He didn't laugh this time.
No smug grin. No witty jab.
Just silence.
Ethan stared at the ashes of his insects, chest rising and falling fast.
His eye twitched again—but this time, there was no mask to hide behind. Just rage. Raw and twitching.
"You… you little shit…"
His voice wasn't theatrical anymore.
It was real.
Low. Unstable.
"You killed them… you actually killed them!"
He took a stumbling step forward.
The swagger was gone.
In its place was a kind of fractured fury, the kind you only see in people whose entire world just cracked down the middle.
Meanwhile, behind me, the students were staring like they'd just witnessed a god bleed.
Even Nolan whispered, "What… what the hell did he just do…?"
"He burned them," someone else said, voice shaky. "He killed those things. Rin—he actually hurt Ethan."
A wave of hope started to spread through them.
Small. Fragile.
But it was real.
