The next two weeks were strange.
The hunters didn't make another move. No texts. No black sedans. No cold presences in the back of Aarav's mind.
But the silence felt wrong.
Like the stillness before a storm.
Kavya was more alert than ever. She changed her routines daily. Stopped using her phone. Stopped going home at predictable times.
"I'm staying with my grandmother," she said when Aarav asked. "But I don't tell her when I'm coming or going. It's safer that way."
"For her or for you?"
"Both."
They continued to meet. Continued to train. Continued to learn each other's abilities.
Kavya taught Aarav how to project thoughts—not strongly, not like she could, but enough to send a whisper across a room.
"Use it sparingly," she warned. "The more you do it, the more traces you leave. And the hunters can track traces."
"Traces?"
"Mental residue. Like footprints in snow. Most people can't see them. But the hunters... they have technology. Ways of finding us that we don't understand."
"What kind of technology?"
She shook her head. "I don't know. I've never gotten close enough to find out."
At night, Aarav lay in bed and thought about her.
Not just about the danger.
About her.
The way she laughed when she thought no one was watching. The way she bit her lip when she was concentrating. The way her eyes softened when she looked at him, just for a second, before the mask went back up.
He was falling for her.
He knew it.
He didn't care.