Chapter sixty-four: The Missing Piece

Chapter sixty-four: The Missing Piece
Chapter 64 – The Missing Piece

Morning light spilled across the room, too sharp, too revealing. Levi blinked awake, throat raw, his body heavy from a night filled with fitful tossing and turning. No matter how much he attempted to stifle his thoughts, they clawed their way back in, relentless and insistent.As he rolled over, bleary-eyed and disoriented, his gaze drifted to the floor near the cracked mirror. The crumpled paper—his confession, his outburst—was gone.

A sudden rush of panic surged through him, a visceral tightening in his chest.Levi shot upright, heart racing, and tore through the sheets, checking beneath the desk and in the corners of the room. Nothing. Only silence stared back at him, unsettling in its starkness.Panic clawed at him, a feral beast. The guards wouldn’t have bothered to touch anything; they never did unless explicitly ordered. Which meant—Lucien.

A cold shiver danced down Levi’s spine as the implications settled over him like a heavy shroud. He pressed his palm over his mouth, trying to suppress the rising tide of dread. The words he'd written, his chaotic wrestling with emotions—what if Lucien had read them?He struggled to remember, but all that flashed in his mind was that unfinished line, lingering like a curse: I hate you.

I hate… The word had choked, stuck, swirling in a void that seemed insatiable, refusing to land.Levi's anger boiled over, and he slammed his fist against the desk, the sound echoing too loudly in the silence of the room as if the reality of his emotions were too big to contain.Now Lucien knew.The mere thought made Levi’s skin crawl.

Every word he believed he’d buried in silence was now out in the open, folded neatly into Lucien’s grasp, ready to be turned against him. The thought made bile rise in his throat; it also stirred something darker deep within him, something he desperately did not want to name.In the corner of the room, the camera light blinked red. Its presence was an ever-watchful eye, a reminder he could never shake.Levi glared at it, feeling the weight of his anger surge again, and let the frustration spill over.

“You don’t get to keep that. Do you hear me? It wasn’t yours!”The light blinked again, steady, indifferent, as if to mock him, confirming that he was still being watched, still trapped in this game with Lucien that he never wanted to play in the first place.With a strangled sound escaping his throat, Levi sank back onto the bed, dragging his knees to his chest, curling in on himself as if he could disappear within the folds of his own body. His chest heaved with rage, with a shame so potent it threatened to crack him open entirely.

It was a sickening realization that fueled both the fire of his hatred and a flicker of something he dared not acknowledge—that Lucien might actually want him to feel this way.There it was again, that unwanted emotion stirring low in his gut, begging to be examined—an unsettling blend of fear and urgency. Does he want you to break? Levi fumed silently, forcing himself to breathe as he pushed the thought away.Focus, he thought, clenching his fists tightly against his thighs, fighting down the tumult within him.

This wasn’t about Lucien. It was about himself. He would not allow Lucien to have that power over him. Not now.But the words he'd written—You haunt me. Even when you're not here. Even in my sleep. I hate it.—whispered into the recesses of his mind, echoing like a litany of unspoken truths. What did that mean? How had those emotions twisted into words that he might never voice aloud?A sudden urge to reclaim that power surged through him.

Levi pushed himself upright again, searching for a pen, but the desk was bare, the journal had been taken away, leaving him defenseless.Was that it? Was Lucien using silence as a weapon? No, Levi thought viciously. He would find a way to write those words again, to reclaim what was his. He wouldn’t let Lucien win this time.Levi's resolve hardened as he stood, the vulnerability of those moments fading like shadows in the light.

Each breath steadied him, replacing panic with clarity. He would retrieve the journal. He had to.Pushing through the creeping dread, he moved to the door, eyes set with determination. As he grasped the handle, he paused. The door didn’t just lead into the hallway; it led into Lucien’s world, a realm that was cold enough to send shivers down his spine but edged with a new certainty.He inhaled sharply, the weight of his own resolve bolstering him.

What lay beyond was a chance to confront the narrative Lucien had built around him instead of passively allowing the other man to write it.Just then, the door swung open unexpectedly to reveal a guard, his expression unreadable.“Time to move,” the guard said, a hint of command in his tone that made Levi bristle. “You have a visitor.”With light flooding the room, Levi steadied his stance, knowing this moment would define his next step.

“I’ll get the journal first.”The guard frowned, shaking his head. “Not this time. Lucien’s orders.”Levi's instinct was to fight against that command, to shout, to resist. But better judgment held him back. If he refused, he risked further repercussions—perhaps another moment of silence and isolation. So he swallowed hard, allowing the flames of his fury to simmer. Instead, he would use this moment to gather his thoughts and prepare.

As he stepped through the doorway, Levi resolved that this torment would not extinguish his fire but fuel it. Every shred of vulnerability he felt would be a part of his arsenal moving forward.

This wasn’t just about who got to own the narrative; it was about rewriting it entirely.And he would do it on his own terms.With determination coursing through him, Levi moved forward, ready to confront whatever Lucien had arranged, because this time, he would take back the power of his own voice.