“You talked to her for a long time just now.”
“Does she need you more than I do?”
The encrypted text message from Homelander was like a shard of ice pressed against Lynn’s retina.
It wasn’t a question; it was a warning.
Lynn deleted the message and leaned back in his chair, expressionless.
He knew a storm was coming, but he hadn’t expected it to arrive this quickly, this suddenly.
The office door was pushed open soundlessly.
No knock, no announcement.
Homelander, clad in his blue suit, walked straight in as if the room were his own bedroom.
A flawless smile was plastered on his face, but his blue eyes held not a single shred of warmth.
Instead of heading for the sofa, he walked directly behind Lynn’s desk and slid into the chair that should have belonged to Lynn.
It was a deeply aggressive, symbolic gesture.
He was declaring that this space, and everything within it, belonged to him.
He casually picked up a schedule for Starlight’s promotional campaign next week from the desk, flipping through it idly as if merely reviewing a routine document.
“She’s a nice girl,” Homelander said.
His voice was gentle, yet it made the air in the room begin to freeze.
“Blonde, blue eyes, from the Midwest, religious. The perfect American sweetheart, isn’t she?”
Lynn said nothing, silently watching him perform.
“Vought thinks highly of her.” Homelander set the document down, his gaze finally landing on Lynn.
“They think she can be the next Maeve, or even… attract those younger audiences who are already getting tired of me.”
He leaned forward, clasping his hands on the desk.
His smile remained unchanged, but his next question plunged in like a knife.
“What did you talk to her about?”
Lynn’s heartbeat remained steady at this moment.
He had rehearsed this exact scenario long ago.
“A routine psychological evaluation,” he replied, his tone professional and detached.
“When a new member joins the team, we need to establish an initial psychological profile to assess her adaptability to the team environment.”
Homelander smiled after hearing this.
He didn’t argue or press further, only staring at Lynn with amusement, like watching a child trying his best to lie.
“Doctor,” he whispered.
“Your heartbeat.”
Lynn’s heart clenched.
“Just now, when you answered, your heartbeat was 0.03 seconds faster than usual. And there was an imperceptible pause in the middle, like a skipped note.”
Homelander stood up, slowly stepping out from behind the desk, closing in on Lynn step by step.
“Tell me, Doctor. What made you so nervous? Are you afraid I’ll find out you leaked company secrets?”
He stopped in front of Lynn and leaned down, a dangerous, gleeful light flickering in his blue eyes.
“No, you’re not afraid of that.”
“You’re afraid I’ll discover… that you gave the attention that belongs to me to someone else.”
Raw, undisguised jealousy.
At that moment, Lynn understood completely.
Homelander didn’t care at all about what secrets he and Starlight had discussed.
He cared whether Lynn had shown Starlight the same kind of “uniqueness” reserved for him.
“Did she ask you for help?” Homelander pressed, his voice carrying a trace of offended coldness.
“Did she cry? Did she tell you how much she’s suffered here?”
“Do you think she’s pathetic too? Do you think she’s more worthy of your time to ‘save’ than I am?”
Every question backed Lynn into a tight corner.
Denying it completely would only cause his heartbeat to betray him again.
Admitting it would detonate the ticking bomb that was Homelander’s possessiveness.
Lynn’s mind raced.
He had to instantly come up with a half-truth—an answer that could explain his abnormal heartbeat while still fitting Homelander’s twisted logic.
“Yes, she did ask for help,” Lynn admitted candidly.
Homelander narrowed his eyes.
“And she did cry,” Lynn continued, injecting a subtle hint of disdain and impatience into his voice.
“She cried and told me that Vought is forcing her to wear revealing costumes and attend public relations events she hates. She feels her superhero dream has been defiled.”
He precisely mimicked the lofty attitude Homelander would have toward such matters.
Sure enough, the expression on Homelander’s face softened slightly.
He loved hearing others criticize Starlight’s “naivety.”
“People like her are a nuisance,” Lynn concluded, his heartbeat stabilizing as he spoke this half-truth.
“She still lives in an Iowa fairytale, thinking a superhero’s job is to save the world rather than save Vought’s stock price. Her brand of idealism is… an obstacle here, and a quick way to get killed.”
This assessment successfully pleased Homelander.
He even let out a soft chuckle of agreement.
“So did you help her?” Homelander pressed.
This was the final test.
“I did not,” Lynn replied flatly.
“I’m not here to save lost girls.”
“I just told her that if she wants to survive here, she needs to put away her ridiculous sense of justice. Either learn to shut up, or pack up and run back to her cornfields.”
These cold, heartless words almost perfectly dispelled Homelander’s suspicion of “wandering affections.”
Homelander smiled with satisfaction.
The coldness on his face completely melted away, and even his eyes regained that sense of intimacy that suggested “only the two of us understand.”
The crisis seemed to have been averted.
Yet, just as Lynn thought he had passed the test, Homelander suddenly asked a question he had completely failed to anticipate.
A question that had nothing to do with Starlight, nothing to do with Vought, but only with the two of them.
“What about you?” Homelander’s voice was very soft, tinged with curiosity.
Lynn’s thoughts stalled for half a second.
The question was too complex.
Save him?
How?
Save him from Vought’s control?
Save him from his own madness?
Or…
stop him when he tries to destroy the world?
Every option led to a bottomless abyss.
He needed time to think.
But this half-second hesitation was infinitely magnified before Homelander’s supercomputer-like senses.
It wasn’t thought.
It was hesitation.
The smile on Homelander’s face vanished instantly.
Replacing it was an unbelievable coldness and fury, like someone who had just been stabbed in the back by the person they trusted most.
“You hesitated.”
He said, his voice not loud, yet sounding like a death sentence.
“I asked if you would save me… and you actually hesitated.”
All of his previous suspicions and jealousy found an outlet at this moment.
He equated Lynn’s hesitation directly to betrayal—to abandonment.
Before Lynn could react, an irresistible, colossal force suddenly seized his throat.
In the next second, the world spun.
“Bang!”
Lynn was slammed hard against the cold wall, his feet instantly leaving the ground.
Homelander’s hand was like a steel vise, locking tightly around his neck.
The immense force made his cervical spine groan under the unbearable weight.
Suffocation and intense pain rushed in simultaneously.
Homelander’s godlike, handsome face pressed close to his.
Those blue eyes were filled with the madness of betrayal and a desire for destruction.
“You’ll leave too,” he growled in a low voice, like a wounded beast.
“You’re all the same!”
Just as Lynn’s consciousness began to blur from the lack of oxygen, the cold system prompt exploded in his mind with an unprecedented red alert.
[Warning: Target’s core abandonment trauma has been triggered!]
[Warning: Target’s killing intent has locked onto the host!]
[Survival Protocol activated…]
[Death Countdown: 30 seconds.]