The city was asleep when Shivam rolled his bike quietly into the parking slot, killed the ignition, and let the silence swallow him. The engine's hum faded, but his body didn't stop buzzing, every muscle aching from the fight, ribs throbbing with each shallow breath.
He eased off the helmet, wincing at the sting along his jaw where Veeraj's strike had grazed. The night air pressed cold against his skin, but it did nothing to cool the heat running through his mind.
By the time he slipped inside the house, the clock on the wall whispered 2:47 a.m. The place was dark. Not even the creak of his father's heavy boots, not the rustle of his mother's early chores. Just silence. He padded through the living room, one hand pressed to his side, careful not to let the floor groan under his weight.
If anyone saw him now, the scuffed knuckles, the split lip, the raw tremor still clinging to his body, there would be questions he couldn't answer.
Upstairs, in the dim light of his room, he collapsed onto the edge of the bed and finally let out the breath he'd been holding since the Ridge. His fingers trembled when they brushed over his bruised ribs. No broken bones. Nothing serious. Just pain, deep and lingering, pain he could handle. What clawed at him wasn't the ache in his body. It was the storm in his head.
The image replayed, over and over: the crate tipping open, that impossible crystal catching the light. Not the pale blue glow he remembered from Noctirum, no, this one pulsed with a molten orange, like fire trapped inside stone. Even in that split second, the air around it had seemed wrong, heavy, bending, like the world itself was leaning toward it.
He pressed his palms over his face, as if he could block the memory out. But it was there, seared behind his eyelids.
How? How could it be here?
No one outside their group knew about Noctirum. They'd never told anyone, not professors, not family, not even a slip to classmates. They'd buried it. Locked it in silence.
And yet Kairav had looked him in the eye and said it plain: I know where you went.
Not a guess. Not suspicion. Certainty.
Shivam's mind turned viciously on itself, chasing loops of paranoia., Was there a leak? Did one of them talk? Could SynerTech have traced them? Monitored their movements? Were his friends already under watch? His family?
He pictured it too easily: plainclothes men sitting in cars outside Naina's house, black SUVs parked down Bhumika's street, Aman followed on his rides through the city. And his own house, had they already bugged it? Every word, every step, tracked.
His chest tightened until it felt like he couldn't breathe. He ripped open the drawer and fumbled for the strip of painkillers. Two white tablets clattered into his palm. He swallowed them dry, throat raw, and collapsed backward onto the mattress. The ceiling blurred in the dark, but his thoughts refused to settle.
Specimen. That word. Not target. Not suspect. Specimen.
The implication chilled him more than Veeraj's fists ever could. They didn't just know about Noctirum, they were preparing for it. Cataloging it. And him? He wasn't a threat in their eyes. He was data.
At some point, exhaustion won. The pain dulled to a throb, his body sinking heavy into the mattress. His last thought before the dark pulled him under was of his friends' faces, Naina, Aman, Aanchal and even Bhumika, and the question that gnawed like a wound: Had he already put them all in danger?
Morning light broke through the blinds in sharp strips across his room, falling over the cluttered desk, the crumpled notes, and the half-drawn sketches he hadn't touched in weeks. Shivam stirred, groaning as his ribs reminded him of the night before.
The painkillers had dulled the sharp edges, but the deep ache still pulsed with every breath. He shifted slightly, testing his body, and winced, not broken, but close enough to feel like fire was caged beneath his skin.
A sound cut through the haze of sleep, the scrape of a chair leg dragging across the floor. His eyes blinked open slowly, adjusting to the pale morning light.
His father was sitting beside the bed.
For a second, Shivam thought he was still dreaming. His father wasn't the kind of man who lingered in bedrooms. His mornings were regimented, uniform pressed sharp, boots polished, tea drunk without a wasted sip.
He lived by the clock, and the clock never pointed him toward his son's bedside. Yet here he was, elbows resting on his knees, back slightly hunched, eyes fixed on Shivam with a stillness that was almost unnerving.
The silence between them said more than words could. His father's gaze was steady, searching, but there was something else layered beneath it , something softer. Slowly, almost cautiously, his father raised a hand and placed it against Shivam's forehead. Not checking for fever, not fussing like a worried parent, but pressing just enough for the gesture to carry weight. A blessing. A rare wordless admission: You are my son, and I see you.
Shivam swallowed hard, unsure how to respond. The warmth of that touch warred with the cold sting of the memories he carried from the night.
But then his father's eyes drifted lower. His gaze caught the details Shivam hadn't managed to hide, the raw bruises blooming across his knuckles, the cut that split his lip, the faint purple shadowing his jawline. His brow tightened.
"What happened?" he asked. The words weren't shouted, but they carried that iron edge Shivam knew too well. It was the voice of interrogation, calm, precise, impossible to slip past. "Did you get into a fight?"
The question hung heavy in the air. Shivam felt his chest tighten, not just from the bruises but from the weight of the truth he could never say.
For a flicker of a moment, he thought about telling him everything, about Veeraj, about Kairav, about the crystal glowing like fire caged in stone. About the fact that their family could already be under surveillance. But the words jammed in his throat. His father wouldn't believe it. Worse, if he did, he might act on it, and SynerTech would know they were rattled.
So, Shivam did what he'd been doing for almost two years, he lied.
He forced his voice steady, casual, almost dismissive. "No. Just slipped on the stairs yesterday. Or maybe scraped it when the bike slid near the college gate. Nothing serious."
The lie tasted bitter, but it slid out smoothly enough. He knew it wasn't convincing, not fully. His father's eyes narrowed, studying him, dissecting the answer the way he'd dissected a hundred witness statements before. Shivam could almost see the gears turning, suspicion sharpening like a blade.
But then, after a long pause, his father leaned back in the chair. He didn't push further. He didn't call the bluff.
Instead, he let the silence settle, heavier, sharper than any lecture or scolding could've been. It was the silence of a man who had chosen not to ask more, not because he believed the excuse, but because he was waiting. Waiting for the day the truth would spill out on its own.