn’t shake.
“I know you don’t want me here,” she said. “But I’m not scared of you. And I’m not leaving.”
His stare hardened.
The kind of hardness that comes from years of being alone.
Years of being untouched by gentleness.
“Why?” he asked.
It wasn’t angry.
It wasn’t soft.
It was honest.
She lifted her chin just slightly.
“Because even when you look at me like that… I don’t feel unwelcome.”
For a moment — one heartbeat — Zeuss froze.
Not softened.
Not moved.
Just caught off guard.
He broke the moment instantly, turning away, grabbing his tools, shutting down the conversation like flipping a switch.
“We’re done talking,” he muttered. “Go home.”
“I don’t have a home right now,” she said quietly.
He paused.
Just for a second.
Then kept working.
But his hands weren’t as steady.
Kleya sat down on an overturned crate, tucking her knees close, watching him work in silence.
He didn’t push her away again.
He didn’t look at her either.
The line between them wasn’t erased —
but it was blurred.
Rain tapped softly on the metal roof above them.
And for the first time, the quiet between them felt like the beginning of something neither of them could name yet.
Something dangerous.
Something healing.
Something inevitable.
The unseen line had been crossed.
And both of them knew it.