Lynn deleted the text message.
An unknown number, with no signature.
The cold words revealed two pieces of information: someone was watching him from the shadows, and they knew he had been in contact with Starlight.
This added another layer of threat to Lynn’s already complicated situation.
He didn’t know if the sender was from The Boys or another faction within Vought International.
But whoever it was, their purpose was clearly a warning.
As Lynn sat in his office, rapidly sorting through the current situation, the intercom on his desk suddenly rang.
He picked up the receiver, but no voice from Ashley or any secretary came through.
There was only silence.
A few seconds later, a familiar voice rang out, calm but carrying an unquestionable sense of authority.
It was Homelander.
“Doctor, it’s time to continue.”
With that, the line went dead.
Lynn put down the receiver.
He knew Homelander had begun bypassing Vought’s official protocols, defining this therapy session as his private affair.
This was dangerous.
When Lynn entered the therapy room again, Homelander wasn’t sitting on the sofa.
His back was to the door as he stood before the massive floor-to-ceiling window, overlooking the city below.
Like a silent statue of a god, he exuded a deeply unsettling pressure.
“You’ve been seeing a lot of people lately.”
Homelander didn’t turn around, his voice ringing out calmly.
“That idiot, The Deep, and that new blonde girl.”
He paused, then continued, “Those old bastards on the board also reached out to you. Do they all think they’re so important?”
Lynn detected a clear note of jealousy in his voice.
Homelander didn’t care about Lynn’s day-to-day duties.
He was checking to see if Lynn’s attention had been stolen by others.
Lynn walked over to the sofa, sat down, and spoke calmly.
“They are only performing their duties.”
“Duties?” Homelander sneered, finally turning around.
The usual smile was gone from his face, his blue eyes filled with cold scrutiny.
“Is it their duty to hover around you?”
Lynn met his gaze and shook his head.
“No. They are hovering around an important asset.”
“What asset?” Homelander pressed.
Lynn’s answer was direct: “Your mental health.”
Homelander didn’t seem particularly satisfied with this answer.
He strode toward Lynn, looming over him.
“And what about you? Is that how you see it?”
“I don’t think what you hate is them caring about your mental health.”
“Oh?”
“You hate them taking up something that belongs solely to you.” Lynn’s tone was utterly certain.
Homelander narrowed his eyes slightly.
“Something that belongs to me?”
Lynn added calmly, “Your doctor.”
This line struck Homelander’s possessiveness with surgical precision.
The icy chill on his face melted instantly, replaced once again by a radiant smile.
“Ha, exactly.”
Satisfied, Homelander sat down on the opposite sofa, his posture relaxing.
“I like that way of putting it.”
The brief crisis had been defused, but Lynn knew the real session was only just beginning.
He had to leverage the information he had discovered in the old archive room to deliver a second, more precise strike.
“Last time we talked about your craving to be loved,” Lynn initiated the conversation.
The smile on Homelander’s face faded slightly, clearly unwilling to revisit a topic that made him uncomfortable.
“Today, I want to talk about something else.” Lynn didn’t give him a chance to object.
“Have you noticed that you’ve actually been searching all this time for… someone who can tell you, ‘You did a great job’?”
Homelander’s expression shifted subtly.
He sat up slightly straighter, his eyes growing sharp.
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m saying that Vought International gave you the applause of the world, and Madelyn gave you the most direct rewards.” Lynn’s voice wasn’t loud, but every word was delivered clearly to Homelander’s ears.
“But they have never, not once, given you a choice.”
“You couldn’t choose your origin, you couldn’t choose whether to become a hero, and you couldn’t even choose your own lifestyle.”
“So, even though you have everything now, you can’t feel true fulfillment. Because deep down in your subconscious, every decision you make is still waiting for an authority figure to grade you.”
Lynn looked at Homelander and delivered a conclusion even more wounding than the last.
“You’re just like that child still trapped in the laboratory, only you’ve been moved to a larger cage. You are still waiting for someone to tell you whether you are ‘good’ or ‘bad’.”
This statement was even more brutal than the previous session’s “lack of love.”
It was a flat denial of his autonomy as a “god,” dragging him right back to his original state as a helpless, evaluated test subject.
The temperature in the room plummeted.
Homelander didn’t speak, but faint scorch marks began to appear on the surface of the metal coffee table beside him, warped by intense heat.
His eyes began to glow with a dangerous red light.
He stared intently at Lynn, forcibly suppressing a fury that was on the verge of erupting.
After a long silence, he squeezed a few words through his teeth.
“What about you?”
He asked the question almost through gritted teeth.
“Do you just want to control me too?”
This was the first time Homelander truly distinguished Lynn from Vought and Madelyn.
He wanted to know if this sole person who saw right through him was just like the rest of them.
Lynn felt the lethal danger, but he knew that if he answered correctly, their relationship would transition to the next phase. Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
“I can’t control you,” Lynn said, his tone too candid to be an act.
“No one in this world can control you.”
“All I can do is remind you.”
“To remind you of when… you look like you’re being controlled by them again.”
Homelander froze.
The red light in his eyes slowly receded.
He seemed to be hearing such an answer for the very first time, and he fell into a long silence.
[Target Homelander has been detected experiencing moderate emotional fluctuation!]
[Defense-Break Points +35!]
[Reward: Super Hearing Shard × 5. Ability integrated.]
The system’s notification chimed in Lynn’s mind.
A strange sensation instantly flooded his ears.
The sounds of the world became incredibly clear in this instant.
He could hear the rushing of his own blood, and the powerful thrumming of Homelander’s heartbeat.
And even…
Lynn calmly shifted his gaze to the wall on the left.
He heard the sound of two deliberately suppressed breaths coming from the other side of the wall.
Along with a faint electrical hum and heartbeats.
Someone was eavesdropping.
Just a second after obtaining his new ability, he had seen right through this secret.
Brilliant as Homelander’s senses were, he immediately noticed the slight shift in Lynn’s gaze.
He followed Lynn’s gaze to the seemingly ordinary wall, a playful, cold smirk appearing on his face.
“Do we have guests?”
He didn’t ask Lynn, but spoke softly to the wall.
“Come out.”
Outside the wall, there was dead silence.
In that instant, both breathings and heartbeats suddenly accelerated in sheer panic.
Homelander smiled.
He seemed to enjoy this game of cat and mouse.
But he had no patience for waiting.
The next second, two searing red beams erupted from his eyes without the slightest warning!
*Boom!*
The specially reinforced soundproof wall was instantly melted through like paper, revealing a massive, scorched hole.
Behind the wall was not another office.
It was a cramped, hidden surveillance room packed with equipment.
Two men wearing Vought security uniforms sat slumped in their chairs in terror, utterly frightened out of their wits by the intense heat.
And on the main monitor in front of them, footage of Lynn’s activities over the past few days—in his office, in the corridors, and even in the old archive room—was playing.
At the very top of the screen, a prominent title stung Lynn’s eyes:
*Lynn’s Abnormal Behavior Observation Report.*