What He Refuses to Say
702 Words
The silence that followed the man’s words did not feel accidental.
It felt deliberate, as though something important had been placed between them—not as an answer, but as a test, waiting to see who would break first, who would speak, and who would reveal more than they intended.
Lyra didn’t look at the man again.
She looked at Kael.
Not because she trusted him, not yet, not fully, but because the shift in him—subtle though it was—had been impossible to miss. His body had gone still in a way that had nothing to do with pain, and everything to do with recognition.
He knew something.
Or worse—
He understood something she didn’t.
“Is that true?” she asked, her voice controlled, though her chest felt tight in a way that made each breath slightly more deliberate than the last.
Kael didn’t answer immediately.
His gaze remained forward, fixed on the man who had spoken, as though weighing distance, movement, timing—everything except her question.
“That depends,” he said finally, his tone measured, “on what you think you’re asking.”
Lyra frowned, the response frustrating in its precision.
“I think I’m asking whether you already knew something happened to me twelve years ago,” she said, stepping slightly closer despite herself, “and whether you’ve been choosing not to say it.”
This time, Kael did look at her.
Not dismissively.
Not defensively.
But with a kind of focus that suggested he was deciding something—not what to say, but how much.
“I knew something happened,” he admitted.
The words landed heavier than denial would have.
Lyra’s jaw tightened.
“And you didn’t think that mattered?”
“I didn’t know it was connected to you,” he replied, his voice quieter now, though no less firm. “Not until now.”
The explanation made sense.
That didn’t mean she liked it.
“Convenient,” she said.
“Practical,” he corrected.
The difference, to him, clearly mattered.
Before Lyra could respond, the man in front of them exhaled lightly, the sound carrying a faint trace of impatience.
“This is getting inefficient,” he said, as though commenting on something mildly inconvenient rather than life-threatening. “We weren’t told to wait for you to catch up.”
Kael’s attention shifted back instantly.
“They’re not here to talk,” he said under his breath, just loud enough for Lyra to hear.
Lyra’s pulse quickened.
“They’re here to take me,” she replied.
“Yes.”
No hesitation.
No doubt.
The certainty in his answer settled into her chest with uncomfortable weight.
“Why?” she pressed.
Kael’s expression hardened slightly.
“Because whatever you are,” he said quietly, “someone decided it was dangerous enough to erase.”
The implication was clear.
And deeply unsettling.
Lyra’s thoughts flickered back—unbidden—to the gap in her memory, to that empty space where something should have been, something that now felt less like absence and more like removal.
Before she could ask anything else—
Movement.
The men shifted.
Not dramatically, not all at once, but enough to change the air between them, the loose formation tightening into something more deliberate, more final.
The man at the front tilted his head slightly.
“We’re done here,” he said.
Kael didn’t look at him.
“Then you’re about to be disappointed.”
Lyra barely had time to register the change in his tone before his hand caught her wrist—not roughly, not without control, but with a decisiveness that left no room for hesitation.
“When I say run,” he said, his voice low and close to her ear, “you don’t stop, you don’t turn, and you don’t wait for me.”
Lyra’s breath caught.
“What about you?”
He didn’t answer that.
Not directly.
Instead, his grip tightened slightly—not enough to hurt, but enough to anchor the moment.
“That’s not your problem right now.”
The statement irritated her more than it reassured her.
But before she could argue—
The tension snapped.
“Now.”
- Writer
