Those words struck him and they struck him hard. Sure it was something he had thought about for a while now, but he didn't expect for Sofia to confront him about it.

In all honesty, Kai didn't have an answer. While he had thought about it, there was no real way to go back to the way things were.

Then again, Kai wasn't even sure he wanted that anymore.

But Sofia expected an answer, and since Kai didn't have an answer...

He let the drink do the talking.

"I... don't know. I don't even know if we should make up, you know?"

Kai struggled to think of words that could accurately describe his and Noelle's situation. He had never been in a situation like this, so he didn't have a clue what he should do. They were partners sure, but were they actually close?

"It's like... People. Everyone is different. They have different tastes, different personalities, different goals. Noelle and I, just don't really go together."

Kai sighed softly as he thought some more, he could already tell by Sofia's expression that she wasn't satisfied with that answer.

"Like, look back to the white room. It said we would be paired by IQ, fitness and some other things. But Noelle and I were polar opposites, it was like the voice messed up our pairing."

"Kai..." Sofia spoke softly, her voice a lot clearer than previously.

"Maybe it was meant to be like that in the first place."

Kai remained silent, thinking about Sofia's words.

"No, Noelle and I just don't work together."

Sofia shook her head.

"Think about it Kai. Look at me, how would you describe me?"

Kai froze, inwardly panicking.

"Is... Is this a trap?"

Sofia scoffed.

"No, I'm not some deranged girlfriend, just say what words you would use to describe me."

Kai thought about his options for a few moments. In those moments, he looked at Sofia and reminisced about what they had done together.

Surviving that week in the forest along with Noelle and Umbra, her nearly getting killed by Camo while in Rashik's group.

And then there was the time she saved his life, how she stabbed Sleepy when he was just about to stab Kai.

Kai shivered at the memory of that perverted bastard.

Sighing, Kai answered Sofia's question.

"Confident, kind, funny and attractive."

Sofia smiled and whispered under her breath:

"Good, I don't need to beat him."

Huh!?

"So if that's how you see me, what do you think my partner would have been like?"

Kai shook his head.

"I don't know."

"He was a nerd." Sofia said. "He had acne, glasses, the worst posture known to man and couldn't say more than five words without stuttering.

He also didn't know how to keep eye contact, which was really annoying. It was like he had never seen a woman."

Kai sat silently, letting Sofia get to wherever she was going to with this.

"He was basically the opposite of me, yet we were paired together. Wouldn't you say it's the same as you and Noelle?"

Kai frowned slightly.

"I guess..."

"Exactly. While we may have technically been paired by all those insignificant things, we were also paired by other things.

What I think is that whoever it is that trapped us here wants us to grow as people."

"What?" Kai's eyes widened. Thinking about what Sofia said, he realised that it wasn't that improbable.

"Think about it." Sofia began. "You getting paired with Noelle, how did it benefit you? Your conversation skills improved, you got fighting experience and you also benefitted from her personality.

Stolen novel; please report.

And for Noelle... She just needed someone to be close to for her to grow."

Kai frowned at that last part. Noelle wasn't close to him. Unless he was blind, there was no way she liked him.

"But you're wrong, there's no way she likes me. I'm sure she hated me, she always treated me like crap anyway. She did save me, sure, but does that mean she likes me? I'm sure there's someone else that she's close to."

"You're wrong, Kai. You are the closest person to her-"

"I'm sure you're exaggerating." Kai said as he shook his head. "She has to have famil-"

"Both of her parents were killed by a bomb planted in their car when she was eight."

Oh... That's bad... But I'm sure she had others-

"Her uncle then took her in. He was her idol when she was younger, but then she found out that he was the leader of the largest terrorist and gunrunning group in the areas around Egypt."

Kai felt his face slowly drain of blood. He was feeling slightly guilty at the way he reacted when she hit him, but surely it couldn't get any worse...

"Noelle then spent seven years locked in a cell in her uncle's compound. Fed the bare minimum she needed to survive and had barely enough rags that the group called clothes on her weak body to survive the cold nights of the desert."

Kai flinched.

Surely that's the end-

"But then, when she was fifteen-"

Kai got hopeful that maybe there was some redemption in the story and that Sofia was about to say that an armed task force raided the terrorist group.

Only there wasn't.

"One of her uncles buyers spotted her and paid a large sum of money to have Noelle for the night."

Kai's face paled even more at that revelation. He didn't feel well, his heart was racing as all the memories of Noelle flooded his mind.

Oh god... So that's why she snapped earlier when those people wanted to sleep with her. And I laughed...

Feeling extremely guilty, Kai wanted to bring himself to say something, but Sofia wasn't finished telling the story just yet.

"So then Noelle was brought to the buyer. He pinned her to the bed, tried to undo her clothes, but Noelle fought back. She stabbed the bastard in his eyes with her thumbs and bit him wherever she could.

She ended up permanently blinding him."

Kai felt sick. He felt guilty. He felt ashamed. He felt..

Sofia wasn't finished.

"She then spent another two years locked in an even colder cell. She was fed even less and given even less to wear.

After that, she was let out and her uncle made her become a guard around the compound.

That was were she met Gabriel."

Kai froze. His face was pale yet his heart was racing, but he still didn't say anything as he knew by now that the story would only get worse and worse.

"The two grew closer and closer, Gabriel was able to open her up. To make her feel emotion again. They eventually became lovers and they were happy, extremely happy."

Sofia fell silent, but Kai already knew what was coming. Readying himself, he forced himself to croak out.

"What happened?"

"The worst misunderstanding that could have possibly happened."

Kai closed his eyes. His mind was in turmoil, even Nonchalance couldn't help him. The situation wasn't stressful, it was just...

Depressing.

"Noelle overheard plans to use decoys to avoid a bombing gone wrong. One of the possible decoys named was Gabriel, so she went off to find him so they could either escape... Or die trying.

But the whole time, Noelle was under the assumption that her uncle was a heartless bastard. How wrong could she have been?"

Sofia shook her head as she chuckled sadly, then continued the heartbreaking tale.

"Her uncle looked out for her to the best of his capabilities. The only reason he had her locked in a cell was to keep her out of the hungry eyes of his men.

Like, the first person other than her two guards that were with her day and night thought she was a pretty little thing, ripe for the taking."

Please stop...

"In fact, her uncle didn't even know about that whole situation. It was Rashik who took the money and authorised it. Rashik was her uncles second in command, that's how they know each other.

Please... stop...

"So while Noelle heard that they were planning to use Gabriel and some others as bait, her uncle actually turned it down for the sake of his niece's happiness.

But Noelle didn't know that, she was scared, she was terrified, she was cornered.

And cornered beasts are the most dangerous.

She snuck into her uncle's room and slit his throat, ending his life."

Please...

"So then she ran away. Her and Gabriel hijacked a car and broke out of the compound.

They lasted for a month before they were caught. They were chased all the way to The Nile.

With nowhere to go, they stood up to Rashik, but Noelle was shot and fell into the river while Gabriel was taken back to the compound."

Stop...

"Now I don't know what happened in the time after that, but I remember what happened a few days later.

I was in the compound, slowly accumulating incriminating evidence, when all the guards suddenly rushed outside.

I followed, obviously, but what I saw nearly broke me."

Please don't...

"Noelle was stood over two corpses. Both had their heads caved in with a rock, meanwhile she was stood over them, covered in their blood.

Up until this point, I didn't know what had happened to Gabriel. But then I saw his body."

Don't...

"It was one of the most heartbreaking things I had ever seen. His corpse was horribly disfigured and he even had severed limbs, I don't even want to imagine what he had gone through up until his death.

It took all I had not to pull out my own weapon and kill Rashik then and there... But I let that poor girl suffer for the sake of my mission."

Sofia bit her bottom lip, drawing blood. Kai hadn't noticed before but the pale woman had tears welled up in her eyes. Then, it hit him.

If he felt guilty just from the one bad thing he had done to Noelle...

Then how guilty was Sofia feeling right now?

"And just as Rashik was about to have her killed, the bright lights appeared... And you know what happens next."

Kai was silent. It wasn't that he couldn't talk, it was that it felt like he didn't have a voice anymore. He felt that even if he were to open his mouth, nothing would come out.

Sofia was also silent, calming herself so that she wouldn't end up spilling any tears. But after a few moments, she spoke once more.

"So, no, Kai. I don't think that I am overexaggerating. You really are the closest person to her."

Sofia then got up off the rock, throwing the now empty can onto the ground beside the other ones.

"I'm going to go to sleep, Kai. You should too. We will need all our energy for tomorrow."

Her voice was hoarse, as if she had lost all emotion.

With that, Sofia left... But Kai remained sat on that rock.

The feeling of guilt was overflowing inside him. The whole time, Kai had been operating under the assumption that Noelle's story wasn't that bad. He had no idea how wrong he was.

It took all his strength just to stand up off the rock. Slowly, he started making his way back to the cherry blossom so he could sleep.

He didn't even make it ten steps before all the drink in his system made its way back up, spewing out of his mouth and onto the grass below.