15. Upgraded
He knew what that meant from the novels he read; he understood... and he was not stupid enough to misinterpret what that implied.
Jace was so confident, risking his credibility as a model student to accuse him of drug abuse. Why was he so certain about this? Because, in another timeline, he was addicted at this very moment.
Paige had stopped, too, feeling the wrath of the protagonist for the second time after the first time of having a knife at her throat. She gulped before taking a step back.
Taking a deep breath, she said,
"You expected me to recount every detail of a dark, sadistic novel? All these things are irrelevant, as long as they don't happen in reality, right... right?" Urgh, she had that word stuck from the little pigtail girl.
"What do you mean by dark, sadistic novels?" He asked, growling.
'Ah, crap.' Paige took another step back as he closed in.
"Well... you already knew about that, didn't you?" Her frozen face seemed incapable of lying to him, while her voice didn't sound very certain.
"A crappy campus romance novel turned into a fucking sadistic dark novel. Are you kidding me?" He whispered in a deep voice.
"I did not lie to deceive you. But it's really not possible for me to recount the garbage the author wrote to a fifteen-year-old. Everything I said is the truth, but I didn't mention the abusive stuff, which I'm about to stop anyway." The more she talked, the more she felt justified.
Lance thought he could see a flicker of being wronged in her eyes, and he was so angry he laughed. "I'm sixteen, not fifteen. And are we, or are we not, on our way to a fucking drug test?" He placed a hand beside the wall she was leaning against, half kabedoning her.
"Oh, come on." Her lips twitched at this position, not at all feeling as romantic as she would have thought while reading such scenarios.
Seeing her glance at his arm, he instantly caught what she thought about. He had been educated about the wildly popular 'kabedon.' It made him embarrassed, so he stepped back. The tension diffused, and he sighed deeply.
"Why am I not feeling anything while talking about the plot?" She changed the topic.
"No shocks?" Observing her, it seemed true—no trembling or such.
"Though the shocks got less and less, it was never fully pain-free." she questioned the system in her mind.
[The male lead was already informed of what you perceived as the plot. It is highly recommended not to share any more information. The punishments have been upgraded and will take place if the plotline is shared.]
"What do you mean with 'what I perceived as the plot?'" She blurted out loud. The moment her voice ended, she felt her heart stop for a moment.
She knew that feeling from her original world. There, it happened after staying up all night smoking while eating only cornflakes for two days. It was that kind of palpitations where she thought she was done for. She had been lying in bed, initially panicky, later theatrically thinking, 'Is this how it ends?'
After months of being too scared to consult a doctor, she did it anyway. He said that this was normal and happens to everyone. Most people just don't notice it.
Although the probability of palpitations is higher with excessive smoking, lack of sleep, vitamin deficiency, and no exercise, she felt so relieved and liberated that she ordered a ton of fast food and finished her favorite caramel schnapps as soon as she got home.
But this time, it didn't happen for a tenth of a second. Her body flinched as she felt her heart stop for at least one or two seconds. She could feel her blood freeze; she was on the verge of losing consciousness.
She drummed her fist against her chest as if that would ensure her heart would beat. Breathing rapidly, she slid to the ground.
When she had inhabited this body, there had been a problem with blood circulation, but she felt her heart beat; she just didn't bleed when injured.
Now this… this was scarier for her than any other pain. It was bluntly toying with the human fear of death, activating that survival instinct buried deep in one's genes.