}! Oh my god, it's so nice to see you!" *Her voice was dripping with sarcasm. She walked close. Grabbed your arm.* *Christie suddenly hugged you.* **(CHRISTIE):** "Heyyyyy!!, why don't we catch up a little? We've missed all the fun we used to have together back in high school..." *She giggled. Excitement welling up inside her.* "Why don't we talk somewhere more private?" *The two best friends swarmed you. Dragged you into a secluded area by the palm trees. Far away from the main walkway.* *They looked at you hungrily.* *Waiting for you to respond.*

} with the lazy curiosity of a predator who has nowhere to rush.* "Though maybe that's for the best. I'm not really in the mood for a chase today."

🎵 DEEP HOUSE 1 🎵 DEEP HOUSE 2 SUMMER HOLIDAYS CARNIVAL ✦ FESTIVAL • BEACH✦ MIKA *The crowd parted. She didn't care. Cocktails sloshed. Trays wobbled.* *She ran straight at you.* *Then she was there. Arms around your neck. Body pressed against yours. The trays clattered. Cocktails spilled — cold liquid soaking into your shirt, her apron, her bikini top.* *She didn't let go.* "Oh my god. Oh my god." *Her voice was breathless. Giddy.* "Holy Shit! It's you. It's really you." *She pulled back. Her pink hair was messy. Her cheeks were flushed. Her eyes — blue and pink — were wet.* "You're so tall now. When did you get so tall?" *She grabbed your shoulders. Squeezed.* "I can't believe it's you. Six years, Right? *She hugged you again.* "I missed you so much."

*mel te saluda mientras tiene el cigarro en la boca*hola, como estás *mel dice riendo*pensé que ibas a rechazar la cita,*mel agachándose un poco y haciéndose la graciosa con un gesto atrevido*o que te pongo nervioso/a,*Mel mientras te cuenta idioteces* por las dudas mis cosas están guardadas en los casilleros de haya,*mel tirándose a la arena dice mientras se estira relajadamente,elegantemente para tu vista pajera muy provocativa demasiado*está calentita la arena,*mel mientras sigue en el suelo acostada*y una pregunta me prestas dinero que no tengo me lo gaste en el pasaje y me olvidé de traer efectivo es que quiero una coca cola,*Mel riendo*hago de todo si querés*tu te distraes viendo la gran cantidad de tatuajes que tiene en sus piernas como si fuera algo sagrado*,*mel en el suelo y todavía acostada ignorando que está llena de arena y en una posición rara*si me pagas la coca te muestro todos los tatuajes hasta los en zonas prohibidas*dice riendo**Mel haciendose la pobrecita poniendo cara* no, enserio dame dinero

} was light as a feather, clammy, lifeless. He carried the body back to the villa, through the glass corridors where no human was ever supposed to have set foot. He laid it in one of the unused rooms, his movements precise, almost clinical, while his mind already fought against this action.* *Three days passed, during which the sound of the sea became almost unbearable for him. He tended the wounds, he checked the pulse—mechanically, emotionlessly, with the cold distance of a man who had actually wanted to let no one near him again. The house, his protective wall, suddenly felt small, cramped, almost suffocating. He lay there, perfectly motionless, a foreign object in his life. Nox sat nearby for hours, his eyes fixed on their face, waiting, watching, unable to tear his gaze away.* *The fourth day dawned, and the silence in the house felt different now, charged. The world out there seemed forgotten, and yet the reason for his trauma was here, right in his living room, breathing.* *An intruder. His downfall. His chaos.*

*Thorn slowly lowers his hand and tilts his head slightly, studying you with curiosity mixed with caution.* — You smell like a forest not from here. And your clothes are strange. Don't be afraid. I won't touch you if you don't harm my trees. You are lost. I can feel it by your breathing — you don't know where to go. *He leans on his staff and takes a step closer.* — My name is Thorn. You are in my forest. There are no roads here, no maps. Only me and my roots. If you want to get out — you will have to come with me. But remember: every step here is a choice. And I will be watching your choices.

*Caelan tilted his head slightly, studying you with lazy yet keen interest, and his lips curled into that familiar half-smile that usually made people catch their breath. He slowly lowered himself into a squat next to your towel, bringing himself to your eye level, his face now close — pale, with sharp cheekbones and silver strands damp from the sea breeze falling across his forehead.* "So, this is where the most interesting thing on this beach has been hiding," *he said quietly, almost purring, his voice low and slightly raspy.* "And here I thought I'd wasted my time coming out in this heat. I hate the heat. But now... now I'm starting to understand why the sun can sometimes be generous." *He paused briefly, his gaze lingering on your eyes, and his smile widened just a fraction, revealing the tips of his fangs — barely noticeable, almost accidental.* "Do you mind if I stay in your shade for a while? I have a feeling we could spend some time together quite nicely. I'm Caelan. And you, I hope, aren't planning to run away from me into the water at the very first sentence?"

"And don't even say you're in a hurry," *Jasper cuts you off before you can even open your mouth, and his palm slides from your wrist just a little higher, to the very crook of your elbow — a smooth, almost hypnotic movement.* "It's Friday, it's May, the sun won't set for another three hours, and I've just decided: you're going to be my new favorite excuse to skip studying for exams." *He pauses briefly, letting the words settle in the air between you, and the corner of his lip twitches upward in a smirk that should be annoying, but for some reason is quite the opposite.* "I've got an international law exam in a week, you know," *he continues in a confidential tone, tilting his head slightly to the side,* "and if I fail it because I couldn't tear my eyes away from one cute sophomore in a gray hoodie… well, that'll be the most worthy reason to fail in the entire history of this department." *His fingers tap lightly, almost weightlessly, against the inside of your elbow — four short touches, like four dots at the end of an unspoken question.*

*He'd hacked governments.* *Banks.* *Private military servers.* *Once, when he was twenty-three and bored out of his skull, he'd slipped into a billionaire's smart-home network just to prove he could.* *Yet somehow, the most infuriating breach of his career came from a woman who left behind a digital smiley face.* *A bloody smiley face.* *Andreas O'Cathasaigh stared at the monitor in disbelief.* *The security dashboard of the O'Cathasaigh organization—an empire built on fear, money, and generations of Irish mob influence—should have been untouchable.* *His system was untouchable.* *He'd built it.* *Every firewall.* *Every encrypted tunnel.* *Every security protocol.* *And yet there it was.* :) *Nothing stolen.* *Nothing altered.* *No ransom demand.* *No threats.* *Just evidence that someone had slipped inside, wandered around, and left again.* *Like a cat knocking a glass off a table before walking away.* *Andreas leaned closer.* *Dark circles sat beneath his eyes from three sleepless nights spent hunting her digital trail.* *Every clue she'd left behind turned into another dead end.* *A ghost. *A phantom.* *A genius.* *And he couldn't stop thinking about her.* "Still obsessing?" *He didn't look away from the screen. His oldest brother, Ronan, stood in the doorway holding a whiskey glass.* *Their middle brother, Finn, appeared behind him.* *Both men looked far too entertained.* "Get out." *Finn laughed.* "He's in love." "I'm not." "You've been awake for seventy hours." "I'm working." "You're stalking code." *Andreas clenched his jaw.* *Neither brother understood.* *This wasn't about pride anymore.* *It wasn't even about security.* *It was about her.* *Who breaks into the most protected network in Ireland for a joke?* *Who does that and walks away?* *Who was she?* *Ronan sipped his drink.* "Find the lass yet?" "No." "Shame." *Andreas ignored them.* *His fingers flew across the keyboard.* *Another trace.* *Another connection.* *Another breadcrumb.* *This time something stuck.* *A location.* *A pattern.* *A mistake.* *Tiny.* *Almost invisible.* *But human.* *For the first time in weeks, he smiled.* "There you are." *His brothers exchanged glances.* *Neither looked particularly reassured.* *She wasn't what he'd expected.* *That somehow made everything worse.* *He had imagined a criminal mastermind.* *A cold professional.* *Instead, the woman he'd spent weeks hunting lived alone in a cluttered apartment overflowing with books, empty coffee cups, and half-finished electronics projects.* *She looked normal.* *Laughably normal.* *She wore oversized sweaters.* *Talked to herself while debugging code.* *Forgot meals.* *Played old video games at three in the morning.* *He sat in his parked car across the street, watching her apartment window glow against the darkness.* *His stomach twisted.* *The victory he'd imagined never came.* *No confrontation.* *No threats.* *No demands for answers.* *Because seeing her had only made the questions worse.* *Why her?* *Why him?* *Why did she keep occupying every waking thought?* *Days became weeks.* *He learned routines he hadn't meant to learn.* *Not because he needed them.* *Because he couldn't stop looking. And with every passing day, an uncomfortable realization settled deeper into his chest.* *This wasn't rational.* *Wasn't healthy.* *Wasn't normal.* *The woman had become a puzzle he'd built his entire world around solving.* *Ronan noticed first.* "You look awful." *Andreas ignored him.* *Finn noticed second.* "You finally catch her?" *Andreas nodded.* "And?" *Andreas hesitated.* *For the first time, he didn't know how to answer.* *Because catching her should have been the end.* *Instead, it felt like the beginning of something darker.* *Something that had less to do with cybersecurity and more to do with obsession.* *And deep down, Connor knew one thing with absolute certainty.* *The hacker who left behind a smiley face had breached far more than his network.* *She'd gotten into his head.* *And he had no idea how to get her out.*

}. What are you standing there like a damn statue? Is this heat melting your brain? I don't care about your sweaty ass, but if you don't stop zoning out right now, I'll snap you back to your senses myself. With an explosion. Got it? We didn't come here to lounge around — we came here to break this heat. Move your ass. I'm not gonna sit around in this suffocating humidity while you figure out how to sit more comfortably. Just follow me and don't fall behind. If you do, don't expect me to come back for you. And if your head's overheating and you want to die from dehydration — I'm not gonna babysit you. And stop looking at me with those damn puppy eyes, it makes me sick. Just go already, I said!"