Alpha's Regret: The Seventh Time was Forever

Chapter 32 - All you do is create chaos and destruction

A young boy, no more than six was thrashing violently in the backseat of a sleek black sedan, his small body bucking against the leather as though the car itself were his enemy.

His face was flushed a deep, painful red, tears soaking his lashes and streaking down his cheeks unchecked.

Tiny fists slammed against the seat, against the door, anywhere they could reach, his screams raw and desperate, echoing through the underground garage with a panic that clawed at the chest.

A woman stood frozen by the open door. She was dressed in immaculate designer clothes, tailored, flawless, expensive, but her composure had completely unraveled.

Her hands shook as she hovered uselessly, whispering pleas that went unheard, her face drawn tight with exhaustion and fear. Seraphine did not hesitate.

She moved instantly, her heels striking the concrete as she rushed forward, every instinct honed by years of crisis response snapping into place. Her voice, when she spoke, was calm and steady, low, controlled, grounding. "Is he injured?"

The woman shook her head quickly and lowered her sunglasses, revealing eyes rimmed red from sleepless nights and endless tears. "No... no. He has a neurologic condition, a brain injury which causes these episodes."

Her voice cracked. "There’s no cure. He screams until he exhausts himself, and nothing I do helps, nothing."

Seraphine’s chest tightened, a familiar ache blooming beneath her ribs, but training overrode emotion. She crouched beside the boy, careful not to crowd him, her presence deliberate and assured.

She spoke softly, not to silence him but to reach him, her words slow, rhythmic, paired with measured breathing meant to give his frantic body something else to follow.

guiding sensation, redirecting focus away from the storm raging inside his mind. She

faltered, and the boy’s fists loosened, fingers trembling

then slowly, miraculously, beginning to even out. The

disbelief. "How... how did you

with purpose. "I can’t prescribe directly," she said,

but they can reduce the agitation

woman accepted it like a lifeline, fingers trembling as though afraid it might vanish. Her carefully constructed composure

quiet, his storm temporarily stilled. Then she stepped back,

faint smile curving his lips, not of amusement, but recognition. This was Seraphine. He had seen her do this countless times

as the memory of her lost child struck hard, uninvited, and cruel. If only he

his chest, Seraphine was already walking away. He followed, careful to

she felt disoriented. It was her first time inside the

rose like a monolith of power,

inside seemed to move with purpose. Men and women in tailored suits walked briskly,

reception desk and approached without hesitation. "I’m

as she stared at Seraphine, clearly shocked by how casually

you," Seraphine replied, already

silent and rigid. Corvine stepped in at the last second, squeezing in unobtrusively, careful not to draw

doors opened on the ninetieth floor, the atmosphere shifted instantly. The chaos of

business attire, glasses perched neatly