Boran watched the remainder of the group disperse down the concrete corridor.
Then he looked at Elara.
She was standing exactly where she had been since the end of the drill—arms hanging loosely at her sides, her eyes fixed on some distant, unseen point. He studied her more carefully this time. Training had been brutal, an exhausting endurance run that left every other child in the tier drenched in sweat and gasping for air on the damp floor.
Elara wasn't sweating. Not a single drop. Her chest rose and fell slightly harder than usual, but her pale skin remained completely dry.
Boran stared at her for a moment, trying to gauge the quiet discipline it took to mask physical exhaustion so entirely.
"You seem to be gifted," he said, his voice flat.
Elara said nothing.
He looked at her for another second, realizing no answer was forthcoming, and looked away.
Right.
Down the hall in the game room, the fragile quiet was shattered as Mayex slammed his palm flat against the wooden table.
"Just HOW do you keep winning?!"
"I'm just that good," Adam said pleasantly, leaning back on the bench with an infuriatingly calm demeanor.
"You're not just that good—no one is just that good," Mayex shot back, leaning across the table, his eyes narrowed. "You have to be cheating somehow—"
"I'm not cheating."
"You ARE—" Mayex stopped abruptly. Something clicked in his mind, a sudden realization overriding his anger. "Wait. Hold on."
Adam raised an eyebrow, waiting.
"You can speak my language," Mayex said, his voice dropping. "How?"
"I learned it," Adam said smoothly. "Why?"
"Because—" Mayex looked at him properly, taking in the sharp features and the pale complexion. "You don't look Arab."
"I know that," Adam replied, completely unbothered by the scrutiny. "I'm a ginger. But I'm still Arab—just different."
"Okay, but then how do you speak English too?"
"I learned it."
Mayex stared at him, his frustration mounting against the boy's impenetrable composure. "You are really getting on my nerves with that tone."
"You seem to be gifted," Adam said, a slight smile playing at the edge of his lips.
A cold voice cut through the air from behind them. "You seem to have forgotten your partner."
They both turned instantly.
Melon Violet stood in the doorway, her fingers loosely curled around Elara's small wrist. Her expression was perfectly pleasant, but her eyes remained entirely devoid of warmth.
Mayex looked at Elara, then back at Melon, understanding approximately nothing of the English sentences that had just been exchanged.
Adam straightened his posture immediately, his easygoing manner vanishing. "Oh—sorry! We were kind of in a hurry—"
Melon wasn't listening to Adam. Her gaze shifted entirely to Mayex. She stared at him directly, without blinking, holding the silence long enough to let the discomfort settle deep into the room.
"You will learn English," she said, her voice dropping to a sharp, commanding register. "Everyone will. I hate when someone can't understand a word I say."
Mayex looked at her face, then glanced at Adam, and finally looked back at the woman. His expression was that of someone who fully understood the dangerous weight of the tone, even if the exact context escaped him.
Then his eyes drifted to the figure standing just behind her shoulder.
It was a man—or perhaps a older boy, it was difficult to discern his age. He looked to be roughly around Melon's age, and he wore a dark mask that covered his face entirely, leaving no features visible. He hadn't made a single sound when they entered the room. He was simply there, perfectly still, as if he had always occupied that exact coordinate in space.
Melon noticed Mayex's eyes shifting to the shadow behind her.
She smiled, a thin, sharp movement of her lips. "Curious about him~?"
She glanced back at the masked figure with an unsettling touch of affection.
"He's my right hand. He's very good at his job." She tilted her head, her eyes locking back onto the boys. "He would be the last thing you ever saw, if you ever thought about betraying us~"
She delivered the threat with the casual nonchalance of someone mentioning the weather.
Adam did not move. He barely breathed.
Mayex maintained a polite, entirely confused expression, still understanding none of the words.
"Anyway," Melon continued, her cane tapping once against the concrete floor. "I will be training all of you personally. Every single one. Missions come after training—it will be a long time yet." She paused, letting her gaze sweep over the small group. "Oh—and the four of you will eventually be transported to Germany. After training is complete. You'll be on my team."
She looked at all three of them. Mayex, Boran, and Adam stared back at her, momentarily dazed by the weight of the pronouncement.
"Don't leave your partner alone again," she said.
With that, she released Elara's hand and turned, walking out into the corridor. The masked figure followed her into the dark without making a sound.
The tension in the room snapped. Mayex exhaled, turning back to the table. "Whatever—you still cheated."
"I didn't," Adam said, his voice returning to its normal cadence.
"You did. Nobody wins that many times in a row without cheating."
"Smart people do."
"I swear—"
Mayex was cut off as something small and solid bumped directly into his leg.
He looked down.
A girl—very small, perhaps four years old—had tripped over her own feet and tumbled against him. She was sitting on the floor now, looking up at him with wide, completely untroubled eyes. Mayex looked down at her. She looked back up at him.
"…What's your name?" Mayex asked, his voice softening. He studied her small frame for a second. "Damn. You're younger than me. I thought I was the youngest one here."
The little girl's face suddenly split into the brightest, most genuine smile he had seen since leaving Syria.
"Benny!!!" she chirped.
"Oh!" Mayex's entire defensive posture dissolved, his expression shifting into something warm. "What a wonderful name!"
Benny reached into her pocket, grabbed a small toy from the floor, and held it up toward him with both hands, her eyes shining. "Play with me!!!"
"Sure, why not?"
Without another word or a thought about his dignity, Mayex slid down onto the concrete floor and began to play with her, completely absorbed in the child's world.
A few meters back, Boran, Adam, and Elara stood in a silent line, watching the display.
"He really just does that with everyone," Adam murmured, his voice casual, though his eyes remained sharp.
"Apparently," Boran said shortly.
A heavy silence settled between them for a few long moments.
"Boran."
"Yeah."
"I saw you the other day," Adam said, his tone carefully conversational, though it didn't quite mask the intensity in his gaze. "You were staring at that wanted poster. The red-haired girl." He paused, watching Boran's profile. "Do you know her?"
Boran didn't answer immediately. He hadn't anticipated the question, and he disliked being caught off guard.
"Kind of," Boran said after a beat. "I never spoke to her. But I saw her once—running. Fast. Like she was running away from something." He paused, his jaw tightening slightly. "When I saw the poster, the pieces connected. But that's all."
Adam evaluated him for a long moment. Something in his expression shifted, hardening into a cold, clinical focus that looked far too old for his face.
"Why?" Boran asked, turning his head to meet Adam's gaze. "Do you know her?"
Adam remained quiet for a second, his eyes drifting toward the hallway.
"Yes."
He offered nothing else. Boran waited, expecting an explanation, but Adam merely stared into the empty corridor.
"All I'll say," Adam added quietly, his voice barely carrying over the hum of the facility's generators, "is that she isn't normal."
He left the sentence hanging in the air, and nobody asked another question.