She turned around. The city lights behind her outlined her body in the too-small nightie, and I forced my eyes to her face instead. "We matter to you?"
"More than I should let you."
Emi wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "So all of this has been a game. We've been pieces on a board."
"No." The word came out harder than I intended. "You've been real people I lied to about what was happening while I did it. There's a difference."
Natalia stood up, the frost spreading further. "Walk me through it. From the beginning."
I told them. About waking up as Kaelen Leone in a dead boy's body, about the System demanding I seduce my stepsister or suffer consequences, about every quest and every reward and every time I chose power over honesty.
I told them about the Gacha pulls that gave me abilities I used to seem special, about traits that made my touch addictive, about skills that made my lies harder to detect.
