chapter 2: The Floris Household

The knife was still quivering where it had buried itself in the wall, a hair's breadth from where Elison's head had been a second earlier.

"What th—" he started, but the words died in his throat as he registered the danger had already passed.

A voice cut through the room before he could finish processing it — the same low, unbothered tone from the alley, except now it carried something almost smug.

"This brat finally knows where his home is."

Elison spun around, heart still hammering, only to find the stranger had already vanished back into whatever shadow had spat them out. He didn't have time to chase the thought. He turned instead toward the staircase, toward the only person in this house who might actually care that he'd nearly been gutted in his own foyer.

"Mom," he said, voice cracking with leftover adrenaline, "I could have died."

Adira Floris didn't even look up from whatever she was doing. "THEN DIE."

Elison opened his mouth, closed it again, and decided that arguing with his mother was a battle better left for another day — possibly another lifetime.

Before he could recover his dignity, the front door swung open again, and this time it wasn't a knife that came flying through it but his younger brother, Heinz, ducking instinctively even though nothing had actually been thrown at him yet.

"Brother, dodge," Elison called out, half a warning, half a reflex.

"What th—" Heinz yelped, already dodging out of pure muscle memory, "—mom…"

He didn't even need to finish the sentence. Years of living under Adira Floris's roof had trained every one of her children to flinch first and ask questions later.

Adira finally turned from whatever she'd been glaring at, fixing her sons with a look that could curdle milk. Before she could properly unleash whatever was building behind her eyes, a calmer voice intervened.

"Honey, let them go," Megat Floris said gently, hand resting against his temple as though he could already feel the headache forming.

Adira rounded on her husband instead, fury redirected with terrifying speed. "If you don't want to sleep on the floor, then shut up."

Megat's only response was a small, strangled emoji-worthy wince, the universal signal of a man who had long ago learned which battles were worth fighting and which ones simply weren't.

"No food for them," Adira announced, pointing dramatically at Elison and Heinz as though passing down a royal decree. "None. Not a single bite."

Elison said nothing. There was simply nothing to say. He'd learned that silence was sometimes the only armor strong enough to survive his mother's moods.

Heinz, similarly, offered no rebuttal. The two brothers stood there, twin pictures of resigned suffering, while their mother sank into the nearest armchair with a heavy, theatrical sigh.

"Ahhh, my blood pressure is going up," she muttered, pressing two fingers to her temple as she dropped into the seat like a queen finally allowed to rest after a long battle.

Somewhere near the edge of the chaos, their sister Quinn, wisely decided this was not a fight worth witnessing up close. She turned on her heel and bolted, the sound of her footsteps vanishing down the hall before anyone could rope her in.

"I will scold them, love," Megat offered soothingly, already moving to smooth things over the way he always did. "Go to sleep — you have a meeting tomorrow, right?"

Adira blinked, some of the fire in her eyes dimming into thought. "Oh yeah, I forgot…" A beat. Then, almost as an afterthought, fierce as ever: "Don't give them food."

"Ok, mam," Megat said, the picture of obedience, not even attempting to argue the point.

Adira pushed herself up from the chair, already halfway to the stairs. "…Food is in the fridge," she added, the words slipping out despite herself, as though her heart simply couldn't commit to the cruelty her pride demanded. "Ahh, they're so annoying, I swear." And with that, she disappeared up the staircase, leaving the room in a strange, ringing quiet.

Megat watched her go, the corner of his mouth curling into a small, fond smile — the kind reserved only for someone who pretended to be made of stone but clearly wasn't.

The peace didn't last. Megat reached into his pocket and produced a small case, popping a pill into his palm before holding it out along with a glass of water.

"Take these," he said simply, holding it toward — it wasn't entirely clear who, only that someone needed it.

Adira, pausing at the top of the stairs, glanced back and eyed the offering warily.

Megat made a soft, queasy face, the kind of expression that needed no translation, and then gestured for everyone, children included — to head upstairs, clearly hoping to diffuse the tension by simply relocating everyone out of arm's reach.

It worked for exactly four seconds.

"YOU BÁSTARDS," Adira's voice rang out from the top of the stairs, sharp enough to rattle the chandelier, "WHERE ARE YOU GOING? I'M NOT DONE YET."

Heinz didn't even hesitate. He ran.

Elison was right behind him, any pretense of dignity abandoned in favor of pure self-preservation. He ran too.

Quinn, who had thought herself safely out of the blast radius, barely had time to react before her mother's attention swung in her direction as well.

"(runs)" might as well have been carved onto the family crest at this point.

It didn't matter. Adira moved like a woman possessed, catching both Elison and Heinz by the ear before either of them made it more than a few steps, twisting just hard enough to make her point without actually causing damage — a skill perfected over years of practice.

Elison hissed through gritted teeth, face screwing into a pained, exaggerated grimace.

Heinz mirrored him exactly, the family resemblance never more apparent than in identical expressions of suffering.

"Why did I give birth to these bástards," Adira muttered, shaking her head as though genuinely questioning every decision that had led her to this exact moment, in this exact hallway, gripping the ears of two grown men.

From a few steps away, Quinn raised both hands in surrender, already backing toward the nearest exit. "Oh, mom! Come on, don't count me in this."

It was, of course, the wrong thing to say.

"You little brát," Adira snapped, already lunging, "come here." And just like that, Quinn's ear joined her brothers' in her mother's iron grip, the three of them lined up like deer caught mid-bolt, each wearing the same wincing, long-suffering expression — the unmistakable look of children who loved their mother fiercely and feared her in exactly equal measure.

Downstairs, Megat watched the whole scene unfold from a safe distance, sipping his tea with the serene expression of a man who had long since accepted his role in this household: not referee, not peacekeeper, but spectator and, secretly, the most amused person in the building.