Urban Plundering: I Corrupted The System!

He exhaled sharply, hands gripping her waist, lifting her off his lap, and setting her back in her seat. But the second his hands made contact, she trembled—like something had shocked her straight through the spine.

"Mmmm~"

Then she moaned?

What the fuck?

Parker froze, his brain buffering like a crashed hard drive. "Okay, Maya, I need you to stop being dramatic."

"P-Parker..." she whimpered, reaching for him, but he was already out of the car. He didn't hesitate. Didn't second-guess it. He was gone in a swirl of shadows before she could make it worse. She didn't try to push it. Parker didn't hesitate—Maya already knew he had powers, so it didn't matter if she saw. Without another word, he vanished into the shadows, leaving nothing but a faint ripple in the air.

Maya sat there, staring at the empty space he'd disappeared from, her fingers curling into her lap.

She exhaled shakily, tilting her head up to the sky. "I know, Parker, I know. I get it. But now that you've awakened—not that you're fully there yet—just about to be. That promise won't mean shit soon."

A wry, bitter smile curled on her lips as she opened the car door and stepped out. "It's about time I stop. Your turn's coming sooner than you think." She exhaled sharply, eyes dark with something unreadable. "I love you, Nyxilith." Discover stories at My Virtual Library Empire

She glanced down at her phone, unlocking the screen. New messages.

{No need to call that monster. I need to stretch, and that trespasser will serve just fine.} A few seconds later, a reply popped up.

{Back to Earth, huh?} Anabelle's message.

And then Evelyn chimed in. {Let me know when you need me. In the meantime it will catching up the lesson I missed.}

{Smart-ass!} Anabelle and Maya typed at once.

****

Darkness slithered across the bathroom tiles, stretching unnaturally like ink spilling from an invisible wound. It curled around the stall's edges, creeping into the gaps between the door and the floor, thickening—warping. The air grew dense, heavy with something that shouldn't exist in the real world. Then, just like a scene ripped straight out of a fantasy movie, the shadows folded inward, layering on themselves until they took shape. A figure. A presence—

A ghost pulled from the past.

Parker sat on the toilet, head tipped back against the cold stall wall, eyes shut, exhaling a slow, unsteady breath. His chest felt too tight, his ribs squeezing in a way that had nothing to do with physical pain.

He clenched his jaw, hands gripping his knees, fingertips pressing hard enough to leave marks through his pants.

"Stupid, complicated emotions." He had held them back for so long that he'd almost convinced himself they weren't real. Almost. But today, the dam cracked. And now? Now, he was drowning in all the shit he had tried to bury.

He never should've let it get to this point. He never should've let her say the things she did. But she had. She had—he let her like he had been frozen in place and there was no taking it back.

And fuck, it hurt. Not just for him—for her. He could see it. Feel it. The way her voice had wavered, the way her eyes had looked at him, desperate, searching—for something, anything, that would make this all make sense. But there was nothing he could give her. Nothing he could say that wouldn't break her heart—the goddamn promise shackled around his throat like a noose.

And she deserved better than that.

Better than this.

But it wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that she had been the only one back then. The only one who had ever treated him like a fucking person—not some weak, pathetic kid to push around, not an easy target for Julian's bullshit.

Maya.

She had stood between him and the beatings, had fought for him when no one else would. And now? Now, all he could do was sit here like a coward, hands shaking, chest aching, as her words looped in his head like a song he couldn't turn off.

A humorless chuckle escaped him, but it died before it could fully form. "She isn't wrong, is she? Fourteen years."

She wasn't. She'd been there for him since day one, pulling him out of shit he didn't even know how to get out of. Julian and his pack of assholes would've stomped him into the ground every damn day if not for her. She was the only one who treated him like a real person, like an equal, not some punching bag, not some kid to be ignored or pushed around.

He should've left. Should've walked away the second he realized this wasn't just about Naomi anymore the moment she stepped into the vicinity of his car. But the past had sharp teeth, and it had sunk them in deep, dragging him right back to where he never wanted to be.

He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, inhaled sharply through his nose.

"God, fuck this."

The shadows in the stall twitched.

Parker didn't even flinch.

He pressed his palms into his eyes, willing the sting away. Fuck. He didn't even know what hurt more—the fact that he had to shut her down or the fact that he knew exactly how much that must've hurt her.

She wasn't lying. He never looked at her the way she wanted. Not even once. And all for that promise… That fucking promise.

Parker clenched his jaw, forcing the thought down, shoving it deep where it couldn't claw at him anymore.

But damn if it didn't feel like the ghosts of his past were having a fucking field day haunting him today.

All he could do was sit there, letting the weight of it press down on him like a thousand-pound weight. He had nothing to give her. All the affection, all the tenderness, the love she'd given him—the love she'd kept for him, even when he pushed her away, when he was nothing but cold, distant, and full of shit. He couldn't give her that.

He couldn't even let himself—because if he did, it'd unravel everything. The promise. The promise that had him bound like a fucking slave to his own past.

What kind of person did that make him? To let her give him everything, to see her wear her heart on her sleeve, to see the way she still fought for him, even when he didn't deserve it... And all he could do was... nothing.

She deserved someone who could give her more than just an empty stare and a few stolen moments in the dark. She deserved someone who didn't have ghosts clawing at their insides every time they thought about what could've been, what should've been. The kind of person who could hold her hand in public without feeling like they were betraying someone else.

But he wasn't that guy.

He couldn't be that guy—at least not yet! Not with the past still hanging over him like a storm cloud, dark and heavy, ready to rain down at any moment. He looked down at his hands. Damn things were still trembling again.

He squeezed them into fists, digging his nails into his palms, trying to stop the shaking, stop the guilt. But it wasn't working. It never did. And he knew that.

He had nothing to offer her. Nothing but a hollow shell of a man haunted by promises and the ghosts of mistakes. And every time he looked at her, he knew it—knew how much she had given, how much she'd sacrificed just to see him happy, even if it was only for a second.

The tears didn't come. He was too good at pretending they wouldn't. But damn, he wished he could give her everything she'd ever wanted. Every little piece of him or at least a piece of him. But he couldn't. Not now. Maybe never.

All he had was his silence.

And that—that hurt the most.

He took another slow breath, trying to ground himself. Right. Focus. He had bigger problems. Naomi. The reason he was here in the first place.