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“...What happened to... the rest of your family?”
“I don’t... remember well,” she muttered. “I was too young; aside from blurry memories of my childhood, I’m not really sure I remember anything right. It all happened so suddenly, it’s all too... confusing. I just... have vague memories of me and my mother running, for a long time. I think she tried to come with me, but she was probably too easy to find because of her SIN. She told me to keep running, and we parted ways... but she was right. When I tried to look for her, I... They had found her, and killed her on the spot… She didn’t know anything about my dad’s work.”
Dante slowly nodded, but his eyes were still looking outside, and Eden couldn’t make out what he was thinking. She took a deep breath, and stepped forward, to the point where their shoes touched.
“Dante, no one must know,” she said. “If they ever found–”
“I know,” he suddenly answered, putting his arm around her waist. “You think I would reveal your secret?”
This time, he had a little smirk on, but it wasn’t making Eden feel any better. She still wasn’t sure she could trust him after she had seen him act like a cunning bastard way too many times. So, she didn’t answer and just stared at him suspiciously. Why in the world would he keep her secret? He had guessed most of it, so she didn’t have a choice, but what could he even do with it anyway? It wasn’t like he could sell her out to the Core, or be able to gain anything from it. At best, Eden was merely a tool he could use to his advantage. At worst, she would be his best weapon against the Core...
She looked away from him, trying to avoid his cold, golden stare, but just as she did, Dante gently grabbed her chin and pulled her in for a kiss. Immediately, she felt herself falling for this. Her mind was still cautious, and her cheeks were still a bit wet from the tears that had rolled down earlier, but she couldn’t resist giving in to the sweet and salty taste of this kiss. She liked it too much. Dante’s hungry lips, his possessiveness as if he was going to hold on to her and never let go, like a dangerous and silent promise between them, something that she secretly wanted to believe, imbued in that kiss. Perhaps it was just a kiss, but Eden didn’t want to think about it. Even if she was deceived, it was her own mistake for wanting to trust that madman. It didn’t matter much anymore...
Although their kiss lasted a little while, Eden and Dante slowly separated, their erratic breathing the only sound in that big room. Dante smiled.
“I had been waiting for that kiss...”
“We should go,” mumbled Eden, embarrassed for some reason. “Didn’t you want to attack the Snake tonight...”
“Sure.”
She tried to rush past him to get to the elevator first, and possibly avoid his gaze, but Dante held her back easily, his arm still wrapped around her waist. Before she was able to take more than one step away, Eden was drawn back into his arms, making the young blonde blush even more.
As if it was perfectly normal to keep his arm around her waist, Dante smiled and escorted her to the elevator. Eden was red and desperate to avoid his eyes, which was even harder to do in a mirror-filled elevator...
“...Are you alright with attacking them?” he suddenly asked as they were going back down. “The Core?”
Eden knew why he was asking that. Although she barely held any memories of it, the Chicago Core was still her birthplace. Perhaps she should have felt something about going up against an entity her own father had built, but there wasn’t anything. As a hacker, Eden knew better than most that the Core was nothing more than a system, a system that had failed the people it should have been serving, fallen into the wrong hands only to broaden the gap between people. She slowly nodded with a bitter expression.
“Yes. I think... I think there’s some truth behind Loir’s story. If my father was really aiming to eventually destroy the Core, then that’s even better. I hate what he had created and what it became. I want to think he hated it too...”
“...Don’t you want to know what happened to him?”
Eden was surprised by that question. Did she? The truth was, she had locked her past away and tried so hard to forget about it, she had never really questioned the truth about that night, thirteen years ago. What nine-year-old child could have understood and tried to look for answers? She only ran when she was told to, hid when she had to. She was living at twenty-three years old as she has been for the past decade, just trying to hide and survive... Eden suddenly wondered if she should have tried to look for more answers, but... the truth was she probably already knew what had happened. She didn’t believe some invisible, unknown enemy had attacked her father. She knew enough about the Core and the people behind it to be able to figure out the truth behind her father’s disappearance...
“...I want to know who gave the Edge all that data,” she finally answered. “I want to meet the Edge and find out who was acting as my father. If it turns out it was indeed my father, I want to know what actually happened, how he survived all this time, and why he...”
Her throat suddenly tightened, and Eden herself was shocked by the wave of sadness that suddenly overcame her. She was... sad? She was about to say why her father had never looked for her as if she was truly... abandoned. Perhaps this was what she had felt all this time. Abandoned. She took a deep breath, trying to hold back those tears, and stared at herself in the mirror. Nothing showed that she was on the verge of crying and had cried before; her eyes didn’t easily get red. She took another deep breath and tucked her hair behind her ears on both sides. Dante was still holding her waist, but his eyes were on the elevator’s screen rather than on her. Perhaps he was actually being tactful, for once...
“So you agree.”
“Agree to what?” she asked, frowning.
“Attacking the Snake.”
Eden let out a long sigh.
“It’s not like you are going to back down from it... Moreover, I’m interested in who is going to take over Old Man Long’s territory. I’m afraid it will lead to more infighting between the groups if the new Dragon is some crazy guy like Yang...”
“Great,” smiled Dante, visibly satisfied. “Then–”
“I don’t want to do this in your style, though,” retorted Eden.
“My style?”
“Bringing in the big guns and using innocents as shields?”
“...Do you have another idea, then?”
