Chapter 10- Insider(2)
Night did not loosen its grip easily.
Even hours after the broadcast ended, the city remained tense, like a body refusing to sleep after a nightmare. Sirens echoed in the distance—not constant, but frequent enough to remind everyone that calm was an illusion.
Victoria sat on the edge of the bed, mask resting in her lap.
She hated how light it felt now.
Earlier, it had been unbearable, like holding a coffin lid meant for her face. Now it felt… familiar. That frightened her more than anything else.
She rubbed her palms together slowly, trying to ground herself.
I stood beside him, she thought.
I didn't fight. I didn't scream.
Her resonance stirred, restless, unsettled. Lightning traced invisible veins beneath her skin, responding not to fear now—but confusion.
Across the room, X removed his coat with mechanical precision and placed it neatly over the back of a chair. The gas mask stayed on.
It always did.
"You're quiet," he said.
Victoria laughed softly, without humor. "You paraded me in front of the world. What exactly do you expect me to say?"
"That you understand," X replied.
She looked up sharply. "Understand what? That you're turning me into your shadow?"
X turned toward her.
"No," he said calmly. "That I'm turning you into a mirror."
She frowned. "For who?"
"For them."
He gestured vaguely toward the window, toward the city, toward everything beyond the reinforced glass.
"They see you," he continued. "And they wonder. They speculate. They fear. They ask themselves the question they should have asked long ago."
He stepped closer.
Why her?
Victoria's fingers tightened around the mask.
"You didn't need me," she said. "You already terrified them."
X stopped in front of her.
"I needed you," he corrected. "Because fear alone fades. Stories don't. They needed to see victims"
She swallowed.
"And what story am I supposed to be?"
X tilted his head slightly.
"The proof that resistance exists outside their control," he said. "The proof that if they don't put an end to what they started, more victims will emerge and the world will plunge into chaos"
Victoria stood abruptly.
"You murdered my family," she said, voice shaking. "Don't dress this up like a philosophy."
For a moment—just a moment—the air between them changed.
X didn't deny it.
"I did," he said.
The simplicity of the admission hit harder than any excuse could have.
"And yet," he continued, "you're still here."
Her breath hitched.
"Because I haven't finished deciding what you'll become."
The room they gathered in felt too small for the tension it held.
Curtains drawn. Doors locked. Phones face-down on the table like they might betray them if given the chance.
Leviathan stood near the window, arms crossed, eyes sharp.
"This wasn't random," he said again, like repeating it would make it sink in deeper. "The location. The timing. The message."
James leaned back against the wall, jaw tight. "You're saying it's bait."
"I'm saying," Leviathan replied, "that he knows exactly who's watching."
Mary hugged her arms to herself. "The girl," she said quietly. "She didn't move. Not once."
Sophia nodded. "She wasn't scared of the crowd. She was scared of him. He always knew how to induce fear"
Aria hadn't spoken since they started.
She sat on the edge of the bed, fingers pressed to her temple, eyes unfocused.
That feeling again.
The same one from the mansion. From the night everything broke.
"He's doing this for us," Aria said suddenly.
All eyes turned to her.
Paul frowned. "That's a stretch."
"No," Aria said, shaking her head. "It's not. The gas mask. The way he speaks. The way he waits."
Her voice trembled. "He wants us to see him. To remember him. If only you had all listened"
Leviathan's expression darkened.
"He wants recognition," he said slowly. "Not fame. Not attention."
"Judgment," James finished.
Silence followed.
Mary's voice was barely above a whisper. "What happens when he gets it?"
No one answered.
Because they all knew.
Dave didn't trust silence anymore.
Especially the digital kind.
He sat alone in his office, lights off, the glow of his terminal painting his face in pale blue. Official systems were locked down—too many eyes, too many hands.
So he worked off-grid.
Old hardware. Isolated drives. Manual inputs.
The trail was immaculate.
Every move X made ended cleanly. No residual resonance bleed. No civilian overlap beyond what X allowed.
It wasn't just intelligence.
It was coordination.
Dave replayed the timeline again.
The organization massacre.
The delay in response.
The broadcast hijack.
The disappearance.
Always seconds ahead.
He slowed the playback.
There.
A security gate that should have been locked… opening.
A surveillance loop restarting half a second too early.
A drone command rerouted through an internal authorization key.
Dave leaned back slowly.
"No," he murmured. "You didn't do this alone."
He accessed clearance records.
Cross-referenced override patterns.
One access signature appeared again.
And again.
And again.
Always just outside his scan radius.
Always just after X moved.
Dave's jaw clenched.
"You're not a follower," he said quietly. "You're a handler."
The terminal flickered.
A warning flashed—UNAUTHORIZED QUERY DETECTED.
Dave froze.
Then smiled grimly.
"So you're watching me too."
He shut everything down manually and leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling. He intended to activate his resonance to check on things properly, but he was too exhausted and probably would t get accurate results.
"This changes things," he muttered.
Because if someone inside was helping X…
Then X wasn't just a threat.
He was a project.
Victoria lay awake long after X left the room.
Sleep wouldn't come.
Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the crowd. The fear. The way people looked at her like she was already something other than human.
Her mask sat on the table.
Waiting.
She reached for her resonance again—slowly this time. Carefully.
Lightning sparked.
This time, it didn't lash out.
It stayed.
Obedient.
Controlled.
Her breath caught.
I'm changing, she realized.
Not because she wanted to.
Because survival demanded it.
Outside, the city trembled beneath unseen strings.
And somewhere in the dark, plans shifted—quietly, deliberately.
The game had entered its next phase.