Free Web NovelChapter 184: Trace Exposed (1)
Kestrel had a tiny secret, a secret no one knew about.
Ever since she was little, medicines and other substances that usually make people sleepy or dizzy didn’t affect her. She wasn’t sure why, but things like spices, sleep-inducing drugs, alcohol, or other kinds of drugs just didn’t do anything to her.
She could get tired and fall asleep from exhaustion or collapse if she got hurt physically, but she couldn’t fall asleep because of drugs, not even the most powerful ones. So, drinking alcohol was kind of like a fun challenge for her, as she could never get drunk, no matter how much she drank.
She hadn’t shared this with anyone, so naturally, Ren didn’t know either.
When Ren released the sleep-inducing smoke and everyone started falling down one by one, Kestrel figured it would be best for both of them if she acted like she had fallen asleep too, so she pretended to collapse.
She was even better at hiding her true feelings than Ren, managing to look completely out of it and unresponsive as she fell, seeming truly believable. But, she was so good at pretending that she even fooled Ren.
As she pretended to fall, she suddenly felt a strong arm catching her, keeping her steady.
"He couldn’t stand to see me fall," Kestrel thought with a smile.
She first planned to give a small hint to let Ren know she was actually awake. But she noticed that Ren was acting a bit differently towards her than he usually did; she couldn’t quite put her finger on what was different though.
Her cheek felt a light touch from Ren’s finger, a touch as gentle as a soft piece of tree fluff brushing against her, but the feeling stayed with her, unable to shake it off.
Ren was the one who gently brushed her hair, his touch was light and harmless, yet felt extremely heavy, like he was carefully holding something really hot close to him. freeωebnovēl.c૦m
They had backed each other up on the battlefield numerous times, this kind of hug wasn’t anything new.
Kestrel was usually a bit slow to catch onto things, but now, she suddenly became very alert. She felt like something was going on, and her gut feeling told her she needed to keep pretending.
With her eyes shut, she could feel a slight tug on her hair. She heard Ren breathing softly and his clear heartbeat, she felt him lifting a bit of his face mask and gently kissing the tips of her hair.
"I can’t move," Kestrel thought, "I can’t let him find out I’m awake."
She didn’t know why, but she felt that it would be kind of embarrassing to open her eyes right then.
So she shut out everything, stopped feeling anything, imagining she was just a lifeless piece of log.
Before long, Ren carefully put her down, opened the cage, and got Brandon out.
As she lay there pretending to be unconscious, Kestrel realized a bit late that after feeling sympathetic, she was now feeling a new emotion - being nervous.
...
Ren quickly changed Brandon into an alpha uniform, covering his face with dirty blood to disguise him, and hid him among the many injured people, before pressing the button to go down in the elevator.
As the elevator doors were closing, he heard Brandon trying hard to speak, telling him to stay safe. The voice was soft, filled with deep sadness, as if saying these words was a rare treat — the more one learned about the Tower and witnessed the Queen’s power, the more they realized how unlikely it was for those left behind to survive.
The elevator doors completely shut, and the light indicating they were going down turned on.
Ren moved with extreme carefulness, completely sealing off his psychic landscape, not letting even a small hint of emotion slip out, because he couldn’t risk someone picking up on his movements through psychic abilities.
Maybe it was because he had teamed up with Kestrel a lot, but he had gotten really good at hiding his feelings over the last two years. He managed to distract the Queen, who had a really strong psychic power, and got Brandon out of the Queen’s den — the palace.
But Ren was aware that this was just the start, just a tiny opportunity they had cleverly created; the upcoming actions were going to be the riskiest.
He was planning to get all the powerful people chasing them to focus on him, so that everyone else involved in this rescue could get away as far as possible.
Inside the Tower, it wasn’t just filled with noble kids, but also had a lot of truly strong warriors. When these individuals started coming out all at once, chasing with psychic incarnations flying and digging through, escaping Imperial Nexus would be extremely hard for anyone.
Ren arrived at the entrance of a ventilation duct, glancing at the timer on his opticomputer.
The Tower was known to people outside as a dreamy, beautiful place. It had schools and farms, tech areas and military housing, as well as a garden at the very top and the palace, the huge stacked buildings that held all the things needed to keep human society going.
But there were also dark, wet tunnels and abandoned ventilation ducts here. These places were Ren’s pathways for sneaking in and getting away.
Ren stood at the entrance of the duct, judging the space between the gray, dull concrete levels below. A gust of wind came up from the bottom of the duct, touching his skin, making him think of the feeling of cool strands of hair slipping through his fingers. Checking the time and knowing the elevator was nearly at the ground level, he realized it was time to act.
Ren glanced at the spaces between his fingers, a grin appearing on his face, thinking to himself, "yeah, today is a good day, at least I got the chance to kiss her."
He then suddenly lowered his psychic barrier. It felt like a firmly shut door cracking open a little, and just as the anger and wish to tear down the Tower started to seep out from the crack, a chilly stare suddenly focused on him, watching him from a higher place.
