Chapter 83 Where is iris?
ADRIAN
It’s always a little jarring when Daisy actually looks serious.
She caught me between classes, nearly dragging me into the empty seminar room behind the east courtyard. No smile. No teasing. Just those sharp brown eyes and a tone I hadn’t heard from her since Iris got her heart broken last spring.
“Where have you been?” she asked. No hello. No hug.
I raised a brow. “Is this about the text I didn’t reply to, or the party I didn’t show up for?”
She didn’t laugh.
“It’s been over a week, Adrian. You seriously haven’t heard?”
I felt the shift instantly. The kind of moment where your stomach drops before your brain even catches up. “Heard what?”
“Iris is missing.”
I gasp, my voice coming out sharp, and instant, “What?”
Daisy crossed her arms, hurt bleeding through the frustration in her voice. “Don’t act like this is news. You’re Adrian. You know everything.”
“I don’t know this.”
Her expression cracked. “I thought you were ignoring me because you were trying to ensure I didn’t figure it out. But you really didn’t know?”
I blinked. “Wait, what does Zeus…? Never mind. Go back. What happened to Iris?”
She filled in the blanks. Bits and pieces. All of it secondhand. But the part that stuck, that kept sticking, was the casual way she’d said it.
“And Darian? Apparently has been thrown in the dungeon for helping Iris escape death.”
It took everything in me not to show my reaction right then. I just nodded, swallowed, and left campus early.
I didn’t go home. Not right away. I needed time to process the fact that I was learning about my siblings’ trauma through Daisy, a stranger, who was worried. She thought I knew.
I knew I needed more info, so I started watching the guards after that. Started asking questions like I was just a bored younger brother checking in on rumors.
They gave more than they should’ve.
That’s how I pieced it together.
So now, here I am. Walking the sterile, too-quiet hallway toward Darian’s room after being beat up my Zeus.
Kelvin’s voice leaks through the half-closed door. I pause outside, listening.
"...and then he actually fell asleep during the test," Kelvin says, laughing. “Like, head-on-the-desk, dead to the world.”
Another voice, hoarse but familiar, chuckles softly. “Tell me he at least passed.”
“Barely.”
“Sounds like my hero.”
I push the door open, not knocking.
The sight that greets me? Not one I was ready for.
Darian looks like death and a bad decision had a baby. Pale. Eyes hollowed out. His cheeks are gaunt, lips cracked, wrists red from where the cuffs dig into them. He’s chained to the bed like an actual prisoner. Like they think he’ll vanish again if they don’t physically pin him down.
Which he will, by the way.
Kelvin turns, halfway through a story, and does a double take. “Adrian?”
“Don’t stop on my account,” I say, stepping in. “I’m just here for the family trauma tour.”
Darian blinks at me. He’s slow to react, but when he does, the corner of his mouth tilts up.
“Well, shit,” he rasps. “Did I die and no one told me? Because this is either a hallucination or a really low-budget reunion episode.”
“Cute,” I say. “Though if this were a reunion, you’d at least get a fruit basket. Maybe some better restraints.”
Darian huffs a laugh. “Nah. These are vintage. Very rustic dungeon-chic.”
Kelvin throws me a look. “He’s been whipped by his own father and is now chained to his bed. Maybe we skip the jokes?”
“I’m sorry,” I say, mock-contrite. “Were we aiming for
sensitive little brother or state-sanctioned therapist?”
Darian chuckles again, this time with more weight. “Let him talk, Kel. This is the most fun I’ve had in days.”
I move closer, dragging a chair over and sinking into it beside the bed. I don’t reach for his hand. Don’t make a fuss. But I study him, every line, every twitch, every part of him that looks like it barely survived whatever he went through.
“You look like hell,” I say.
He smiles faintly, it doesn’t reach his eyes.
“So, where’s Iris?” I ask, curiosity threatening to rip me in half.
“For her own safety, I can’t tell you that right now.” I nod, I understand why he’s doing that right now.
Kelvin leans forward. “But she’s safe, right? You said she was safe.”
Darian nods. “Yeah. As of the last time I saw her, she was. Scared, but safe.”
I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding.
“Thank God,” I murmur. “You have no idea how many people are losing their minds over this.”
“I can guess,” Darian says softly. “Is Daisy okay?”
“She’s worried out of her mind,” I reply. “And pissed. At both of us. Me, for not knowing. You, for vanishing.”
That gets a tired laugh from both of them.
“I’ll send her a fruit basket,” Darian says.
I smirk. “Make sure it has a lock pick inside. Just in case these hospitality arrangements don’t improve.”
Kelvin sighs. “You two are insufferable.”
“We’re coping,” I say. “It’s our love language.”
Darian closes his eyes for a moment, sinking back against the headboard. His voice, when it comes, is smaller than I remember ever hearing it. “You being here… this helps.”
I look at him, at the bags under his eyes, the bruises around his wrists, the shadow of someone who used to smile easily and too much.
“I should’ve come sooner,” I admit. “But I didn’t know. No one told me. Not Father. Not Zeus. Not anyone.”
“I figured,” Darian mutters. “Zeus has been... Zeus.”
I stiffen. “Yeah, we had our own little bonding moment. By which I mean I almost put him through a wall.”
Kelvin blinks. “You what?”
I’m definitely not going to tell them that Zeus whooped my ass in less than five seconds.
“Don’t worry,” I say, flexing my knuckles. “He still walks like a smug bastard. I didn’t hit hard enough.”
Darian chuckles again, a little stronger this time. “Can’t believe I missed that.”
“You were a little tied up,” I deadpan.
He groans. “God, you’re worse in person.”
“I try.”
Another beat of silence. This one not heavy, just... familiar.
“We’re gonna get her back,” I say finally. “Whatever it takes.”
Darian opens his eyes. There’s something fierce behind the fatigue. “Yeah,” he says. “We are.”