Introvert 106

Posted by AdminM, ? Views, Released on April 28, 2025

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Chapter 106: Kaiden

Chapter 106: Kaiden

Kaiden’s POV

“I had a daydream where I saw Lucy drenched in blood,” she continued, her voice shaky, the fear still palpable in every word as she wrung her hands together, the motion frantic and raw. “It’s said that the dreams we see in the daytime have a high possibility of coming true, so I was just worried.”

The words hit me like a slap, my breath catching sharply in my throat. A slow, bitter heat began to creep up my spine, burning through the remnants of my fear and replacing it with something colder. Anger. Disbelief. The kind of frustration that pushed aside all rational thought, forcing me to focus on the ridiculousness of what she had just said.

“Since when the fuck did you start believing in this orthodox shit?” I growled, the veins in my neck tightening as I barely held onto the fraying edge of my control. “You don’t even go to church.”

She looked at me with wide, innocent–looking eyes, the corner of her lip twitching with a hint of false sweetness. “I do go to church. It’s just you didn’t ever notice it,” she said casually, her voice light, as if she were discussing the weather.

The innocence in her tone felt so utterly fake it made my blood boil, like gasoline thrown over open flames. It was the kind of innocence only someone like her–manipulative, cold, and utterly self–serving–could pull off without flinching. My jaw clenched so tightly I could feel the pressure pounding in my temples, and for a moment, I had to fight the urge to reach out and shake her–hard.

If she weren’t the mother of the woman I loved, I would have literally choked her just for that voice and that manipulative gaze.

I rose to my feet in one sharp, stiff movement, dragging both hands through my hair, tugging hard at the roots, trying to contain the rage bubbling up inside me.

“You just-” my voice cracked, raw from the weight of it all, “you just wasted my time, Selena!” I snapped, slamming my fist into my own palm for emphasis. “Made me worry like hell for nothing!”

My words bounced off the empty, tiled walls, sharp and unforgiving, slicing the air between us like broken glass.

However, somewhere in the pit of my stomach, I was grudgingly thankful for one thing–and that was Selena’s paranoia. It’s way better that she was being paranoid than Lucy being in actual danger.

Maybe… maybe Lucy had just left.

Maybe she was already on her way home, and all this chaos was for nothing but the stupid nightmare swirling in Selena’s head.

Thank God, it’s just all in Selena’s head and not reality.

Trying to shove down the burning frustration inside me, I exhaled sharply through my nose and muttered, “Don’t worry. It’s just your paranoia. She probably just left. Probably headed home already.”

But Selena shook her head wildly, her chest heaving as she wiped her tear–streaked cheeks with the back of her trembling hand.

Her voice cracked like brittle glass when she said, “We… we’ve called her a hundred times! Kaiden, her phone–why is it saying switched off?”

The panic laced through her words, raw and desperate, twisting my gut with unease.

I clenched my jaw tighter, forcing my voice to stay gruff and composed, “Maybe her battery drained,” I said, shrugging stiffly, though doubt gnawed at me like a dog with a bone. “Maybe she forgot to charge it, okay? It happens.”

But Selena didn’t look convinced.

And neither, if I was honest with myself, was I. But even in my doubt, I didn’t want to invite disaster, so I stayed stubbornly positive.

We were heading back to my car, our walking pace slower than before, our footsteps dragging along the dusty corridor floor. My heartbeat, too, was slowing, but not in the calming way–in the sick, heavy way of impending dread.

The empty hallway stretched endlessly ahead, eerily silent, lit only by the dim, flickering overhead lights that buzzed like insects.

Then, all of a sudden, Selena stumbled.

Successfully unlocked!

A tiny gasp tore from her lips as she tripped over something ready sp wing onto the ground.

I turned on instinct, my heart giving a violent jolt, and caught her by the elbow. “For god’s sake, can’t you just walk right?” I barked, my fingers tightening around her arm for a second before letting go.

She didn’t respond.

1/4

Chapter 106: Kaiden

Instead, she bent down with shaking hands and picked up the object she had tripped over, fumbling clumsily with numb fingers.

And then-

My almost–calmed heartbeat slammed back into overdrive as my eyes locked onto what she was holding.

Lucy’s phone.

There was a thin spider web–like fracture near the corner, not enough to render it useless but enough to raise a thousand alarms in my head.

No sane person would casually abandon her phone like that in the middle of an empty school hallway. Especially not Lucy. She wasn’t careless, and she sure as hell didn’t throw away money on a whim.

A cold, sinking feeling gripped my chest, squeezing tighter with each beat.

There was something wrong with Lucy. And Selena knew it.

The daydreaming thing had been bullshit. Selena hadn’t told me everything.

There was more.

And it had everything–everything–to do with Lucy’s broken phone lying cold and abandoned at our feet.

The abandoned device weighed in Selena’s hands like a loaded gun, her fingers trembling as she held it out like it burned her skin.

Before I even realized what I was doing, rage exploded through me like a wildfire tearing through dry brush.

I lunged forward and grabbed the front of Selena’s coat, fisting the fabric so tight my knuckles turned white.

With a furious growl ripped from the pit of my chest, I shoved her hard against the nearest wall.

The dull thud of her back hitting the cold plaster echoed like a death knell through the deserted corridor, but I didn’t care. Not anymore. Not even if she was the mother of the woman I loved.

“What the hell did you do?” I snarled, my face inches from hers, my breath hot with fury, my voice so low and rough it sounded like it was scraping up from hell itself.

“Tell me, Selena! What have you done to her?!”

Her eyes widened, shimmering with a terror so pure it sliced through the moment, her entire body trembling like a brittle leaf in a storm.

She tried to speak, her mouth opening and closing like a drowning fish, but nothing came out except a soft, broken whimper that barely brushed the air.

“Spit it out!” I barked, slamming the side of my fist into the wall beside her head. The impact sent a cloud of plaster dust raining down, the sound monstrous in the dead silence.

My heart was hammering so violently it drowned out everything else, the world narrowing down to the thin line of her guilt- ridden, tear–soaked face.

I was this close to losing it completely–to punching her–when finally, finally, Selena choked out a whisper that sliced sharper than any blade.

“I didn’t mean to…” she gasped, her voice a raw, jagged thing, “I–I swear, Kaiden, I didn’t mean for it to happen.”

“Mean for what to happen?!” I shook her, not violently, but enough that her head lolled slightly on her thin neck.

“I… I accidentally…” she stammered, her hands dangling helplessly at her sides, “I accidentally texted Lucy’s address… to Ross.”

The name hit me like a freight train to the chest,

Ross.

Lucy’s ex–stepbrother. The bastard who was rotting in jail for sexually assaulting her.

I stared at Selena, too stunned to even move, my fingers loosening slightly from her coat as the full horror of what she was saying crushed me.

The puzzle wasn’t hard to put together–Lucy’s cracked phone, her sudden disappearance, and that monster loose somewhere with her address.

And still–still–my mind clung desperately to denial.

Maybe it’s just a coincidence. Maybe he got the message but didn’t get a damn chance to take any action because he was in prison. Maybe Lucy just dropped her phone and didn’t notice.