Rehab for SuperVillains (18+)
Chapter 263: Silence

Chapter 263: Silence

Silence fell, heavy, suffocating, the air thick with unspoken pain.

Freya’s lips parted, her blue eyes shimmering, the faintest tears collecting in the corners, unblinking, raw.

"So I guess..." she whispered, her voice breaking, a fragile thread of hurt.

"You don’t feel as close to me as I feel to you."

Rhea blinked at Freya, her amber eyes widening, caught off guard by the crack in Freya’s voice, the depth of her pain hitting like a shockwave.

Kael’s hazel eyes lifted, meeting theirs, his voice barely above a whisper.

"It’s not that," he said, his words heavy, aching. "It’s never been that."

Freya’s blue eyes didn’t waver, her voice cutting through the room again, quiet but brutal, a blade wrapped in sorrow.

"What am I to you, Kael?"

Kael didn’t answer, his hazel eyes locked on hers, his silence a wound that deepened the rift.

Freya’s gaze held steady, her voice trembling, raw with vulnerability.

"A toy?"

.

.

.

The silence after Freya’s question hung heavy, a suffocating weight that pressed against the walls of the villa’s common room.

Kael didn’t answer right away, couldn’t, his hazel eyes frozen on Freya’s icy blue gaze, the word toy striking like a stone to his chest.

Not because it was true, not because it was cruel, but because they believed it might be—because he had made it believable with his secrecy, his guarded heart.

The quiet wasn’t just awkward; it was a wound, raw and bleeding, the air thick with unspoken pain.

Rhea sat beside Freya, arms crossed tightly across her chest, her usual clear amber eyes narrowed but unreadable, her crimson hair a tangled flame catching the morning light.

The cushion she’d been hugging lay abandoned beside her, useless against the storm brewing in her heart.

Freya didn’t move, her blue eyes unflinching, not burning with hatred or rage but shimmering with expectation, with pain, a quiet demand for truth that cut deeper than any accusation.

Kael took a breath, slow and shaky, his hazel eyes dropping briefly before he crossed the room, sitting across from them, his forearms resting on his knees.

He didn’t reach for them, didn’t try to touch, his hands still, his heart heavy with the weight of his failures.

"You’re not toys," he said quietly, his voice raw, trembling with sincerity. "You’re not anyone’s to use."

Freya tilted her head, her platinum-cyan hair shifting, her blue eyes piercing, her voice soft but laced with hurt.

"But that’s how it feels."

Kael didn’t look away, his hazel eyes meeting hers, the truth a bitter taste in his mouth.

"I know," he admitted, his voice barely above a whisper, his chest tightening with guilt.

The pause stretched too long, a chasm of silence that threatened to swallow them whole.

"I’ve never... been good at letting people in," Kael said, his words thick, slow, like pulling thorns from flesh, each one a confession torn from a guarded heart.

"The people I cared about before... a lot of them didn’t make it. Or they turned. Or they took what I gave them and used it to hurt me. To hurt others."

Freya’s lips pressed into a thin line, her blue eyes unwavering, shimmering with unshed tears, a quiet storm of pain and hope.

Kael looked at her, then to Rhea, his hazel eyes heavy with regret.

"I don’t think you would. Either of you. I really don’t. But that doesn’t stop my body from reacting like it will happen again. Doesn’t stop my mind from keeping distance, from trying to... control everything before it controls me."

"So what?" Rhea snapped, her voice sharper than Freya’s, her amber eyes blazing with a mix of hurt and fury, her crimson hair bouncing as she leaned forward.

"You just fuck us, kiss us, make us feel like we matter—and then wall us out of everything important?"

Kael swallowed hard, his throat tightening, his hazel eyes flickering with guilt.

"No. I mean—yes. I guess I did do that," he admitted, his voice breaking, his hands clenching into fists. "But not because you don’t matter. Because you do."

Freya rose from the couch, her tall frame moving with a graceful slowness, her bare feet silent on the polished wood floor.

She folded to her knees in front of him, eye-level now, her blue eyes shimmering with a raw, aching vulnerability.

"What hurts," she said softly, her voice trembling, "is knowing you’re in pain... and still choosing to suffer it alone."

Kael blinked, something inside him flinching, a visible crack in his armor, his hazel eyes glistening with unshed tears.

Freya reached out, her hand finding his cheek, her cool fingertips brushing along the faint stubble at his jaw, a tender anchor in the storm.

"I don’t need all of you," she said, her voice a fragile thread, "not right now, not even soon. But something. A piece. A truth. That’s how people build trust, Kael. You can’t ask for our hearts if you won’t give yours."

He opened his mouth to speak but stopped, his hazel eyes locked on hers, her hand steady against his cheek.

"I’m scared," he whispered finally, his voice raw, breaking, a confession torn from the depths of his soul. "I don’t want to be the reason you both get hurt."

Rhea’s voice cut through, low and heated, her amber eyes blazing as she rose and crossed the space between them.

"We don’t need you to protect us like that," she said, her smaller frame dropping beside him, curling into his side, her cheek pressing against his shoulder. "We’re not helpless."

"I know you’re not," Kael said, his voice heavy, his hazel eyes glistening. "But I’ve seen what this world does to people who get too close to the wrong truths. It eats them alive."

Freya’s blue eyes shimmered, a tear slipping free, tracing a silent path down her cheek.

Kael continued, his voice barely above a whisper, each word a wound.

"I’ve watched good people break. I’ve watched me break. Every time I let someone in... it cost something. I don’t know how to unlearn that."