Act II Chapter 6 – "I Love You"
Leo stopped in front of Gwen's door and knocked softly.
"Gwen? It's me."
On the other side, she froze.
She would have recognized that voice among a thousand.
"Yes…?" she answered, her throat suddenly dry.
"Do you… wanna go out for a bit?" Leo asked. "Get some air, outside the hotel."
Her heart practically exploded with joy in her chest.
A walk. With him. It's a date. It's a date, it's a date, it's a—
She turned toward her room… and her smile locked in place.
Walls covered in sticky notes with his name. �
Printed screenshots from surveillance cameras showing Leo from behind, in profile, fighting, walking. An old shirt of his, "borrowed" before his "death," hanging on the back of a chair. On the bed, a second prototype of a dreadlocked plushie, half‑sewn.
…Ah.
She cracked the door open just a few centimeters, enough to see Leo in the hallway. He was waiting, hands in his pockets, looking a little awkward, dreads falling over his eyes.
"Give me… two seconds," she said.
She closed the door a bit, took a deep breath, then glanced around the room. No way to hide all that in so little time.
"…Plan B," she muttered.
The handle jiggled slightly. Leo frowned.
A knife shot through the door and buried itself in the wall, two centimeters from his head.
"Whoa!" Leo yelped, throwing himself to the side. "Seriously?!"
A blue spark snapped in the air.
Gwen materialized in front of him, very close, one hand already wrapped around the hilt of the knife sticking out of the wall.
She yanked it free in one smooth motion, as if this were the most normal thing in the world.
"Let's go," she announced.
Leo blinked.
"Wait… The door was—"
He turned: her room door was already closed and locked. The hallway was spotless. No posters, no post‑its betraying her little obsession.
"You could've just… opened the door, you know," he grumbled.
"Yeah, but… this way is more… dramatic," she replied with a small smile.
He sighed, but the corner of his mouth still twitched upward.
They headed out side by side toward the hotel exit. The air between them felt both familiar and strangely awkward. Four years of mourning him; four years of him thinking she was trapped somewhere he couldn't reach.
Near the lobby, a guard suddenly stepped in their way.
"Boss didn't clear anything like this for tonight," he said, holding a hand out. "Sorry, but—"
"It's fine, I'll handle it," Leo replied, staying calm.
Gwen had already raised a finger, ready to make the entire floor's electrical system flicker just to teach the guy some manners.
Right at that moment, Don Javier rounded the corner, an ice cream in hand, wearing flip‑flops and an open shirt like he'd just walked out of a vacation resort.
"Oh!" he exclaimed. "My favorite superheroes."
He took in the scene in an instant: Gwen one second away from doing something stupid, Leo halfway between amused and exasperated, the guard tense as a wire.
"Have fun, kids!" Javier called, giving the guard a little wave.
The guard stepped aside immediately, stiff.
"But, boss, security—" he began.
"What are you gonna do, man? Tame lightning? What are you… Percy Jackson?" Javier said, biting into his ice cream. "Breathe."
He walked off without another glance, as if letting a potentially explosive duo go out together in broad daylight was just one more minor detail.
Gwen and Leo finally stepped outside the hotel.
The cool air hit them.
A few steps later, as they walked down the street, Gwen spoke up in a voice she tried to keep casual, but that shook just a little.
"Hey… Leo?"
"Hm?"
"These four years… did you… find someone?"
He stayed quiet for a moment, eyes on the pavement.
"I had a few… things," he said honestly. "Nothing serious."
"Really?" Gwen blurted, her voice just a bit too high. "And where are those… sluts?"
The word slipped out on its own.
She swallowed.
"Uh, those… girls," she corrected clumsily, forcing a smile.
Leo raised an eyebrow slightly but let it slide.
"Just girls hanging around when I have to watch certain places for Don Javier," he said. "Nothing important."
Gwen nodded, trying to look neutral.
Inside, her brain was already firing off images: nameless girls, laughter, hands touching him, hungry looks. And next to that, very quick scenarios involving highly unlikely accidents, electrical discharges, and quiet disappearances.
That'd be a lot of bodies to hide… she thought, frowning slightly.
She shoved the thought aside.
She'd survived the Zero Program, the purge, four years of hellish training. She could survive one or two answers she didn't like.
She edged a little closer to him, almost brushing his shoulder.
They walked down a busy street, past cafés and small shops. The sun bounced off the windows, people laughed, terraces were packed. Nothing like burning warehouses and grimy parking lots.
After a few minutes of comfortable silence, Leo turned his head slightly toward her.
"And you?" he asked. "These four years… you meet anyone?"
Gwen didn't answer right away.
She stared at a point ahead of her, but in her mind scenes were playing.
A bar.
A guy a bit too full of himself sitting next to her.
"Can I buy you a drink?" he'd ask with a charming smile.
Thunk.
A knife sunk straight into the wood of the table, a few centimeters from his hand.
"…Okay, okay, I'll just sit… over there," the guy would stammer.
Another day.
A fellow mobster trying a clumsy compliment.
"If you want, I could walk you—"
Thunk.
The knife. Always the knife.
"Seriously?!" the bartender would groan, watching the gouges multiply. "You're paying for the repairs, princess."
She'd sit there, unmoving, eyes empty, answering only:
"They talk too much."
She snapped back to the present and blinked.
"No," she said at last. "No one."
Leo looked at her, surprised.
"Really? But you're pretty," he said, sincere.
She felt her cheeks heat up.
It wasn't like his dumb compliments from the past, the ones he threw at everyone. This one was simple, quiet, almost shy.
"…Thanks," she answered, a little too happy to bother hiding it.
Leo noticed what hadn't escaped him since they'd left the hotel.
The crowd.
People brushing past them, honking cars, overlapping conversations, kids running around… Everything that used to send Gwen into a panic so intense she'd rather dive back into the web.
"You don't… look anxious," he said.
She took a deep breath.
It was true. Her heart was racing because he was there, not because of everyone else.
"I'm not as weak as before," she replied. "I worked on it."
She lifted her chin, a bit proud.
At the end of the street, the artificial beach came into view.
Sand, umbrellas, waves rolling softly onto the shore, families, couples, tourists taking selfies.
"Oh," Gwen breathed.
Without warning, she jumped.
Leo just had time to feel the weight on his shoulders: Gwen had leaped onto him, laughing, her hands on his head to keep her balance. From up there, she towered over the crowd.
"Hey!" he protested, instinctively grabbing her legs so she wouldn't fall. "Give a warning when you do that!"
"Never," she said, delighted.
She leaned forward and let herself flip, twisting in mid‑air. In one smooth little acrobatic move, she rolled over his shoulder and Leo, on reflex, caught her.
She ended up in his arms, bridal style.
They both froze.
Some passersby glanced their way, a few smiling, convinced they were watching a couple messing around.
Gwen locked eyes with Leo, a soft but unapologetic smile on her lips.
"Show me the world, my prince," she declared.
Leo felt his stomach do something weird.
He could have dropped her while laughing, cracked a joke, escaped into humor like always. Instead, he found himself holding her a little tighter.
"You're aiming pretty high for a walk on the beach," he said, his voice a bit rough.
"I'm fine starting here," she replied.
He set her down gently on the sand. They started walking along the shore, their footprints side by side.
Gwen made no effort to hide that she was flirting.
She clung to his arm a little, laughed for real, asked about everything she'd missed—how he lived, what he ate, where he slept. Every time he mentioned a rough moment, she tensed, like she was quietly adding names to a list of people to eliminate later.
Leo stayed serious, sometimes awkward, but not immune.
Now and then, his gaze lingered on her just a little too long: when the wind pushed a colored strand of hair out of her face, when she squinted as she smiled, when she raised her arms toward the sky like a kid seeing the fake Las vegas ocean for the first time.
They were both survivors scarred by violence…
And two young adults clumsily doing something that looked a lot like a first date.
They returned to the hotel as the sun began to dip, orange light sliding over the glass façades.
At their floor, Leo automatically turned toward Gwen's room.
"I'll walk you back," he said.
"No," she answered immediately. "I'd rather see yours."
He paused for a beat.
"My… room?"
"Yeah," she confirmed with a smile. "I know mine a little too well already."
He hesitated, running a hand through his dreads.
"It's… nothing special."
"Perfect," she said. "I like 'nothing special'."
He opened his door.
A simple, almost spartan room: a bed, a desk with a few papers, a gym bag, a half‑open wardrobe, a glass door to a small balcony overlooking the city. No posters, no décor, just the basics.
"It's… exactly as simple as I imagined," Gwen said as she stepped inside.
She walked a few steps in, scanning the room.
"You could relax a bit, you know. You're not military."
Leo closed the door behind them, a little self‑conscious.
"I like it tidy," he replied.
She turned toward him.
"Did you have a good time?" she asked.
He looked at her for a second, thinking about the beach, her laughter, her teasing, the looks she shot him when she thought he wasn't paying attention.
"Yeah," he said simply. "I had a good time."
They stepped out onto the balcony for a moment. The city stretched below them, loud and alive, far from the filthy alleys of their past.
"It's weird," Leo admitted, resting his hands on the railing. "Living far from the crap back in the neighborhood. Having… this."
He gestured at the buildings, roads, lights.
"Feels like I'm watching someone else's life."
Gwen stood beside him, letting the wind play with her colored strands.
"You earned it," she said. "Even if the way you got here wasn't… ideal."
Silence fell.
Leo glanced at her.
"And you?" he asked. "What kind of training did you go through these four years?"
Gwen let out a long sigh, looking up at the sky as if asking the universe for patience. Then she stepped right in front of him, in the middle of the balcony.
"That's really what you're thinking about right now?" she asked.
"Uh… what?" Leo stammered.
She didn't answer with words.
Her foot landed against his chest—not hard enough to hurt, but enough to knock him off balance. Completely caught off guard, Leo toppled backward and fell onto the bed. �
"Hey!" he protested.
A knife buried itself in the wall again, just a few centimeters from his head.
"Seriously…" he muttered, staring at the blade.
A blue spark cracked.
Gwen vanished from the balcony and, an instant later, materialized above him, straddling his torso, her face close to his.
"Wait, wait, isn't this a little fast?" Leo tried, hands half‑raised, caught between embarrassment and something much harder to admit.
She leaned in, lips hovering near his, eyes locked on his.
"How long are you planning to pretend?" she whispered. "Like I never said anything that day?"
For a heartbeat, her gaze hardened with that dangerous kind of honesty that doesn't understand half‑measures.
"You forgot?" she murmured. "I love you, Leo."
And she kissed him.