The magical fluctuations at the back of his neck were fine and sharp, like countless invisible poisoned needles ready to pierce his spinal cord at any moment.
Lynn did not dodge. He lowered his eyelids slightly, kept his breathing steady, and even leaned back a little, pressing his neck fully against those icy fingertips.
"Wanda." Lynn's voice was low, carrying just the right trace of hoarseness and bitterness. "Don't you like this?"
Wanda froze, the red glow lingering around her fingertips faltering slightly.
Lynn turned to look straight into those bloodshot, scarlet eyes. He raised his hand and took control, gripping Wanda's wrist and pressing her hand against the left side of his chest so she could feel his steady, powerful heartbeat.
"In the ruins of Sokovia, all I could do was watch you face those monsters. I was so weak that even blocking those bullets took everything I had. In the end, I could only die in your arms." Lynn's gaze was deep, his tone carrying an almost pathological stubbornness. "I don't want to experience that helplessness again, much less hide behind you forever."
He slowly leaned closer until his nose almost touched Wanda's. "When you carried me out of S.H.I.E.L.D., that energy seeped into my skin. It hurt. My bones were breaking, but I didn't reject it. Because by accepting it, your mark would be etched into my blood and marrow for good."
Lynn's thumb gently stroked Wanda's pale cheek, his voice so soft it sounded as though he were pronouncing some kind of curse. "Now, even if I go to the ends of the universe, you'll be able to find me by this aura. I belong to you completely, my witch."
Those words pierced precisely through the yandere's most vulnerable defenses.
The scarlet in Wanda's eyes flickered violently. Her paranoid suspicion and murderous intent melted like solid ice under blazing fire, instantly turning into extreme ecstasy. She let out a gasp like an animal's whimper and lunged into Lynn's arms, pinning him firmly against the rough wooden floor.
"Mine... yes, you're mine alone." Wanda greedily kissed the side of Lynn's neck, sensing the faint magical fluctuations that shared her own origin, and sank into utter satisfaction.
Those wild emotional swings exhausted what little energy she had left. Within minutes, her taut muscles relaxed completely, and she truly fell asleep in Lynn's arms, even her breathing taking on a cloying sweetness.
Lynn lay on the floor, letting Wanda cling to him like a vine. His gaze was clear, and a cold curve rose at the corner of his mouth.
The crisis was over.
Midnight, deep in the Adirondack Mountains.
All five senses of Lynn's newly acquired Chaos Physique were fully engaged. He caught the faint sound of tactical boots gently snapping weeds a hundred meters outside the cabin. Then a trace of a sweet, metallic smell drifted through the air.
Highly concentrated nerve-anesthetic gas.
Lynn immediately held his breath. The chaos energy within him circulated on its own, instantly devouring and assimilating the trace toxins seeping through his pores. He deliberately slowed his heartbeat, feigning a deep coma.
That old dog Pierce really couldn't hold back.
If a fight broke out in the cabin and Wanda woke up, her rampaging Chaos Magic would absolutely flatten everything for several kilometers around. That would cause too much of a disturbance, not only drawing Fury's full-scale counterattack but possibly even attracting the attention of those sorcerers at Kamar-Taj.
Better to go along with it and venture deep into Hydra's territory. Keeping his eyes closed, Lynn rapidly worked through the possibilities in his mind. This would not only uncover Pierce's most important hidden assets but also give Wanda the perfect justification to openly slaughter Hydra.
The wooden door, lubricated with a specially formulated sound-dampening fluid, was pushed open without a sound.
Four dark figures wearing gas masks slipped inside. At their head was Crossbones, Brock, his chest still wrapped in compression bandages.
Crossbones gave tactical hand signals as several gun barrels trained firmly on the two people embracing on the rug. Cold sweat covered his forehead, and beneath his mask, his eyes stayed fixed on Wanda's face, terrified that this monster who could tear buildings apart with her bare hands might suddenly open her eyes.
Two Hydra agents put away their guns and took out a specially designed high-voltage-insulated straitjacket, approaching cautiously. They did not dare touch Wanda, instead attempting to pry her arms from around Lynn's waist bit by bit.
The instant an agent's fingers touched the back of Wanda's hand, she frowned slightly in her sleep and instinctively tightened her arms.
Crossbones' heart lurched, and he nearly pulled the trigger.
Lynn secretly relaxed all his muscles, following the agents' pull as he slid inch by inch out of Wanda's embrace like an utterly insensible corpse.
The agents quickly secured Lynn's arms in the straitjacket and fastened a suppression collar capable of releasing high-voltage current around his neck.
The two lifted Lynn between them and hurried out the door.
The instant he was lifted off the rug, Lynn's dangling fingertips lightly brushed a gap between the floorboards. An extremely faint thread of dark red light silently seeped deep into the wood.
This was an "alarm clock." Once Lynn was more than ten kilometers from the cabin, this trace of energy sharing her origin would dissipate completely.
Crossbones and his team retreated from the cabin without even daring to close the door, sprinting toward the cloaked Quinjet deep in the woods.
After they roughly threw Lynn into the cabin, the aircraft's hatch closed. Crossbones ripped off his gas mask and gasped for breath, his face alight with the wild joy of having survived a disaster.
"Sir, the target has been retrieved." He pressed his communicator, unable to conceal the smugness in his voice. "That monster inhaled too much gas. She's sleeping like a dead pig. We didn't alert her."
Pierce's somewhat excited chuckle came through the communicator. "Excellent work, Brock. Bring him back to Secret Base No. 13. As long as we control this man, Hydra will effectively possess a god."
The aircraft's engines gave a low rumble as it rose vertically, soon disappearing into the deep darkness of the night.
Inside the cabin, Crossbones walked up to Lynn, who had been thrown onto the floor, and kicked him hard in the shin. With a vicious grin, he said, "Playing the big shot in front of Fury? You still ended up in my hands."
Lynn kept his eyes tightly shut, swaying slightly like a rag doll with the aircraft's jolts, offering no response. Beneath the cover of the straitjacket, however, his fingers were lightly tapping his thigh, beat by beat, in time with the aircraft's speed.
Five kilometers.
Eight kilometers.
Ten kilometers.
Meanwhile, in the cabin deep in the Adirondack Mountains.
The instant the distance reached the threshold, the thread of dark red light between the floorboards flickered once and went out completely.
Wanda, who had been clinging to that aura, lost her last source of comfort.
Cold wind poured through the open wooden door, stirring up dust from the floor.
On the rug, Wanda's eyes snapped open.
The whites of her eyes, once clear, had been completely swallowed by dense scarlet. The temperature inside the cabin instantly dropped to freezing. With a roar, a towering pillar of dark red flame erupted from the extinguished fireplace, blasting the roof clean off the cabin.
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