"I just don’t want to lose anyone else I care about and Emily... she’s among those people. She matters to just like all of you guys. I can’t just leave her to suffer when I have the power to help her."
The silence that followed Ryan’s departure stretched like pulled taffy, growing thinner and more uncomfortable with each passing second. Everyone remained frozen in their positions, processing what had just been said and the abrupt way he’d left after delivering it.
Finally, Christopher broke the silence with an incredulous laugh. "Damn him. Did he really just drop sothing that emotionally intense and then walk out with a completely straight face like it was nothing?"
"That’s Ryan for you," Cindy said with exasperation though fondness, shaking her head. "He has absolutely zero awareness of how his words affect people. He just says what he feels and assus everyone will handle it fine."
"Well, at least we get the entertainnt value of watching Rebecca turn into a tomato," Sydney observed with barely suppressed glee, her eyes fixed on the younger girl with amusent. "Look at her—she’s blushing so hard from embarrassnt and happiness at his words that she’s practically glowing."
"S...Shut up, Sydney!" Rebecca shot to her feet, her hands clenched into tight fists at her sides. Her face, which had indeed been noticeably flushed, turned an even deeper shade of crimson at Sydney’s direct callout. The redness spread from her cheeks down her neck, betraying exactly how affected she was despite her angry protests.
"She’s not alone in that reaction, either," Christopher added with a knowing smirk. "i is definitely just as pleased by what Ryan said, though she’s considerably better at hiding her emotional responses than Rebecca is."
He gestured toward where i still sat, outwardly composed but with a telltale tightness around her eyes and a slight upward curve to her lips that she was trying to suppress.
"This is exactly why you still haven’t found yourself a girlfriend, Mister Best Friend," i said sharply, standing up erasing any emotions she might have had. Her voice carried an edge of genuine irritation beneath the sarcastic tone. "And you definitely never will with how stupidly undelicate and tactless you are."
With that parting shot delivered, she turned on her heel and walked out of the room.
"Congratulations, Christopher," Sydney said with a wicked grin. "You’ve officially pissed off Liu i. That’s quite an accomplishnt considering how controlled she usually is."
"Only the truth hurts," Christopher sighed, though he looked slightly regretful about pushing that particular button. "I was just making an observation."
"How about both of you shut up for exactly one second?" Cindy interrupted sharply, glaring at both Sydney and Christopher with clear disapproval. "You’re both enjoying irritating Rebecca and i way too much."
Her reprimand landed with enough weight that both of them had the grace to look sowhat chastened, though Sydney’s grin didn’t completely disappear.
Rachel, anwhile, had turned her attention to her younger sister. Rebecca stood with her back partially to the group, biting her lower lip hard enough that it looked painful. Her hand moved in an awkward, self-soothing gesture, rubbing her opposite arm as if trying to comfort herself.
"Rebecca," Rachel said softly, standing up and taking a step toward her sister.
"I’m fine!" Rebecca’s voice ca out quite loudly.
Before Rachel could say anything else—before anyone could say anything else—Rebecca bolted from the place, almost running in her haste to escape the scrutiny and the emotions she clearly couldn’t process.
Rachel sighed deeply, watching her sister’s retreat but making no move to follow. Her expression was a complicated mixture of concern, understanding, and resignation—the look of soone who’d dealt with Rebecca’s emotional walls many tis before and knew that sotis the best thing was to give her space.
"Uhm... I’m a bit confused about what’s happening..."
Daisy’s small, hesitant voice rang at that ti. She sat perched on the edge of the sofa, looking lost and overwheld as she pushed her broken glasses further up her nose in a nervous gesture. Her eyes darted between the remaining people in the room, seeking clarification or reassurance or just so anchor point in the swirling emotional chaos.
Sydney, Christopher, and Cindy all turned to look at her, and their expressions simultaneously softened with sothing that looked uncomfortably like pity. Daisy was like a lost puppy trying to navigate a situation completely beyond her experience or understanding. Despite being aware of the Starakian threat and the supernatural elents that had invaded their lives, she was clearly in a state of partial denial—doing her absolute best not to think too deeply about any of it, maintaining a fragile bubble of normalcy through sheer force of will.
"Daisy, you’re too innocent and pure for all this drama and complexity," Sydney said, and in a crackling flash of blue energy, she used her enhanced speed to appear directly in front of the startled girl.
"Ah!" Daisy let out a small shriek of surprise, jumping up from her seat so quickly that she nearly lost her balance.
"I can tell you everything you need to know about what’s really going on here, Daisy," Sydney said with a mischievous smile. She extended her hand then. "But you’ll have to be willing to hear so uncomfortable truths, and you’ll need to—nghuhh*"
Sydney’s forward montum was abruptly halted as her face collided with a shimring red barrier that had materialized out of nowhere. The impact made a solid thump sound, and Sydney staggered back a step, imdiately reaching up to rub her nose.
"Rachel!" Sydney whirled around, glaring at Rachel.
"You are absolutely not going to ’teach’ Daisy whatever weird, inappropriate things you were about to suggest," Rachel said, her hand still raised from creating the protective shield. Then she turned her attention to Daisy, her expression softening considerably. "Daisy, could you do a favor and check on Rebecca for ? Make sure she’s okay?"
"O...Of course!" Daisy seized on the excuse to escape with obvious relief, nearly tripping over her own feet in her haste to leave the room and avoid whatever uncomfortable conversation Sydney had been about to initiate.
Sydney watched her go with narrowed eyes before turning back to Rachel. "That was incredibly rude, Rachel! I was just trying to help Daisy wake up from whatever dream—or rather, nightmare—she’s trapped herself in! She needs to face reality instead of hiding from it. Otherwise she’ll never grow up emotionally, you know!"
"Well, you are quite literally the last person who should be ’helping’ Daisy wake up to harsh realities," Christopher said. "And besides, Sydney, this isn’t just about her being naive or in denial. There’s more to Daisy’s situation than that."
"What do you an?" Sydney asked, grumbling.
Cindy sighed heavily, her shoulders sagging. "Think about it, Sydney. Do you rember how close Daisy was to Elena and Alisha? Even back at school, the three of them were inseparable and even more after this apocalypse thing. They were best friends in the truest sense, the closest friends any of them had."
She paused, making sure Sydney was following along. "And then suddenly, without any warning or chance to prepare, both Elena and Alisha were taken away by their evil father. Just... gone. Daisy lost the only people she could really talk to, the only ones she felt comfortable releasing her emotions around. She’s completely alone now in a way she’s never been before."
"So yes, she’s definitely constructed a ntal and emotional barrier around herself," Christopher added, picking up the thread. "Convincing herself that everything is fine, that this is all temporary, that things will go back to normal—call it a dream or delusion or whatever coping chanism you want. But it’s what’s helping her keep moving forward instead of completely falling apart. It might not be healthy in the long term, but it’s functional for now."
Rachel’s expression grew even more concerned, her brow furrowing deeply. "But it’s really not healthy for her at all, not in any aningful sense. I’ve tried multiple tis to talk to her about it, to get her to open up about what she’s feeling. But every single ti, she just smiles and insists that everything is alright, that she’s fine, that I don’t need to worry."
"Maybe we could ask Ryan to talk to her?" Christopher proposed. "I an, I’m sure he’s noticed sothing’s off with Daisy’s behavior, right? He’s usually pretty perceptive about people struggling."
"Ryan is far too dense to notice anything subtle like that," Cindy countered imdiately, shaking her head. "If you smile at him and say you’re doing fine, he’ll take your words at complete face value and genuinely believe you’re good. He doesn’t look deeper unless sothing’s explicitly pointed out to him."
"Besides," Sydney interjected with a mischievous glint in her eyes, "if Ryan actually sits down for a serious, intimate conversation with Daisy right now while she’s emotionally vulnerable, there’s an extrely high probability she’ll end up joining the harem. Like, statistically inevitable."
"Sydney..." Rachel sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose in exasperation. "Can you please not refer to our relationships as a ’harem’? That makes it sound so much worse than it actually is."
"What!" Sydney threw her hands up defensively. "I’m being completely serious about this! Yes, Ryan is dense about emotional cues, but he’s also constitutionally incapable of not ddling in everyone’s personal problems. It’s like a compulsion with him. And after losing Elena and Alisha, I genuinely think Daisy trusts Ryan more than anyone else in our group right now."
She leaned forward, warming to her argunt. "Think about it logically—both of the sisters trusted Ryan deeply, relied on him, felt safe with him. By the transitive property of friendship and trust, Daisy also trusts Ryan on a fundantal level. She associates him with the people she’s lost. If he reaches out to comfort her, if he offers that connection she’s missing..."
Sydney trailed off with a aningful look, letting the implication hang in the air.
"I’m still extrely bothered by your casual use of the word ’harem’ to describe our situation, Sydney," Cindy said, fixing her with a pointed stare. "Ryan is already drowning in guilt about having romantic and sexual relationships with the three of us simultaneously. The emotional weight of that is crushing him—you can see it in how he acts, how he avoids the topic, how he struggles with it constantly. He would never willingly add another person to that complicated ss unless he was completely swept up by circumstances beyond his control."
Sydney nodded. "Yeah, like what happened with you, Rachel, and Elena. Those were relationships that never would have developed under normal circumstances—they only happened because you all guys got infected and needed stabilization."
"Notice how you very conveniently didn’t include yourself in that analysis, Sydney," Cindy continued. "Oh right, that’s because you purposefully got yourself bitten by an Infected specifically so you could awaken a superpower. Which is, hands down, still the single craziest, most reckless thing I’ve ever heard of—and that’s after witnessing an alien invasion and the apocalypse. Your decision-making is genuinely unhinged."
Sydney’s smirk widened into sothing almost triumphant. "You’re just jealous," she said puffing out her chest, "that I got to have sex with Ryan completely willingly on both sides, with genuine mutual desire and choice, without needing the excuse of infection and stabilization to make it happen. We wanted each other—that’s it. No crisis necessary."
The barb landed exactly as Sydney had intended. Cindy’s expression froze for a fraction of a second before she forced a smile onto her face—a smile so obviously fake and strained that it looked more like a grimace.
"Alright then..." Christopher said slowly. He stood up with perhaps more haste than was strictly necessary. "I should probably go check on Clara. Make sure she’s recovering okay from everything. You know. dical concerns and all that."
He was already moving toward the door before he’d finished speaking, clearly eager to put as much distance between himself and this conversation as physically possible.
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