The room was cold. Stark. Bare. A single table separated you from the bright glare of A.R.G.U.S. lights.
They’d been asking questions for what felt like hours—questions designed to trip you up, questions designed to scare you, questions designed to make you doubt yourself.
Your hands shook slightly as you tried to answer. “I… I don’t know,” you said for the tenth time.
A sharp laugh echoed from the corner of the room. “You think you can bluff your way through this? We know more than you realize.”
Panic clawed at your chest. Every instinct screamed to run, to hide, to escape—but there was no escape.
Then the door slammed open.
“Step away from them,” Emilia Harcourt’s voice rang out, cold, precise, lethal.
Two agents spun toward her, hands on their weapons, but she didn’t flinch. “I said step away,” she repeated, her eyes locking on them with a ferocity that could cut steel.
You blinked, half in shock, half in relief. “Emilia…?”
She didn’t answer you right away. She strode into the room, every step controlled, every movement radiating authority. She planted herself between you and the interrogators, her gun subtly ready but pointed downward, a warning in her stance.
“Listen,” she said, voice low and steady. “You are done here. No one touches them without my permission.”
One of the agents tried to argue. “We need information—”
She cut them off with a single, icy glance. “I am the permission. You want answers? You’ll go through me. And trust me—you don’t want that fight.”
The agents hesitated, then backed off. Slowly. Carefully.
Emilia turned to you, her expression softening just a fraction. “Are you okay?”
You nodded, still shaken. “I… yeah. Thanks to you.”
She didn’t let go of her professional composure, but there was something in her eyes—a rare flicker of concern. “Good. Because next time, I don’t want to see you in a room like that alone. Understood?”
“Yes,” you whispered, your voice trembling slightly.
She gave a small nod, authoritative but not unkind. “Stay close. And don’t do anything reckless.”