Xavier stepped back inside and stopped short.

Arlen was standing right there, just inside the balcony door, like she’d been guarding it without realizing she was doing it. She hadn’t gone back to bed. She hadn’t even changed. Xavier’s jacket was still around her shoulders, sleeves hanging past her hands, her hair messy in a way that didn’t come from sleep.

She looked up when the door slid shut.

Their eyes met.

Xavier braced himself without moving. He felt it in his shoulders first, that instinctive tightening, already preparing to sit through another round of anger, another list of reasons he was wrong, and reckless.

He just waited.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

The words landed wrong. Wrong enough that Xavier blinked once, caught off guard.

He stayed quiet.

“I shouldn’t have gone at you like that,” she continued, voice steady but thin around the edges. “I shouldn’t have tried to pin my fear on you and call it concern, or act like my way of seeing things gets to override yours.”

Xavier frowned slightly. “Arlen—”

She shook her head before he could finish. “No. Let me say it.”

She took a breath, fingers tightening in the fabric of his jacket. “You didn’t ask me to follow you. You didn’t ask me to care. I chose that. And then I turned around and acted like that gave me the right to tell you how to live, what risks you’re allowed to take, what kind of person you’re supposed to be.”

She laughed softly, without humor. “That’s not fair. And it’s not my place.”

Xavier shifted his weight, uncertainty creeping in where certainty usually lived. “You were scared,” he said. “That doesn’t make you wrong.”

“It doesn’t make me right either,” Arlen replied. “And I crossed a line.”

She looked at him properly now, not angry, not accusing, just honest in a way that made the room feel smaller. “You’re not someone who can be talked out of things. You never were. You don’t move because people ask you to. You move because you decide something has to happen.”

He didn’t deny it.

“And I knew that,” she said. “I knew it from the start. I just didn’t like how close it got last night.”

Her voice dipped, just slightly. “I don’t get to stop you. I don’t get to soften you. I don’t get to turn you into something easier to be around just because it scares me when you leave.”

She took a step closer, not touching him, but close enough that he could feel the heat of her presence. “You can do whatever you want, Xavier. I don’t own you. I don’t command you. I don’t get to stand in front of your path and call it love.”

That one hit.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said, and the admission sounded strange even to him.

Arlen smiled faintly at that, eyes a little wet but steady. “I know. That’s the worst part.”

She reached out then, hesitated, and let her hand fall back to her side. “I lashed out because I didn’t know where to put it. The fear. The waiting. Watching the city talk about you like you were already gone.”

She exhaled. “I’m sorry for turning that into a fight.”

The room stayed still around them.

Xavier looked at her like he was trying to fit a new piece into an old understanding and wasn’t sure where it went. He had been challenged before. He had been threatened, doubted, and hated. Apologies like this were unfamiliar territory.

“I don’t need you to agree with me,” he said finally. “I just don’t want you thinking you don’t matter.”

Arlen’s eyes softened at that, but she didn’t step back into comfort. “I matter,” she said. “Just not enough to change who you are. And I’m trying to make peace with that instead of fighting it.”

She glanced past him, toward the city beyond the glass. “You’re going to move again, aren’t you.”

Xavier didn’t answer right away.

That was answer enough.

Arlen nodded once, acceptance settling in even as worry stayed behind. “Then go do what you’re going to do,” she said. “Just… don’t disappear without letting me know you’re still breathing.”

Xavier held her gaze, something unresolved and unfamiliar sitting between them.

“I can do that,” he said.

It wasn’t a promise to stop. But it was the closest thing he had to one.

They didn’t talk much on the way down.

Klatos walked a step ahead, Rin trailing behind with his hands in his pockets, and Arlen stayed close to Xavier without touching him.

The hotel’s lower level was already awake, staff moving like nothing extraordinary had happened overnight, guests murmuring over screens that replayed the same footage on loop with the sound turned low.

They took a table near the window.

Breakfast arrived fast. Too fast. Plates set down with practiced smiles, steam rising, cutlery aligned just enough to look intentional. Rin dug in immediately like he’d been starving for days, barely pausing to breathe between bites.

Klatos ate slower, eyes distant, clearly thinking instead of tasting.

Arlen picked at her food at first, then forced herself to eat properly after a minute, like she’d decided that skipping meals wasn’t going to help anyone. Xavier ate in silence, attention drifting between them and the street outside where patrols still moved heavier than usual.

When they finished, Klatos stood first and nodded toward the elevators. “Room,” he said. “We talk there.”

Back upstairs, the door closed behind them and the room settled into a familiar stillness, the kind that meant something was about to be decided. Klatos didn’t sit right away. He turned to face Xavier instead, posture straight, wings held tight against his back.

“Before we do anything else,” he said, “I need something from you.”

Xavier looked at him. “Go on.”

“No more disappearing,” Klatos said. “No more deciding alone and leaving the rest of us to watch the city burn on a screen.”

Rin leaned back against the wall, chewing the last of something he’d stolen from the table. “Yeah,” he added. “That part sucked.”

Arlen stayed quiet, watching Klatos instead of Xavier.

“You can still lead,” Klatos continued. “You can still make the call. But if you walk out again without telling us where you’re going or what you’re doing, then this stops being a team and starts being a liability.”

The room stayed quiet long enough that the morning buzz of the city outside crept in through the glass.

Xavier didn’t deflect it this time.

“You want a promise?” he said.

“Yes,” Klatos replied immediately. “Not a half-assed one.”

Xavier nodded once. “Alright. I promise. No more bailing out. I involve you. All of you.”

Rin raised an eyebrow. “On record.”

“On record,” Xavier said.

Klatos finally relaxed, just a fraction. “Good.”

They took seats then, the tension shifting into focus. Arlen pulled a chair closer, Rin dragged one with his foot, and Klatos activated the projector on the table, the city map blooming into view with Helior Prime at its center and the surrounding regions layered outward.

“Now,” Klatos said, tapping the edge of the projection, “we plan properly. If Reva and Lyra are coming in, this is where the net tightens. And if Kylus is moving, he won’t be subtle.”

DING!

Xavier’s device rang.

He checked it and found some weird letters and numbers on the screen.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep