Chapter 145: Shameless snakes

"You’re just a kid—demanding everything you see is going to ruin you."

Bunny’s blunt rejection caused the atmospheric pressure around Illai to plummet instantly. He had never understood why, when he and his brother shared the exact same face, Bunny held a distinct soft spot for his brother while leaving him out in the cold.

For the twins, their sensory empathy was as much a gift as it was a bitter curse.

Whether it was joy, agony, sorrow... every single shared perception transmitted back and forth between them left neither soul unscathed.

To Illai, every single instance where Bunny drew close to Orion was an agonizing mix of bliss and torture.

The bliss was stolen directly from his brother’s nerve endings, while the torture belonged strictly to himself—the insatiable resentment of a ghost forced to watch from the shadows.

The jarring disconnect between physical abstinence and a phantom high inside his mind was easily the most cruel punishment this world could devise.

Illai fell abruptly silent. Within the depths of those crimson eyes, Bunny caught the clear flash of a turbulent, conflicted storm.

"Bunny... did I do something wrong? Why do you always dislike me so much?"

Bunny furrowed her brow. "Illai, you’ve completely misunderstood. I don’t dislike you at all. Your brother’s pet passed away. I simply felt he needed comforting far more than you right now."

Hearing her explanation, Illai didn’t offer a direct reply, letting out a helpless, bitter laugh instead.

"Bunny... have you forgotten? My brother and I are two halves of a whole."

His gaze drifted subtly toward Orion. His mute older brother was enduring such extreme physical agony, yet he remained stubbornly silent—a sight that filled Illai with a mixture of deep heartache and furious exasperation. He simply lacked any spine!

If he had merely begged Bunny a little, her heart would have softened instantly.

The opportunity was laid out right before his eyes, so why on earth did he never take the initiative to voice his own desires?

Orion and Illai held relatively lower genetic ratings within the squad, sitting at double-S rank. Back when Cyrus had led them across nearly half of the high-radiation sector, almost every Sentinel’s spiritual sea had suffered varying degrees of environmental erosion.

The lower the rank, the more severe the corrosive fallout.

And the twin brothers’ spiritual seas had sustained the most catastrophic damage of all.

Yet the moment Bunny returned, she plunged straight into her heat cycle—and with Liam, Xander, Cyrus, and Astin around, the sheer density of higher-ranked competitors kept the twins completely out of her orbit.

They didn’t even dare attempt to disturb her.

She had her assigned high-tier Sentinels keeping vigil, with Liam guarding her like a hawk against prospective intruders.

So the two young cobras were left to coil quietly in the shadows, staring into space in bitter isolation.

Pain was a shared currency between them.

Which meant every throb of agony they experienced hit with twice the intensity felt by any single Sentinel.

Even when midnight migraines left them wishing for the sweet relief of death, they simply pressed suppressants into their veins in silence, acutely aware that they could only linger at the back of the queue, awaiting their turn for repair.

In this squad, genetic rank dictated absolute status.

"Bunny, I need you every bit as desperately as my brother does."

Illai’s fists tightened noticeably. A flood of unspoken words surged up from his chest, only to choke at the back of his throat.

If his brother refused to beg her, he held even less right to open his mouth.

If Xander or the rest of the leadership discovered they were attempting to cut the queue and disrupt the established rotation, severe disciplinary action would follow without question.

Illai didn’t care about taking a beating himself, but Orion had suffered lasting neurological trauma while saving him in the past, leaving his spiritual sea dangerously vulnerable to environmental radiation spikes.

Illai was simply terrified his brother wouldn’t survive the wait.

Ultimately, his white-knuckled fingers slowly uncurled.

"I’m sorry, Bunny. I shouldn’t have said any of that to you."

With a darkened face, Orion grabbed his brother’s arm to drag him away, refusing to let their plight burden Bunny further.

Spiritual restoration and routine cleansing were entirely different beasts; a simple cleansing merely purged accumulated environmental pollutants, whereas structural restoration drained a Guide’s mental reserves at a punishing rate.

Just as Bunny had experienced when attempting to mend the frayed mental networks of Astin and Kai, the process was brutally exhausting.

The twins shoved and pulled at each other as they retreated, their hushed argument rising in tension—until a sudden, dull thud echoed across the deck.

Orion collapsed dead onto the floorboards.

***

Later at night, it took Bunny two full, excruciating hours to completely seal and reconstruct the radiation-corroded voids within the twins’ spiritual seas.

Their mental landscapes presented a stark, dual dynamic—one burning with scorching heat, the other icy cold.

It was an absolute contrast of fire and ice, making her feel as though she were bouncing violently back and forth between the equatorial heat of Africa and the freezing winds of Antarctica.

Fortunately, their genetic ranks weren’t overly high, allowing her to execute the dual structural restoration simultaneously.

Their spiritual seas had indeed fallen into a catastrophic state—riddled with massive, moth-eaten voids, with severe sections decaying into blackened, festering lesions.

She couldn’t begin to fathom how the pair had quietly endured such agony until now.

By the time she completed the entire restoration, Bunny was thoroughly drained of energy, her physical strength completely spent.

She initially intended to have Orion escort her back to her quarters, when Illai suddenly shoved his head forward, wrapping his arms securely around her thigh while cooing in a soft, spoiled tone:

"Bunny, don’t go back tonight. Stay and keep us company, please?"

He wheedled relentless pleas while frantically casting loaded glares at his brother, as if telepathically screaming:

You silly brother, hurry up and help me badger Bunny! Do you want to live a good life or not?!

Orion naturally caught his younger brother’s signal, yet he remained rooted to the spot, completely flustered and unsure of how to act.

Just as Bunny prepared to slap away Illai’s clingy head, the little black mamba put on an even more aggrieved act—clinging to her for dear life like a shameless, stubborn snake, completely converting himself into a permanent leg weight:

"I’m begging you, Bunny... We’ll be so, so good..."

Unable to shake her leg free no matter how hard she tugged, Bunny had no choice but to bark an order at Orion. "Orion, get a grip on your brother! Drag him off me!"

Orion hesitated for a brief beat before stepping forward.

Just as Illai was cursing his hopeless, spineless older brother ten thousand times over in his head, Orion executed a thoroughly shocking move.

Copying Illai’s exact posture, he reached down and tightly wrapped his arms around Bunny’s other leg.

???

Great—now she had two shameless snakes tangled around her legs.

Orion nuzzled his cheek against her palm with innocent devotion, the crimson depths of his ruby eyes swirling with a dark, sticky storm of emotion, mixed with a fragile, cautious thread of anticipation.

He signed a single, simple plea to her:

Honey, don’t leave... please?