My arms and legs were pinned again.
The Act room.
My eyes slowly blinked open, my head throbbing with pressure. I tried to move but couldn't even shift my weight.
For a few seconds, I thought maybe this was another hallucination in the endless chain of them — but then I heard the door unlock with that unmistakable mechanical click.
He stepped in like he'd never been gone.
No fanfare. No guards. Just Tyler — dressed in black, calm, professional, detached.
He walked up to the table, hands behind his back, and looked at me with all the expression of a man studying a painting he didn't particularly like. He tilted his head.
"Missed me, princess?"
The first thing he said to me after three weeks of absence. Like a joke.
"No," I lied, looking away from him.
"Liar."
He let the silence stretch just long enough for me to become uncomfortable with it. He stood there, watching me, letting the weight of his presence settle back into the room — into me.
"You've been quiet lately," he finally said. "James told me you've been sulking."
"Recovering," I said, my voice betraying a hint of a snarl.
He raised a brow. "From what?"
"You disappeared. Three weeks."
"I was giving you space."
I scoffed. "How thoughtful."
He circled the table, fingertips trailing the edge like he was checking for dust. "You looked unwell. Disoriented. Detached from reality. I figured a break would do you good."
"You figured wrong."
He stopped by my head, looking down at me with mock sympathy. "I can see that."
Then he looked past me, to the wall. "You're erratic. Unstable. You need space... So do I."
I laughed, bitter and humourless. "Right. Because emotional manipulation is exhausting for you."
His jaw tensed. He glanced down at me. Then strolled around the table. His fingers dragged lightly along the metal, slow enough to make me feel every inch of the space between us.
"I know you remember it," I said, watching for a reaction.
He came up to me then, and crouched down beside me. He studied my face for a bit — the fury in it. The frustration. The hurt.
"You're not making this easy for yourself," he said.
"You can't pretend it didn't happen, Tyler. You know what I’m talking about."
"Hm," he hummed softly with a slight nod, his hand resting gently on my knee.
Then his voice dropped, colder His eyes darkened. "Is that what you think this is? You think anything that happens in here is real?"
But intimidation didn't work on me anymore. Not with him. I didn’t budge. "I think you're scared."
He smirked, exhaled, leaned in closer. "Of what?"
"Of me."
That earned a short laugh. "God, you really are insufferable, Emily."
But his words didn't affect me. I wanted answers. So I continued. "I think I scare you because I saw something you didn't want me to see that day. And you ran from it."
"You're playing a very dangerous game, princess," he whispered, hand tightening on my knee. "One you won't win. Believe me."
That was the first sign I was starting to piss him off. He tried to hide it with indifference but I could feel it bubbling inside him. The reaction I wanted. I wanted to see him snap.
I wanted to win this round.
"You won last time. Now it's my turn."
He didn't like that. His mouth tightened with a twitch most people wouldn't notice, but I wasn't most people. I'd spent too long memorising his tells, his body language and what each small movement meant.
He stood up, jaw tight, voice cool. "This isn't a game."
"Then stop playing."
The quiet stretched again, heavy and uncomfortable — not because of fear this time, but because he didn't know what to say next… That was new.
He moved again, paced toward the wall, hands still clasped behind his back like he was trying to maintain some illusion of control. But the illusion had cracked weeks ago and I saw it clearly now.
"You've been on new medication," he said eventually, his tone dismissive. "Hallucinations are common. Confabulations. Misremembering events—"
"Oh, fuck off," I snapped. "Don't you dare try to gaslight me."
He turned sharply, eyes flashing. That got under his skin.
Good.
"You kissed me," I said, louder now, straining against the straps. "You touched me like you meant it, then you fucking vanished like a coward!"
He froze. "What did you just call me?" He turned slowly, his expression thunderous, eyes locking onto mine.
"I called you a coward," I whispered, each word cutting, deliberate.
There it was. That flicker. Surface level rage disguising what it really did to him. I touched a raw nerve.
He walked back to the table, slow, deliberate steps. His hand grabbed my chin, forcefully, made me meet his gaze. "You think you understand me?" he said, voice a low, flat hum. "You think you know what that kiss meant ?"
My gaze hardened. I refused to back down and he hated it. "I know what it meant."
"You think I ran away because I was scared of you ?"
His face was inches from mine now, and I saw the storm, all the things he wouldn't say. The way, even like this, in the middle of an argument, he wanted to kiss me again.
"I'm more scared of myself ," he whispered.
"Keep telling yourself—"
"Don't." His voice cracked like a whip. His eyes searched mine now, desperate, unblinking. "Don't twist this into some fucking fairytale where I'm the villain who fell in love with his prisoner."
That almost sounded like a confession.
"You did, though," I said, softly now. "Didn't you?"
His mouth opened like he might deny it, but no sound came out.
"You kissed me," I said quietly, "and for a second... you forgot the game."
Something shifted in his face. Another crack in the mask he wore so carefully. The breath he took was too shallow, sharp, like it hurt to fill his lungs. He broke eye contact. Just for a second. But it was enough.
"You lost control," I pressed, my voice dropping to a whisper now, cutting through him in the only way I could. "That's why you left, isn't it? Not because I was unstable, but because you were ."
His eyes snapped back to mine, and the fury behind them was immediate, electric. "Shut up," he rasped, voice low and tight.
I didn't.
"You're fear is love," I said, ignoring the warning in his voice. "Because you know if you let yourself feel it, even for a second, you won't be able to keep doing this."
He stepped back. Two paces. Like he needed distance.
" Stop it ," he growled again. Louder this time, a sharpness creeping in, but I knew the difference between anger and panic.
He was panicking. And that made me bolder.
"I saw you. The real you. And you're frightened."
"Emily." The growl in his voice was no longer contained.
"One kiss and your whole damn empire cracked in half."
I was past the point of stopping. I was inches from the truth and I could feel it. His restraint was a fraying wire.
"You want to punish me for seeing it," I said, eyes locked on his. "Because if you make me the crazy one, the weak one, then you don't have to face what really happened."
That did it.
With a sharp, breathless sound that came from somewhere between his teeth and his soul, Tyler surged forward, hand lifting before I even registered the motion—
Crack
His palm met the side of my face with brutal precision, the sound echoing. My head snapped sideways. A burst of white bloomed behind my eyes like a flashbang. The sting flared hot and fast across my cheek.
The silence after was deafening, ringing in my ears.
He was panting, staring down at his hand like it wasn't part of him.
I didn't look up at first. I let the pain settle, let the sweet taste of victory rise in my mouth.
Slowly, I turned my head back toward him. The fire in my eyes hadn't gone out. It had grown. Something defiant.
"You just proved me right," I whispered, my nose bleeding, "and you know it."
He didn't speak.
He looked at me, and for a single second, I saw it all: the guilt, the self-loathing, the fear. The way he hated me for exposing the fracture in him he'd spent weeks trying to hide from me.
I whispered. "There you are."
He looked like he didn't know whether to hit me again or fall to his knees.
"The real Tyler Hemsworth..."
And then he did something I didn't expect. I expected him to run out again.
Instead, he leaned down, just slightly, until his face was close enough. One hand braced on the table, the other gently lifting my chin.
"You don't know what you're doing to me," he breathed.
I searched his eyes — the pain swimming in them. He lingered there for a few seconds, glancing at my lips, then at my eyes, then back down to my lips.
He wanted to do it again. It was taking every ounce of resistance not to. But he desperately wanted to. So he did the next best thing to let himself feel it.
He pressed his forehead to mine and closed his eyes.
His breath was uneven. Warm against my skin, like he was trying to ground himself, like he was seconds away from falling apart again.
His fingers grazed my jaw, gentle now, almost reverent. The same hands that had struck me only moments ago now trembled as they touched me.
He didn't open his eyes. His breath hitched.
I watched him. And then, gently — not only to manipulate, but because I wanted to — I leaned forward those last few inches.
I kissed him.
It wasn't soft, wasn’t clean.
It was controlling.
He stilled, shocked at first. But his mouth melted against mine and he exhaled hard through his nose like it physically hurt to accept the truth of what was happening. His hands hovered in the air beside my face, shaking like he wanted to push me away.
There was desperation in it, hunger and regret. Maybe I imagined it, but it felt like… he was trying to apologise, trying to say something he didn't have the words for.
And the dam broke.
He made a sound — low, broken, not quite a sob but close — and that's when I knew he was gone.
He pulled away slowly and stared at me. His eyes were wet. He blinked, like he'd never cried before and didn't know how to contain it.
More tears followed. His face twisted, in shame and fury. At me. At himself. He clenched his teeth hard, but it didn't stop. He turned from me fast, staggered a step back, one hand dragging down his face like he could wipe the emotion away.
His lips parted, eyes wide, stunned, panic-stricken. His whole body stiffened like the kiss had killed him.
"W-Why did you do that?" he choked out, stumbling back.
I didn't say a word. Just stared. Not triumphant. Just watching.
The great, untouchable Tyler, who had once broken me down with surgical precision, stood before me breaking in return.
He stumbled back further, hands trembling, tears falling fast. He slammed his fist against the door, hard enough to leave a dent.
Without another word, he shoved the door open and disappeared down the hallway.