NOVEL NEXT Chapter 137: Em's Emotional Distress
We were clearing dishes—well, kinda. Sarah was pretending not to exist, Mom was humming in her post-Mercedes glow, and I was half-daydreaming about zero-gravity security systems for the new house when Emma moved.
"I'll take out the trash," she said. Casual. Too casual.
We all paused like NPCs glitching in a cutscene. Emma? Volunteering? To do chores?
This was the same girl who once faked a knee injury to get out of unloading groceries.
But no one called her on it.
She grabbed the bag and slipped outside before anyone could blink.
Just her and the dark.
Just her and whatever the hell she's running from.
And I knew it wasn't about garbage.
She needs space. Time. Air. Fine.
But I'm gonna find out what's going on, whether she tells me or not.
I'm not letting her drown in silence.
Not on my watch.
The rest of the night blurred by in layers of fake calm and future dreams.
More house talk. More lists. More celebration that tasted like victory and maybe trauma. I answered questions, smiled on autopilot, nodded like my brain wasn't cataloging every creak from Emma's room upstairs.
She'd gone to bed early, claiming exhaustion. But I heard her pacing.
Slow. Nervous.
Like she was waiting for a monster she'd already met once to come back through the door.
And I hated that I didn't know what the monster was.
Tomorrow's gonna bring answers.
One way or another.
And if someone at Lincoln High is playing with my sister's fear like it's a game—
They're about to meet the final boss of bad decisions.
Me.
I checked ARIA before heading to bed.
Passive surveillance still running.
No anomalies on my new AI as it advanced slowly. No flagged comms. No warning.
Cool.
So why the hell did I feel like I was one breath away from falling into a trap?
"Any recommendations, ARIA?" I murmured, brushing my teeth like I wasn't already calculating a recon route for Emma's school.
"Gather data. Prepare for emotional volatility. And caution, Master, in case for any surprises."
"Got it," I said. "Monitor her through the night and wake me up in she's not on okay. Be subtle."
"Subtle mode activated. Probability of compliance: 16%."
Smartass. That wasn't necessary.
I lay in bed after that, watching the ceiling like it owed me answers. The empire I was building—yeah, it was real. It was growing. It was powerful. But I could feel the cracks forming before I even saw them. Like a storm pressing its face against the windows, just waiting for someone to open the door.
It's always the quiet before everything burns.
It's always family that breaks you first.
And I'd fight the world for mine.
***
Emma Carter was supposed to be asleep.
She'd told them she was tired—offered up a bright, overcooked smile and excused herself early from dinner like she was just full of food and joy instead of dread. Everyone bought it. Peter even looked relieved. Like he believed her. Like her acting didn't crack around the edges.
But now, hours later, she was lying in bed, wide awake, staring at the ceiling like it had something to say.
Her room was too quiet.
Too clean.
Felt too new.
Still smelled like fresh paint and the packaging from her new designer sheets. Things Peter had insisted on buying, like comfort could be delivered in a gift-wrapped box.
Her blanket was halfway across the room. She kept kicking it off, then pulling it back. Too hot. Too cold. Too itchy. Too much. Her body wouldn't settle. Her brain wouldn't shut up.
The clock on her nightstand flipped to 2:39 AM.
The blue glow made her want to scream.
She rolled over again, pulling her hoodie tighter around her body. Not because she was cold. It was a reflex. A shield. Something to hold onto that wasn't thoughts. The sleeves covered her hands, and she liked that. Made her feel younger. Safer. Smaller.
'I should tell Peter. He'd do something. Fix it. Burn the whole place down if I asked him to.'
But that was the problem, wasn't it?
Peter didn't do things halfway even when he was weak back then before this new change, he would fight boys to protect his sisters when he didn't usually fight even when Jack and his group bullied him, but for his sisters?
Peter went all out even when it meant bloody teeth swollen face.
Peter was a hammer.
And right now… she wasn't sure what needed smashing.
Only that something was coming. Something ugly.
Her phone buzzed once.
A notification from a certain from Lincoln High.
She didn't check it. She didn't need to.
Just seeing the name made her stomach twist in on itself.
She sat up, curled knees pulled tight to her chest and pressed her forehead to them. Breathing slow. Counting her exhales.
'Normal kids worry about math tests and acne. I'm worried about walking through the hallway without turning into a headline.'
The school felt like a trap now. Like a thousand eyes and one monster wearing a teacher's smile. Or a classmate's.
She didn't know which was worse.
Her door creaked when the wind hit the frame wrong, and she jumped like it had teeth. Pulse up. Hands shaking.
Then silence again.
False peace.
Emma lay back down and stared at the ceiling until her eyes burned. But sleep didn't come. Only the ticking of the clock, like it was counting down to something she couldn't stop.
*
But Peter had no idea what was coming.
Because at exactly 4:35 PM tomorrow, he wouldn't be tracking Emma. He wouldn't be building a safehouse or refining his A.I.'s infiltration protocols.
He'd be sitting in a sterile, overlit room at the Lincoln Heights Police Department, cold metal biting into his wrists, while a detective across the table asked him the kind of questions that only have bad answers.
And everything he'd built—every dollar, every secret, every calculated step toward the future—would be dangling on the edge of a blade he never even saw coming.
But that was tomorrow's problem.
Tonight?
He had a sister to worry about.
A war machine to polish.
And an empire to defend from shadows he hadn't named yet.