Chapter 8: If I Hadn't Brought Her, Would You Have Anything to Fuss About?
Elijah walked into the house, pulling the front door closed with a soft, final click. He felt the dull, familiar ache of exhaustion—a side effect of maintaining relentless focus and professional detachment—but it was offset by a quiet sense of accomplishment. The video was done, the payout was guaranteed, and the advance was recouped.
He heard the faint clinking of cutlery from the dining room and recognized the sound of dinner being served. He paused, then started walking straight toward the stairs. His room was the destination; his grounded status, the excuse. He had no desire to engage with the domestic theatrics of his family, especially now, after hours spent navigating genuine danger and the psychological demands of his "work."
"Elijah!"
He stopped halfway up the stairs. Elara's voice, sharp and tired, cut through the quiet house.
"Come down here and eat dinner with us," she commanded, the tone brooking no argument.
Elijah sighed, a loud, theatrical release of breath designed to convey his deep irritation. He walked back down, his expression carefully neutral. "I thought I was grounded, Elara," he said, leaning against the doorway to the dining room. "I'm supposed to be confined to my room. Just bring a plate up; I'm tired." His eyes scanned the table—Elara, Iris, and Akari seated together like some makeshift family therapy session. Akari was pushing food around her plate, her eyes puffy and downcast.
Elara laid down her fork, placing it neatly on the edge of her plate. "I'm telling you to sit down at this table. Now. That is the end of the discussion. I decide the rules, and I decide when they are bent." Her voice barely rose, but every syllable carried a weight Elijah couldn't brush aside. He remained leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, staring at Akari's trembling hands as they fiddled with her spoon.
Elijah hesitated, recognizing the rigid set of her jaw. Pushing this further would only delay his nap and increase the volume of the inevitable lecture. With a weary shrug, he walked to the table and pulled out a chair, the scraping sound loud on the wooden floor. He sat between Iris and Akari.
The table was quiet save for the soft clinking of cutlery. Elijah started serving himself without asking, piling mashed potatoes onto his plate with exaggerated carelessness—just to watch Elara's eye twitch. Akari's breath hitched when his elbow brushed hers, her body tensing like a startled rabbit. He avoided looking at anyone.
Iris, however, could not avoid looking at him. Her eyes, still faintly red-rimmed from the emotional and physical shock of the sidewalk, kept flicking up to his face. She hadn't dared tell Elara or Akari anything about the murder, the gang, or the threat. The sheer brutality of the act, coupled with her profound moral outrage, felt too big, too dark, to expose to her mother. She needed to confront the source of the evil, the only one who might understand the language of that violence—Elijah—and she wanted to do it privately, without causing Elara any more undue stress.
Elijah noticed the persistent, intense staring. He paused mid-chew, setting his fork down with deliberate slowness. He gave Iris a long, cold side-eye.
"Something wrong with your food, Iris?" he asked, his voice flat, demanding an answer but not inviting conversation.
Iris flinched, but quickly looked away, muttering, "No."
Next to him, Akari was quiet, her usual fearful subservience amplified. She ate slowly, eyes fixed on her plate, her posture stiff. Every few minutes, she would sneak a glance at Elijah, and when their eyes met, she would jerk her head down instantly. Elijah smirked, misinterpreting the furtive glances as a sign of her growing emotional dependence or perhaps a nervous attraction.
"So, Elijah," Elara began, cutting through the silence, her tone shifting to one of parental interrogation. "Vanessa's, what did you do?"
"Vanessa's," Elijah replied easily, taking a mouthful of rice. "It was just some wardrobe and furniture she needed moved around. Nothing serious. She had boxes everywhere."
"Furniture?" Elara frowned, unconvinced. "That took four hours?"
"She pays badly, she gets slow service," Elijah said with a shrug. "It's not my fault her apartment is a disaster. And besides, why the interrogation? You grounded me, not imprisoned me."
Elara let it pass, moving on to the more important topic. She reached across the table and briefly touched Akari's hand—a small, comforting gesture. "Akari is staying with us now, permanently," she announced, looking pointedly at Elijah. "I expect you to treat her like family, Elijah. She needs stability and safety here."
Elijah laughed, a short, sharp sound devoid of humor. "That's what I brought her here for, Elara. Why else would I have bothered? I don't have any problem with her staying." He then turned his full attention to Akari, his expression changing to one of transactional calculation. "Only," he said, leaning in slightly, his voice dropping just enough to make it feel like a private negotiation, "if she helps me on my school work. Otherwise, there would be a problem." His fingers tapped the table once—a soft but deliberate punctuation mark.
Akari shrank, her eyes wide. "I—I will help," she murmured, clutching her fork tightly. "I promise, Elijah."
Before Elijah could press the issue, Iris snapped. The tension she had been holding for the last hour burst forth in a toxic wave of pure, moral disgust.
"Stop it, you cockroach!" Iris threw down her fork with a clatter. "You are despicable! You act like you own her! She owes you nothing!"
Elijah's casual demeanor vanished. His eyes narrowed to slits, reflecting the sudden, cold fury of a man whose carefully constructed logic had been assaulted. He slammed his hand flat onto the table, causing the plates to jump.
"You think you're in a position to talk about ownership, Iris?" Elijah sneered, leaning over the table, his voice low and dangerous. "Let's talk about that. Let's talk about gratitude."
He pointed a finger directly at Akari, then back at Iris. "If I hadn't brought her here after the incident, Elara—" he fixed his gaze on his stepmother—"would you two have known anything about her situation? Would you have been able to fuss over her and give her a room? No. She'd still be getting assaulted in train cars while you sat here pretending decency."
His lip curled as he focused on Iris, his voice dripping with cruelty, "And would you be sitting here right now, alive and well? No fussing about the assault that already happened. But suddenly I'm the cockroach because I don't cry over spilled milk?"
He paused, letting the implication of his next words sink in. "I took a risk bringing her here. I risked my time, and I fixed a problem. And when she's supposed to fulfill her part—a small, transactional exchange—I'm the evil one? I'm the despicable cockroach? I'm the one that owes her?"
Akari's mouth trembled, caught between the two siblings. She managed another flustered murmur: "I will help him, Iris. It's okay."
"No, it's not!" Iris shouted, her eyes blazing with righteous fury. "He owes you—he owes everyone basic human decency! For not helping when you were struggling! He owes you for everything!" She shoved her chair back with a screech, looming over Elijah with trembling fists. "You think your fucking spreadsheet logic excuses what you did? Watching like some—some sick voyeur while—"
Elijah leaned back in his chair, utterly unfazed. "Now you're just making shit up," he interrupted coolly. "I never watched. That would've been inefficient—too much wasted time. I acted." His fingers drummed the table again, this time slower, more deliberate. "And decency? Decency doesn't feed people, Iris. It doesn't stop predators. It's just moral masturbation for people who want to feel superior without doing the ugly work."
He threw his head back and laughed—a harsh, empty sound. "And owe her? For what, your delusion? You think your moral posturing pays the electricity bill, Iris? Grow up."
Akari flinched, her knuckles whitening around her fork as Elijah's words carved through the tension. Elara stood abruptly, her chair legs scraping against the hardwood. "Enough," she hissed, pressing her palms flat on the table. "We are not debating morality over dinner." Her gaze swung between them, exhaustion hardening into resolve. "Akari stays. Elijah, you will not exploit her. Iris, you will not provoke him. That is the compromise."
She took a shaky breath, trying to reclaim her composure. "Whether you like it or not, Akari is staying. And tomorrow, we will go to her old home to grab her things. You will come with us. She's scared, and we need to show a united front."
"No," Elijah said flatly, pushing his chair back. He didn't raise his voice, which somehow made his defiance worse. "I'm not going, I'm grounded."
"You are going, Elijah!" Elara insisted, her voice rising in frustration. "I grounded you! I am telling you now, your grounding is paused for tomorrow only—so you will accompany us!"
"No," Elijah repeated, picking up his plate and walking toward the kitchen. "I am grounded. And I am staying in my room. That was the rule, and I am following it." He left his plate on the counter with a clatter.
Elara stared at the empty space where he'd been, utterly defeated by his cold, logical resistance.
"You should lock the door when you're going out tomorrow," Elijah called from the hallway, his voice already distant. "And don't bother me."
Iris watched him retreat, trembling with a mixture of impotent rage and the cold residue of her trauma. As his footsteps disappeared up the stairs, she could only throw more frustrated curses into the empty air, the words meaningless against the force of his departure.
Elijah slammed the door to his room, the loud thud vibrating through the quiet upper hallway. He walked straight to his bed and collapsed face-first onto the sheets, releasing a long, frustrated sigh that seemed to expel the entire irritating scene below. Dealing with the complexities of his work was easy; dealing with the emotional demands and self-righteousness of his family was taxing.
He rolled over, grabbed the smartphone, and immediately went to work. He wasn't interested in the domestic drama; he was interested in the predictable, measurable reality of his finances. He opened the file, quickly edited the video and the accompanying pictures to ensure maximum viral appeal within the site's parameters, and hit the upload button.
File uploaded. Awaiting 30-minute processing period for 100 Noxs payout.
He didn't bother checking for notifications or waiting for the small, validating chime of success. The system was predictable. His 50 Noxs advance would be recovered, and the income stream was established. He was exhausted.
Elijah placed the phone face-down on the nightstand. His consciousness drifted instantly toward the black, restful void of a needed nap, the dinner table's chaos already forgotten, replaced by the clean, simple mathematics of profit and loss.