CHAPTER 516: BEFORE THE MASK CAME OFF (PART ONE)

A few days ago:

The faint hum of the fluorescent light buzzed above the nurse station as Silas stood behind the counter. His posture was straight, sleeves perfectly aligned at the wrist, hands covered with white gloves. The station was deserted, a clear display of his colleagues’ contempt. The moment he had stepped past the threshold, the nurses and secretaries had moved out, busying themselves with non-existent work in other places. The isolation had deepened over these past weeks, yet to Silas, a germophobe, it was a relief, almost a luxury.

Silas flipped through the clipboard. He was writing a note on a new patient who had been assigned to him recently. The woman was a complicated case: an elderly patient with a brain tumour, advanced enough to press against functional brain sections. Surgery was risky. Her age, her weak heart, and her diabetes made general anesthesia and long hours of surgery nearly a death sentence.

They approached chemotherapy and radiotherapy, but complications arose when her chronic diseases interfered with the therapy.

And then there were the family members.

Noisy. Loud. Entitled. They complained and nitpicked about everything. They believed every doctor in the hospital was incompetent. Every treatment was experimental. Every instruction was inhumane.

Most hospitals had turned them down after the patient’s family had filed constant lawsuits.

In the end, they had dropped this hot potato on him, being the least favourite doctor in Queen’s hospital.

Silas was not bothered by it. Truthfully, he found most patients’ families a nuisance.

Yet the night before, her son had thrown a bowl of smelly food at him. It had splashed across his coat, the smell clinging, a mixture of oil, salt, and something sour. It had not even touched his skin, but Silas still could smell that revulsion scent clinging to his clothes.

Silas had never lost his temper before. Anger, to him, had no purpose.

He simply discarded the soiled clothes and continued refining the palliative plan, adjusting the medication for nausea, lessening the pain and side effects of the brain tumour. Other things were not in his expertise. Other specialists would maintain and control her chronic diseases.

His detached attitude had made the family members’ outrage dim. They never dared provoke him again.

Yet beneath that clean layer of calm, Silas felt an itch. A faint irritation that refused to fade. It wasn’t about the family or the patient. It was about something or someone else.

He wanted to see that silver-haired young man again, to test, to confirm that strange, impossible thing: that he could touch him without disgust clawing through his chest. Was he really immune to his touch?

But he had no means or excuse to get close to him.

And honestly, Silas had never been this confused, this bothered.

Even when that person left him, betrayed him, chasing the Durant fortune and the position of Madam Durant, Silas had not been this confused.

Back then, there had been disappointment. Cold, neat, and justified.

The possibility of being with his first love had turned to none. Not just because he had changed his gender but because he had fundamentally chosen them over him.

Yes, he had an aversion to the opposite gender, not because he thought they were dirty or disgusting. The reason was far nobler than that. He couldn’t touch them or be intimate because of his mother.

It had been his childhood trauma. The time when his mother still had fighting spirit in her. The time she had not let go of herself.

He could still hear his mother’s voice, the pleading, the broken gasps, the nights filled with begging that went unanswered. The sound of flesh against flesh. The smell of blood and perfume.

He had been small, hiding in the corridor, watching the shadowed outline through the thin wooden door.

The agony, the accusation, and lastly the cursing. He had heard it all.

Silas had come to realise he was the product of that violation. His mother, his noble, bright woman, never would have wed his low-life father if not because of him.

His father had schemed against her, bribing a family member, forcing himself on her, making her pregnant, and caging her in the Durant family.

He loathed his father, yet he carried his blood.

Silas knew those sadistic desires ran through his veins, too.

So when, for the first time, a girl clasped his hand, a classmate trying to thank him, nothing else, those awful memories rushed through his head, made him nauseous.

He had separated himself from any female. He always wore gloves, not to protect himself, but to protect others from his touch, not to dirty them. Right. He was the source of impurity.

Then his first love came; he had seen a spark of hope. But he had to go and do something like that, betraying him, shattering his illusion.

Seeing the person he once shared a bed with return as a woman, something in Silas fractured. The result had been that his aversion to men had also been added to women. He realised he couldn’t touch anyone without gloves in a sense of affection or desire.

Silas had lost hope until he met Darcy. The dark-haired boy was similar to his first love. Not physical appearance. No. What he was similar to was his fighting spirit. His pride. Stubbornness. Indifference that was hidden behind the mask. All the quality his first love had until his father and grandfather broke him.

Silas found it fascinating. He wanted to get his hands on Darcy, to shape him, break him, have him, filling the hollow in his cold heart his first love left behind.

His sadistic tendencies were growing more and more. And Darcy was the best candidate. Pure. Similar. No backing. Perfect.

Yet now another possibility arose. A young man whose touch did not repulse him.

Even though the silver-haired man was not his type. Yet when their hands brushed, there was no recoil, no sickness. Just... nothing.

He wanted to explore, to see the reason.

Why was the young man, Micah Ramsy, different?

His hand reached into his pocket, and a black leather glove rested inside. The touch made his mind drift to that night he had met Micah, bruised and bloodied.

A faint chime cut through the stillness.

Silas set down his pen. His gaze flicked toward the phone. A message from that app that David had recommended.

They asked him to meet that newbie. Silas’ eyes turned dark. He put away his phone, already accepting.

It seemed the enemy was relentless, ready to show their cards.

Pity. The other one was knocked out of the game even before he could participate.

Well, still there was this one.

He could let off some steam, toying with this username. BashfulWallFlower.

"Let’s see how you entertain me," he murmured under his breath.