The three of them were now in a deadlock. Callen couldn’t let them go, especially Seraina, who was supposed to be in her room, and Asher wanted to protect her from him. Then there was Seraina, who wasn’t sure what was happening, or if any of this was a part of the plot. Should she go along with Callen or stick with Asher? If the System was here, she would know what to do.

Seraina was an experienced Host who had gone through multiple worlds, and completing the tasks was easy when she had someone telling her the plot of the worlds. When she got the System back, she would remind it how appreciative she was of it, and never take it for granted.

Going back to what was happening now, Seraina stepped out from behind Asher, the timid look still on her face, and said, “Callen, I wasn’t expecting you back so soon. Don’t blame Asher for letting me out of the room. I asked him to help me because I wanted to greet you when you got back from work. Was that not ok?”

Callen seemed taken aback and his anger subsided a little when Seraina started speaking to him. But then he saw how close she was standing to Asher and it all came back again. “You were told to stay in your room because of the incident with your sister. Did you forget why she’s bedridden at your family home right now?”

“That’s...” Seraina didn’t know how to respond. She knew nothing of the incident involving the sister: in fact, she hadn’t heard that the original had a sister. With nothing else to say, all she could muster was an ‘I’m sorry’.

“The one you should apologise to is her,” sneered Callen. “Your sister has been nothing but kind to you and when she was trying to help, you injure her instead. How can two people who share the same parents be so different?”

“Shut up!” Asher couldn’t stand to hear the scathing words any longer. The Callen before him couldn’t be the real one, because the original would never say something like that to Seraina. “You know nothing about Seraina, so how can you say that?”

“And who are you?” Callen snorted and breathed in heavily. The weariness of the day was catching up to him fast, and he swayed a little where he stood, but he hid it well and continued to stand his ground. “As her fiance, shouldn’t I know her better than you? Now, come here Seraina and we’ll discuss this somewhere else, without interference from outsiders.”

Asher wanted to say something else but was stopped by Seraina. She had a feeling that the plot was already way off course, and that going with Callen was the right choice in keeping the novel plot on track. After all, the original Seraina was the female lead and if things were meant to be like this, she didn’t want to risk changing how the novel went. She had to make it to the end of the novel and stop the Plotters from ruining it. Otherwise, this world would explode and she wouldn’t make it back to the digital realm.

She placed a hand on Asher’s arm and said, “I’ll be fine. He’s my fiancé and I’m living in his house, so he won’t hurt me, right? Go do whatever it is you need to do, and we’ll talk later.” And after giving him a reassuring look, she went to Callen’s side and didn’t look at Asher again: she knew that if she looked at him now, she would break character and ruin everything herself.

“It’s good you came to your senses.” His chuckle sounded slimy to her ears, and Seraina suppressed a shudder. He took her hand and made to walk further into the house, and before leaving, he didn’t forget to give a smug look to the man that was left behind.

Asher clenched his fists at his sides and knew that there was nothing more he could do. When Seraina looked at him like she had everything under control, he couldn’t do anything against her and had to believe that she knew what she was doing. There had to be other ways he could protect her, and change the plot. The novel couldn’t go the way it was originally intended, and he’d make sure of it.

Callen dragged Seraina away with quick steps and came to a stop at a door in the kitchen. Opening it up, it revealed stairs that lead into a basement.

“What is it?” Seraina felt fear for the first time since entering this world seeing how dark and sinister the stairs looked. Nothing could be seen through the opening as if the whole room was devoid of light: not even the light from the kitchen could touch it.

“It’s the wine cellar,” Callen replied matter-of-factly. “My parents will be home soon and I thought I’d get some wine for them to enjoy over dinner. Care to join me?”

He asked a question, not expecting to get a reply, and hauled Seraina down the stairs. Seraina didn’t put up much resistance because of the fear that had overtaken her mind, and the shaking in her body was incessant.

“D-do we have to go down there?”

Callen paused on the last step and sneered, “what are you pretending for? Unlike your sister, I won’t buy this act of yours.” And with that, he pulled her hand and Seraina stumbled down the last few steps. When they were at the bottom, Callen turned on the lights and the cellar was illuminated: the multitude of wines was on full display and the smell of alcohol and mahogany wood was prominent in the air. 

He led her through the rows of shelves and guided her to a bench that was against the stony wall. There was only one window in the cellar that was small and set up high, revealing little light and a patch of darkening skies.

“Stay here and be quiet while I look for a suitable wine.” He instructed, not caring about what she wanted, and added, “you can do that, can’t you?”