Jay's POV
I was halfway to the car, the cool night air lunging into my lungs, when a frantic shout shattered the silence of the driveway.
"Jay! Jay, help! Someone's hurt in the side hall!" It was Felix. His voice was high, tight with what sounded like genuine panic.
My instincts, honed by years of surviving the streets and the ring, took over.
I didn't think about the pink silk gown or the expensive heels. I bolted. I ran back through the side entrance, my heart hammering against my ribs. If it's Keiren... if Keigan's coldness meant something was coming...
I rounded the corner of the dim storage corridor, my eyes scanning for a body, for a threat.
"Felix? Where—"
Splash.
The world went heavy. Something thick, cold, and metallic-smelling drenched my head, shoulders, and the delicate pink fabric of my dress. It clouded my vision, stinging my eyes. I reached up, wiping a glob of it from my cheek.
It was dark red. Crimson. It looked exactly like blood.
The silence that followed was deafening. And then, the walls of the mansion didn't look like a fortress anymore. They started to shrink. The scent of the fake blood triggered a chemical reaction in my brain, a door I had kept locked with heavy chains suddenly bursting open.
"You're useless," The voice was a gravelly snarl from my past.
The corridor flickered. I wasn't at a party anymore. I was back in that dark room, the smell of iron and sweat filling the air.
"Just give me what I want. Your mother isn't here to save you, you little whore."
The phantom pain of old bruises began to throb. I felt the ghost of hands pinning me down, the laughter of men who saw me as nothing but a punching bag or a toy.
My breathing hitched, turning into shallow, jagged gasps. The red on my hands wasn't corn syrup—it was the blood of the boy who died so the girl could survive.
Everything went white. Then black. Then red again. My vision tunneled until the world was just a blur of trauma and the desperate need to disappear.
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Keifer's POV
We were all huddled at the end of the hall, stifling our laughter. Felix had played his part perfectly. When the bucket tipped, we expected Jay to scream, to curse us out, to maybe even try to tackle one of us.
But she just stood there.
The light from the foyer spilled in as my mother and the others came running at the sound of the commotion.
"What in heaven's name—" My mother's voice cut through the air, sharp with horror. "What did you do, boys?!"
I stepped forward, a smug grin still tugging at my lips despite my mother's anger. Jay was drenched, the pink dress ruined, her head bowed.
"What happened, Jay?" I mocked softly, stepping into her space. "Is the little warrior actually scared of a little red paint? I thought you were tougher than—"
I reached out, tapping her shoulder to get her to look at me.
The reaction was instantaneous and violent.
Jay didn't just flinch; she exploded. She shoved me back with a strength that nearly sent me off my feet, her eyes wide, blown out, and completely vacant of the girl I knew.
"DON'T TOUCH ME!" she shrieked. It wasn't a warrior's battle cry; it was the sound of a wounded animal backing into a corner.
"STAY BACK! STAY BACK!"
"Jay? It's just a prank!" I shouted, reaching out again, confused and suddenly gripped by a cold knot of dread in my stomach. "Hey, look at me!"
"Jay!" Jane's voice ripped through the hallway. She and Aries appeared, their faces turning ghostly pale the second they saw the red drenching Jay's body.
Jane ran toward her, arms outstretched. "Jay, it's okay, it's me—"
Jay didn't recognize her. She lunged, pushing Jane away so hard the girl hit the wall. "Don't touch me! Get away!"
Aries stepped in then. His face was a mask of controlled fury and heartbreak. He didn't rush her. He moved slowly, his voice dropping into a low, soothing vibration.
"Jay. Look at me. It's Kuya," he said, his voice trembling. "Please, Jay. Calm down, baby. You're safe. I'm here."
He circled around, catching her from behind in a firm but gentle hold, pinning her arms so she couldn't hurt herself or anyone else. Jane scrambled back to the front, grabbing Jay's face.
"Jay, look into my eyes. Focus on me. You're at the Watsons'. There's no one here who can hurt you," Jane pleaded, tears streaming down her face.
Slowly, the frantic light in Jay's eyes began to dim. Her body went from rigid iron to leaden weight. She let out one final, broken sob before her eyes rolled back, and she collapsed, unconscious, into Aries' arms.
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Jane's POV
The sight of Jay—covered in that mocking red liquid, her spirit shattered in a matter of seconds—felt like a knife to my gut.
Aries didn't say a word. He scooped her up, his knuckles white as he held her. He turned toward the guest wing, but as he passed Keifer, he stopped. Without a second's hesitation, he shifted Jay's weight and delivered a brutal, bone-crushing punch to Keifer's jaw.
"You all are good for nothing," Aries hissed, his voice vibrating with a hatred I had never heard from him.
I grabbed Aries' arm, not to protect Keifer, but to keep Aries from losing it. "Go. Take her to the room. I'll handle this."
Aries disappeared upstairs. The hallway was silent, the Section E boys standing like statues, the realization of what they'd done finally sinking in.
Keifer was on the floor, touching his bleeding lip, looking stunned.
I walked up to him. My voice was calm—the kind of calm that precedes a storm.
"Keifer, I know you thought this was just a prank," I said, my voice cold as ice. "But Jay has a history. A history you have no right to touch. Don't you ever play a stunt like this again, or I won't just let Aries punch you. The consequences will be disastrous."
"She's pathetic," Michael muttered from the back, trying to save face for the group. "One bucket of paint and she loses her mind? Talk about—"
I didn't let him finish. I lunged. My fist connected with Michael's nose with a sickening crack. Blood—real blood this time—sprayed onto the floor. I grabbed him by the collar, hauling him up until we were nose-to-nose.
"You call her pathetic?" I whispered, my voice shaking with rage. "You would have died if you were in her place. You have no idea what she's survived. You don't know the hell she walked through to become the person who protects people like you every day."
I shoved him back, and he slumped against the wall, clutching his broken nose.
"If you think she's weak because of this, you are dead wrong," I snapped, turning my gaze to the rest of Section E. "Try it once more. Push her again. You'll see the monster inside her, and God help you all when she decides to stop holding it back."
I looked at Keifer one last time. He looked like he'd seen a ghost. "I don't blame the rest of you entirely, because you did this unknowingly. But it ends here."
Without waiting for a response, I turned and walked toward the stairs. I had to get to Jay. I had to help her wash the red away before she woke up and thought the nightmare was still real.
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Keifer's POV
The hallway felt like a tomb. The heavy scent of the fake blood—which had seemed like such a brilliant, hilarious idea only twenty minutes ago—now made me want to retch.
Michael was on the floor, groaning and clutching his shattered nose, but I couldn't bring myself to care. All I could see was the vacancy in Jay's eyes. That wasn't the "menace" I knew. That was the look of someone who had been broken long before I ever met her.
A shadow fell over me. I looked up to see my mother. She wasn't the warm, laughing woman who had hugged Jay earlier. She looked older, her face etched with a profound, quiet disappointment that hurt worse than Aries' punch.
"Keifer," she said, her voice trembling with a mixture of anger and sadness.
"Mom, I didn't know," I started, my voice sounding pathetic even to my own ears. "It was just a prank. We just wanted to—"
"You didn't know because you didn't care to look," she interrupted, her eyes fixed on the red stains on the floor. "You saw a warrior, so you thought she was invincible. You never stopped to ask what kind of fire it takes to forge someone that strong."
She knelt down beside me, her hand resting on my shoulder, but there was no comfort in the gesture. "You made a terrible mistake, Keifer. You didn't just ruin a dress; you reached into a wound you had no business touching. If you have even a shred of the gentleman I raised you to be, you will find a way to earn her forgiveness. But don't expect it to be easy. Some things can't be fixed with an apology."
She stood up and walked away to assist the staff, leaving me sitting in the wreckage of my own ego.
The guilt hit me then, a physical weight in my chest. I thought about the way she had laughed with Keiren. I thought about the genuine smile she gave my mother. And then I thought about the scream. That raw, visceral shriek of "Don't touch me."
I had wanted to see her "crumble" so I could be the one to pick up the pieces, but I had ended up shattering her instead. I had become the very thing she fought against.
How do I fix this?
I knew Jay. She wouldn't want flowers. She wouldn't want a tearful speech. She'd probably wake up and want to kill me—literally.
But I couldn't just stay away. I needed to show her that I wasn't the monster from her flashbacks. I needed to prove that I could be a sanctuary instead of a threat.
I looked at my hands, stained with the fake blood. I had to manage her, not as a rival or a target, but as someone who finally understood that her strength wasn't a challenge—it was a survival mechanism.