Chapter 95: Demanding a Bed Instead of a Lab

Chapter 95: Chapter 95: Demanding a Bed Instead of a Lab

Why was the system rewarding me?

The question sat at the edge of my thoughts while I watched Jenna weigh everything at once: contract liability, maternal calculation, two years of stagnation dragged into the open.

All of it moved behind her eyes as she decided whether the data justified the intimacy.

"You’re not doing this because you want me," she said.

"I’m doing this because the alternative is walking into a real dungeon race with a class I still can’t regulate and a set of restrictions that make me look safe instead of capable. You taught me the difference."

I breathed out slowly.

"And no. I want you."

Jenna’s exhale was quiet, controlled.

"If we do this, it happens here under full monitoring protocols. Mira gets the logs. Secondary blockers stay within reach. The moment the pathway starts to surface in any direction that isn’t pure controlled transfer, we stop. No arguments. No ’I can handle it.’ Clear?"

"No."

Her eyes sharpened.

"We are doing it at home," I said.

The refusal landed between us without raised volume.

Jenna’s expression made the obvious objection plain before she spoke it; of course, she wasn’t convinced.

I had almost killed her daughter. Any handler with sense would want sensors, residual maps, and an exit chemical within arm’s reach.

"That’s not—"

I closed the distance until the desk was the only thing left between us.

"I don’t want external forces holding the leash while I learn this. The power is mine. If I only ever practice under maximum hardware and observation, I learn how to perform inside a cage, not how to live with what I am when the cage isn’t there."

My eyes locked onto hers.

"I need the difference between body and mind to be something I can hold without a bracelet doing half the work. Bigger threats aren’t going to wait for Mira to adjust frequencies mid-fight."

Jenna stayed silent, measuring me.

"And I need you to hear the rest of it," I continued, quieter.

"My feelings for Gia haven’t changed. Not the guilt, not the want, not the fact that she is still the person I don’t want to become a stranger to. I also haven’t forgotten what you’ve been to me since the day you bought the contract: structure when I had none, honesty when it was inconvenient, a place to stand while the class kept trying to rewrite the ground."

Jenna’s composure cracked slightly.

"I’m not offering myself as a clean utility to earn back trust. I’m asking for a controlled environment that still belongs to us, because the version of control that only exists under lab lights won’t survive the academy or anything after it."

Something in her face shifted.

The man who had thrown bitter offers and blackmail-edged despair at her was not the same one speaking now.

This version was still raw, still dangerous, but the direction had changed, from collapse toward deliberate use.

"Rev..."

"Yes."

I held her gaze.

"I understand what the class is designed to do. It wants me to tear power out of people through intimacy and call the result efficiency. What I’m going to learn is how to let the body move inside that design while the mind stays separate enough to refuse the finishing blow."

"It’s not simple."

"I will give the class the contact it keeps demanding. I will not give it the right to decide who I empty. I’m not giving up on Gia. I’m not giving up on the possibility that this power can be aimed instead of only restrained. And I’m not asking you to pretend the risk isn’t real. I’m asking you to help me practice the only version of safety that might still matter when the restrictions come off."

Jenna looked at me for a long time.

Then she nodded once, small and precise.

"Home," she said.

"Private residential protocols only. I bring the secondary blockers myself. If I say stop, you stop. If your eyes change the way they did with Gia, I end it by force if I have to. And this still does not touch her week. Clear?"

"Clear."

"Go. I’ll follow after work."

I left the guild without another word.

The vehicle ride back to the residential block passed in a blur of sky-lane light and residual adrenaline. The apartment was quiet when I entered.

I set the bracelet on the counter for a moment, flexed my wrist, then left it on.

Some ceilings were still useful even when I was trying to learn the space beyond them.

I took out the phone.

The last call log still carried the weight of her distance and my apology. The system’s reconciliation objective hovered somewhere in the background like a bureaucratic shadow of something I actually meant.

I hit call before I could build another argument against myself.

It rang longer than the first time.

I expected the rejection tone. Instead, the line clicked open, and for a second there was only the soft sound of her breathing.

"Revien."

Not a question.

She had seen the ID.

"I know you asked for space," I said.

"I’m not calling to compress the week or to argue with the boundary. I needed to say a few things while they were still clean."

A pause.

"I’m listening."

"I understand. You had to throw me off you while I was still inside you and locked. That is not something I’m going to reframe as a class accident and move past. It happened. I did it. I’m working so it never happens again."

Silence stretched.

When she spoke again, her voice was quieter, stripped of the defensive edge she had carried in the car.

"I’m sorry too. For the way I spoke that day. Some of it was true. Some of it was me hitting whatever was closest because I was scared of how easy it was for you to become someone I didn’t recognize. I made it sound like you were only a support I could misplace. That wasn’t fair. It also wasn’t entirely honest."

The admission settled between us without demand.

Neither of us rushed to fill the next quiet.

City noise pressed faintly against my windows. Somewhere on her end, a chair shifted.

"I’m not asking you to end the week early," I said eventually.

"Take the time you need. Get stronger. Figure out what you’re willing to risk around me and what you’re not. I’ll be here. I’m not going anywhere. When you’re ready to look at this again, if you are, I’ll still be the same person trying to keep the worst part of this class from deciding what I am."

She listened carefully.

"And when the academy entrance comes, I want us to take it together. Not because a schedule requires a primary anchor on paper. Because I don’t want the version of the next three years that doesn’t have you in it."

Another long silence.

I could hear her breathing change, the slight roughness of someone holding a line steady by choice rather than by lack of feeling.

"You’re serious," she said.

"Yes."

"Even after everything."

"Especially after everything."