*Trigger warnings* severe physical trauma, physical abuse, torture, domestic abuse, brainwashing, graphic descriptions of violence
I feel her before I hear the alarms again.
It's not the kind of feeling they trained me for—the kind they wanted me to act on like a hound with blood on its nose. This is older. Deeper. A part of me I thought they'd beaten out of me, burned out of me, drugged and broken and rewired until nothing was left.
But it still rises.
Like grief.
No—it is grief.
Heavy and cold and dragging like chains across the floor of my mind. It coils around my chest, clutches my spine like fingers I recognize too well to mistake. It isn't just her power I'm feeling—it's her. She's here. Somewhere in the building. Close enough to be bleeding through the seams of the walls and into my head.
Ardere.
And just like that, all of their work—the endless conditioning, the pain, the whispered lies on loop in the dark, the mimics, the simulations—kicks in like instinct.
My hands curl. My body tenses. My vision begins to white out as the command flips in my brain like a switch.
Kill her.
That's what they taught me. That's what they made me believe. That the only way to save her is to hurt her. That the danger isn't the world or the war or the scientists—it's me. And if I don't act first, she dies. If I don't strike, she won't survive.
That's the thought that digs into the softest part of my brain like a parasite with claws. And the worst part?
It feels right.
Like instinct.
Like survival.
Like love, weaponized and stripped of everything gentle.
I grip the edge of the cot, but it's not enough. The metal groans under the pressure of my grip. The walls of the cell feel like they're pulsing, my own heartbeat syncing with the proximity of her emotions. Panic. Sadness. A grief she's trying to hide but can't.
Of course she's here to save me.
Of course I want her to.
But I also know… if she opens that door—if she so much as steps foot in front of me—
I don't know what I'll do.
The worst part is: I think I'll smile while doing it. Because they made it feel like salvation. Like mercy.
And I can't trust myself to know the difference anymore.
I press my palms into my eyes until colors explode behind them. Anything to replace the phantom memory of her face the last time I saw her. Or the mimic's last breath, still etched in my mind like it belonged to her.
I whisper, through clenched teeth, through the cold metal taste of my own guilt,
"Don't find me, Ardere. Please—don't find me."
First it's the sound of gunfire.
Short, controlled bursts. Precision shots. Lysander.
Then comes the scrape of boots dragging bodies, the wet thud of impact against metal or wall. And behind it all, that unmistakable cadence of Riven's voice: dry and amused, like this is all just a mildly inconvenient errand he's running.
"Should've brought a leash for you, Lys. That was the last one we needed alive."
A pause. A body slams against something hard.
"Oh well."
Closer.
Their presence moves through the hallway like heat—boiling toward me. And under it, deeper than all the chaos, like a slow-spreading rot, is her.
I can feel her.
Ardere.
Her grief hits like a storm front: sorrow tangled with guilt, tangled with love, tangled with hope. It's all there.
And it's killing me.
Because everything inside me is screaming that I need to hurt her.
Not because I want to—but because I have to. Because that's what they taught me. That's what they broke me down to believe.
She gets close, I end her.
That's how I save her.
My heart slams against my ribs, harder than it should. I can't breathe.
My hands start to shake—then seize—then burn. Energy pools in my veins, crawling under my skin like it's alive, thriving off the conflict. I shove my fists against the walls like that might stop it, like I can force it out into the concrete.
I don't want to hurt her.
I don't.
But the closer she gets, the more it feels like I already have.
Boots skid against the floor.
Riven's voice again, louder this time: "You might want to hang back, Ardere. He might not be exactly himself right now."
No.
No, please don't let her come any closer.
Lysander says something—muffled. He sounds tense. They all do.
Even Riven, who only gets that tone when he knows shit's about to break loose.
My vision goes white at the edges.
My power flares, triggered by her presence—her emotions. My own.
They taught me to destroy the thing I loved.
To watch her flinch and believe I was saving her.
A sob claws up my throat, but I bite it down, cracking a tooth against the pressure. I dig my nails into my arms, hoping pain will reset me. But it doesn't. It never does.
She's closer now.
I can feel it like a second heartbeat.
I press myself against the wall, fingers clawing at the concrete like I can somehow peel myself out of this skin, this body, this weapon they made me into. I want to scream. I want to cry. I want to beg her not to come. I want to reach out and hold her.
But what if I touch her and she dies?
The lock outside scrapes.
A panel beeps.
I close my eyes, praying for once in my damn life that I'm alone.
That she doesn't find me.
That she never opens that door.
Because if she does…
If I see her—
I don't know which one of us I'll kill first.
The door clicks.
It opens with a soft hiss of hydraulics, and for a second—just one breathless, godless second—everything stops. The red lights circling the ceiling fade into a dull background pulse. The flickering hum of alarms outside doesn't reach in here. Even my heartbeat halts, suspended in the impossible silence that stretches between me and—
Her.
Ardere.
She's standing in the doorway.
God, she's here.
She's smaller than I remember. Or maybe I'm just larger now—thicker, broader, carved into something meant to hurt. Her silhouette is rimmed in the hallway light, tangled hair pulled back, bruises peeking from her collar. Her face is streaked with grime and something darker. Her mouth is parted, eyes locked on me.
Her grief slams into me like a tsunami. That familiar pressure behind my ribs. That sinking weight in my gut. I feel her—the real her. That grief-forged power she's always tried to hide, now flooding the room like it has nowhere else to go. No disguise. No shield. Just her, raw and open.
I flinch away, shackled though I am, as if her presence alone burns me. Every cell in me screams to be near her. But every wire they've twisted through my head tells me to end her.
My breathing is already ragged. My wrists twist against the cuffs even though they've gone dead cold.
"Dorian…" she says.
One word. Soft. Breaking. Like she's not sure if she's allowed to say it.
"Ardere," Riven hisses behind her, his voice sharp and tense, "do not go in that room. I'm not saying that shit again."
But she doesn't listen. Of course she doesn't. She takes one step inside, then another, slow and deliberate, her hands lifted slightly like she's approaching a wounded animal.
Because I am.
Because she sees it.
"It's okay," she says gently, her voice wobbling. "I'm here. You're okay, baby, I've got you."
My hands twitch. My fingers curl, pulse hammering as heat crawls up my spine. She's close. Too close.
I can't hear Riven or Lysander anymore. Just her. Just the pulse of her power and mine responding like a snare being tripped.
"Don't come closer," I manage to choke out. My voice doesn't sound like mine. It sounds mechanical, shredded at the edges. "You need to leave."
She keeps moving forward. Her eyes are glassy. "No. I'm not leaving you. Not again. I told you I'd find you."
My arms strain against the restraints. The burn in my skull turns white-hot. I bite down hard enough to taste copper.
They told me what to do.
What she was.
What she would try.
If she comes to you, she's already been compromised.
If she speaks to you, she's trying to override your programming.
You must neutralize the threat immediately.
"I said get out!" I roar, panic and rage colliding inside me like colliding stars. I don't recognize my own voice. My own self. My power crackles in the air, a sickening charge that makes the walls vibrate.
She freezes, but doesn't run.
And that's the last straw.
The conditioning overtakes me like a tide, snapping everything into place. My muscles tense with clarity, my mind locking onto one objective: eliminate the threat. Eliminate the threat. Eliminate the threat.
My body moves on its own.
They wired me to kill this voice.
I launch forward.
She flinches too slow. I slam her into the wall, hard enough to rattle the room. I don't even hear the scream that leaves her throat—I'm already pressing my forearm across it, watching her mouth gape, watching her fingers claw at me.
She tries to use her powers—I feel that grief surge again like a crashing wave—but it only spurs me on. My elbow crashes into her ribs. Again. And again. I hear something give.
She coughs blood. I don't stop.
My knee drives into her stomach. My fists slam into her face. Each hit comes faster than the last. I pin her by the throat, her feet off the ground, her eyes rolling back—
She's going to die.
She's going to die by my hands.
That should hurt. That should break me.
But all I feel is heat and the sick satisfaction of following orders.
"Dorian—!"
Riven's voice. Sharp. Angry.
I don't turn.
The sharp crack of a gunshot rings out.
Fire rips through my leg.
I drop.
A scream explodes from my mouth as I collapse sideways, grip loosening. Ardere falls with me, limp and gasping, blood dripping from her mouth. She curls in on herself, shaking.
Before I can reach her again, hands grab my collar and haul me back.
"Jesus—!" Riven snarls, wrestling me off the ground. "You were gonna kill her, you lunatic!"
I twist in his grip, teeth bared, snarling like a rabid dog. My hands swipe for Ardere again—but now Lysander's on top of me too, slamming me down with his knee in my spine.
I hear Ardere cough weakly.
I hear her whimper my name.
And I don't stop fighting.
Because all I want…
is to finish the job.
It slows me, but not enough. I slam my shoulder into him, feel the air leave his lungs, and I'm already twisting toward Riven before the man can get his second shot off. Riven's on me in a flash, teeth bared like he's ready to take a chunk out of my throat, and I meet him with a knee to the gut that knocks him back. He recovers quick, too quick, and his hands are on me again, clawing for a hold. But my body moves the way it's been taught—fast, efficient, brutal. I throw him off like dead weight.
They're nothing but obstacles. Distractions between me and her.
Ardere's on the floor, coughing, eyes glassy but still locked on me like I'm something worth saving. That makes it worse. My instincts snarl against the sight. My kill drive is screaming now, so loud it drowns out everything else.
I lunge. Her hands come up—too slow. My weight pins her before she can crawl away. My fingers find her throat again, pressing hard enough to feel her pulse fluttering under my grip. Her skin is warm. Her breath is ragged. She's not fighting back the way she should.
"Dorian—" she croaks, but her voice is just noise, just another weakness for me to cut out of the world.
Then Riven's on my back, dragging at my arms, cursing, and Lysander's aiming again—
But I'm already twisting to throw Riven into the wall and reach for her one more time.
My weight pins her.
Her spine arches beneath me, a ragged breath torn from her throat as I slam her to the floor. My hand closes around her neck again, tighter this time, knuckles white with effort. She gasps—a wet, broken sound—and her fingers scrabble at my wrist, too weak to pry me off.
Her eyes.
Still on me.
Still believing.
That makes it worse.
I shove her head back against the floor—crack—and the sound goes through me like a signal flare, like a reward. She twitches, barely conscious, blood in her teeth.
She tries to speak.
I don't let her.
My fist smashes into her jaw—once, twice—then her cheek, then her temple. Her head rocks sideways, dark streaks smearing the ground. She doesn't scream anymore. Just breathes, shallow and choking.
Her body tries to curl in again, that last pathetic instinct to protect her organs. I don't let her.
I grip her by the hair and drag her up far enough to ram my knee into her ribs. Once. Twice. Three times. Each hit lands with a sickening crunch. She folds like paper. I slam her down again.
The floor shudders.
Something wet and warm spatters my face.
I don't stop.
She coughs—it's a thick, gurgling sound—and I hit her again, just to shut it up. My fist connects with her ribs, her shoulder, her throat, whatever I can reach. I feel bone shift under my knuckles. She doesn't even raise her arms anymore.
I should stop.
I don't.
Her face is a ruin now. Blood slicks her mouth, her nose, down her neck where I crushed her windpipe a minute ago. Her eyelids flutter but don't close. She's still watching me. Still looking at me like I'm something she knows, something she loves.
I snarl. That word is poison.
I grab her again, fingers digging into her sides, and slam her back into the floor so hard the air leaves her lungs in a pitiful wheeze. Her head lolls. Her chest barely moves. Her blood pools beneath her, sticky and thick against my knees.
And still I want to hurt her.
The command pulses like a heartbeat.
Eliminate the threat.
Eliminate the threat.
Eliminate—
I lift her again by the collar of her ruined shirt. Her feet drag limp. Her arms hang dead.
I don't care.
I smash her into the wall. Once. Twice. A third time. Blood sprays like paint from her mouth. Her head cracks back against the paneling and leaves a dark smear on the metal.
I choke her again.
No fight left. Just tremors in her limbs. Her fingers twitch once against my chest like she's trying to remember how to hold me. Like she thinks I'm still in here.
But I'm not.
I press harder. I feel her pulse stutter beneath my grip. Her lips part. A sound escapes—a whisper, a name.
My name.
That's when the lights go funny.
Not the room—me.
The world tips. My hands loosen. My arms tremble.
And then everything locks.
My legs give out first. Then my back arches the wrong way, nerves firing wildly as a new pain drills into the base of my skull. Hot. Electric. Blinding.
My vision whites out.
I stagger, let go of her. The floor lurches.
Then my knees hit metal.
Then my face.
Then—
dark.
****
The first thing I feel is the restraints.
Thick leather and steel. Ankles, wrists, across my chest. Tight. Unforgiving. Bolted into something old—a gurney, maybe. Something meant for dead men or prisoners.
My eyes snap open to dim, humming fluorescents overhead. Concrete walls. Rusted shelves. A red biohazard bin in the corner. Medical supplies in old crates. Something drips nearby—water or blood, I can't tell.
My breath shudders out of me.
No windows.
No clocks.
No escape.
It's not a lab, but my body doesn't know that yet.
I jerk against the straps. Panic surges hot and fast through my limbs.
Strapped down. Alone. Cold. Vulnerable.
I've been here before. I've been remade in places like this.
My lungs seize. I thrash, wild, trying to tear free. The gurney rocks, metal legs scraping the floor. The strap across my chest crushes down harder.
No no no—
I bite down a scream.
The door opens.
Footsteps. Slow. Heavy. Familiar.
My pulse spikes—then plummets like a stone.
Lysander.
He doesn't say anything at first. Just stands in the doorway, watching.
And when he finally speaks, it's not to greet me.
"Hairline skull fracture," he says flatly.
My eyes snap to him. My mouth goes dry.
He steps into the room, boots thudding softly against old tile. His sleeves are rolled to the elbow. His knuckles are bruised.
"She's concussed. Might have memory gaps when she wakes up—if she wakes up." He says it like it's a dare. Like if she doesn't, he's coming back in here to finish what I started.
My heart tries to lodge in my throat.
"She has a fractured cheekbone. One tooth shattered. Split lip, split brow. You got her good on both sides of the face. Real even distribution."
He keeps coming. Closer. Still calm. Still slow.
"Three cracked ribs. One fully broken. Intercostal tearing. You know how much force that takes, Dorian? You have any goddamn idea?"
I say nothing.
"You stomped her. That's what the pattern says. You knocked her down and kept going. Like she was nothing. Like she was trash on a battlefield."
He's next to the gurney now. I can see his eyes—those same eyes she has. But hers are soft. Warm.
His are burning.
"She pissed blood for ten minutes. We didn't even notice at first. Thought it was just the blood from her mouth. Turns out you bruised her kidney so bad we almost lost her from internal bleeding before we stopped her throat from collapsing."
I flinch.
He leans down, face inches from mine.
"You crushed her windpipe. Her voice—when it comes back—will never sound the same again."
My throat tightens. "Lys—"
He slams his hand down beside my head. Not on me. Not yet.
"Don't say my name. You don't get to use it. You don't get to look at me like you're sorry. You're not sorry. You're scared."
My body goes still.
He straightens. Paces a few feet, then turns back. The fury in him is sharp enough to make the air buzz.
"Dislocated shoulder. Broken wrist. Defensive wounds all up her arms. You know what that means? She tried to protect herself. She tried to block your hits and you broke through her."
My chest heaves. The straps cut into my ribs. I feel sick.
"Her face is unrecognizable," he says quietly. "Her eyes were still open when I got to her. She was choking on her own blood, but she was still watching you. Still reaching for you."
He looks at me like I'm less than human.
"Her power's in chaos now. It's eating her from the inside because she used it to try and reach you, and all you did was beat her down harder for it."
"I didn't—" I choke, "I didn't want to—"
"But you did."
He steps in again, right up to the gurney. "You tore her apart like you wanted her gone. Like she was an insect crawling under your skin. Like she meant nothing."
He lets that hang there.
"You were conscious the whole time. Fully aware. You said her name. You heard her say yours. You looked in her eyes—my sister's eyes—and you kept. Going."
He breathes in slow. Exhales slower.
"You don't come back from this. I don't care what kind of programming you've been through. I don't care what kind of sob story you want to spin about being a lab rat. You could've stopped. You could've hesitated. You didn't."
He leans in one last time. His voice drops to a whisper, venomous and cold.
"You're not tied down because we're afraid you'll run. You're tied down because if she dies—I'm going to finish what she couldn't. And I don't want you getting away."
The door creaks again.
Lysander doesn't flinch. He hasn't moved since he finished tearing me apart, hasn't taken his eyes off me. He's been watching—silent, still, dangerous. Like he's just waiting for a reason to break something else.
So when the door opens, I brace for another round from him.
But it's not just him now.
Riven walks in.
And the air changes.
Usually, Riven enters a room like he owns it—or like he couldn't care less about who does. He walks like a problem. Talks like a punchline. Always distant, always unpredictable.
But this?
This version of him?
He's focused.
And pissed.
He shuts the door gently, hands in his pockets, shoulders relaxed in that same loose, easy way that usually means he's about to ruin someone's day for fun.
But there's no fun here.
His eyes find me immediately.
And they don't let go.
"I was gonna stay out of it," he says casually. "Didn't see the point. You'd get screamed at, maybe get sedated. Everyone would cry, someone would break something—whatever."
He strolls halfway into the room. Lysander doesn't even glance at him. His arms are still crossed. His eyes still locked on me.
Riven circles the gurney slowly.
"But then I saw her."
He stops.
He looks down at me like I'm something stuck to his boot.
"You know I don't give a shit about most people, right?" he says. "Not in a cold, tragic backstory way. Just genuinely—don't care. Can't care. Don't have the parts for it."
He taps his temple.
"Antisocial personality disorder. Official diagnosis. Real charming stuff."
He shrugs, smirking without humor.
"But when I saw her—sprawled out on that floor like roadkill, eyes barely open, face so mangled I almost didn't recognize her…"
His expression darkens.
"…even I felt something."
My stomach twists.
He leans down over me. Close enough that I can smell the faint copper tang of dried blood on his shirt.
"You made me feel something, Dorian. That's impressive. That's rare. That's a fucking achievement."
I try to look away.
Lysander's voice cuts in—low and sharp. "Don't."
I freeze.
"Eyes front," Riven says, voice soft and mocking. "You don't get to look away from what you did."
He straightens. His gaze burns hotter now, not with fury—with disappointment.
"You weren't some glitched-out puppet," he says. "You knew who she was. You said her name. You heard her say yours. And you still went full slaughter mode."
I close my eyes.
Wrong move.
Lysander steps forward, the sudden weight of his presence making the gurney feel smaller, tighter. He doesn't speak. Just stands there, so close I can feel the heat rolling off him.
Riven doesn't stop.
"She's in the other room right now with a machine helping her breathe. That's your legacy. That's what you left behind."
He starts listing again, voice quiet and sharp like a scalpel.
"Concussion. Skull fracture. Kidney damage. Ruptured capillaries in both eyes. Throat almost crushed. She might never talk again, by the way—Lys didn't mention that part."
Lysander still says nothing. Just clenches his jaw.
Riven keeps going.
"Half her ribs are cracked or broken. Her face looks like someone took a hammer to it. And her power? It's unraveling. You didn't just break her body. You scrambled the core of her."
I feel every word like a nail being driven into my spine.
"You think you're the victim?" Riven sneers. "Think it's tragic? That you were 'triggered'?"
He steps in close again.
"I don't care."
His voice drops to a whisper.
"You touched someone I actually give a damn about. That makes you nothing to me."
Lysander moves at last—just one step forward. He stares down at me like a verdict, unspoken and final.
"You should've killed her," Riven says. "Because if she doesn't wake up…"
He nods toward Lysander.
"…he's going to bury you. And I'm going to help."
"Wait," I rasp, my voice shredded and thick. "Wait, just—just let me explain."
Footsteps pause.
Lysander turns halfway.
Riven stops mid-stride. His hand is still on the door.
Neither of them speak.
"I didn't want to hurt her," I say quickly, tripping over my words, breath coming too fast. "They rewired me in that lab, Lys. They cut into my head. Burned through memory centers, pain circuits—they turned her into a command."
No one moves.
I push harder.
"I was awake the whole time. I saw what they did. I felt it. The electrodes. The neuro-gating. They built fail-safes, override loops—there's code in my brain that makes me see her as a threat if she gets too close. That's why I—"
Wrong.
Fucking.
Move.
Lysander is on me in two strides.
He grabs my shirt, fists it, and slams me back against the gurney so hard the frame rattles.
"You think this is a tech issue?" he snarls, face inches from mine. "You think you get to run your mouth about wires and code while she's in the next room breathing through a machine?"
"I'm trying to tell you what they did to me," I gasp.
"No, you're trying to wash your hands of it."
He's shaking with rage now. Not screaming. Seething. The kind of rage that simmers just under the surface until it erupts like napalm.
"She came in there to save you," he growls. "She walked into hell because she thought there was still a piece of you worth saving. And you're standing here saying, 'Oops, my bad, guess the lab flipped a switch in my brain'?"
I try to speak—he cuts me off with a shove that nearly knocks the gurney over.
"You beat my sister half to death. Don't you dare make this about you."
Behind him, Riven's still by the door. He hasn't moved. But the look on his face is different now—dark, disappointed, done.
"I'm not making excuses," I choke out. "I'm trying to explain why I couldn't stop—"
"You could have," Lysander snarls. "You chose not to."
He grabs my face suddenly—fingers digging into my jaw.
"She said your name, Dorian. She looked at you like you were hers. And you watched the light leave her eyes while you crushed her lungs. That's not programming. That's you."
I shake my head. "No, it wasn't me. I didn't want to—"
He releases me. Steps back.
And then comes the worst part:
He laughs.
A hollow, bitter, dead laugh.
"God, you really don't get it, do you?" he says, staring down at me like something pathetic. "You think I care about what you wanted?"
Silence.
"You want to be the victim so bad? Fine. Stay strapped to this bed and cry about it. But the second you open your mouth and say her name again like it still belongs to you—"
He leans in one last time, voice like steel.
"—I will shut you up permanently."
He walks out.
Riven follows. But before he goes, he stops at the threshold, one hand on the frame. He doesn't even look at me.
"Next time you try to explain yourself," he says, voice flat, "make sure there's someone left who gives a shit."
Then the door shuts.
And I lie there alone.
Mouth bloodied.
Wrist raw.
No one left listening.
—
The silence is a living thing.
It's crawling over my skin, curling into my throat, suffocating me with every second I'm left alone with it.
But worse than the quiet… are the sounds that break it.
Not screaming. Not sobbing.
Just machines.
A hiss of oxygen.
A faint rhythmic beep.
Monitors, tubes, wires—everything keeping her alive.
Barely.
She hasn't woken up.
Not once.
Her heartbeat falters sometimes. Drops, catches, then stutters back into rhythm like it's trying to remember what it's supposed to do.
And every time it skips a beat, I stop breathing altogether.
I can hear them in the other room—Riven and Lysander.
They're still working. Still fighting for her.
I shouldn't be able to hear what they're saying, but the walls here are thin, and maybe that's on purpose.
Maybe this is part of the punishment.
"BP's dropping again," Riven says. His voice is too calm. That kind of calm that only comes from people who've seen too much death to bother panicking anymore. "Another point five. Oxygen saturation's unstable."
"She just needs more time," Lysander snaps back.
I wince at the sound of his voice. He hasn't come in here again since the last time.
I'm not sure I want him to.
"She's not responding to the paralytics," Riven says. "Her systems are shutting down. Her body's overwhelmed."
"She just needs more time."
Silence.
Then Riven again. This time, quieter. Careful.
"Lys…"
The way he says it, I know what's coming before he says the words.
"You need to prepare yourself."
"For what?" Lysander's voice is sharp. Defensive.
"She's not stabilizing. Her vitals are erratic. If she makes it through the night—if—she's going to crash into a coma."
No.
My whole chest seizes.
"No," Lysander says, echoing the scream in my head. "She's not."
"She has trauma in every major organ system. Her brain is hemorrhaging. She's—"
"She's strong," Lysander cuts him off. "She's stronger than any of us."
"She's dying," Riven says flatly.
Those two words slice something open in me.
Silence again.
The kind that makes it hard to breathe.
"You think I want to say that to you?" Riven's voice is rough now. "You think I don't want to believe she'll wake up tomorrow and tell us we're all idiots for hovering over her? But we have to be ready."
"She's not going to die," Lysander says again. Quieter this time. Almost like he's talking to himself. "She's not going into a coma. She's going to wake up. She's going to wake up."
I want to believe him.
God, I want to believe him.
But I remember what I did.
I see it—every time I blink.
Her body, limp and broken beneath my hands.
The way her ribs caved under the weight of mine.
The blood.
****
I don't know how long it's been.
There's no clock in here.
No windows.
Only the machines.
And her.
I can't see her. But I can hear her—just barely. The failing rhythm of her heart, echoing from the next room.
Each irregular beep is a countdown.
Each breath sounds like it might be the last.
She's not getting better.
No one says it out loud anymore, but the silence tells the truth louder than any scream ever could.
Then—
A sound I've never heard before.
At first I think it's some mechanical failure. Some busted piece of equipment breaking down.
But it's not.
It's human.
It's Lysander.
At first it's a stifled sound. Like something broke loose from deep inside and he couldn't catch it in time.
Then another.
And another.
Soft, ragged sobs.
Getting sharper.
Worse.
It's like hearing the foundation of a mountain crack.
Like something that was never supposed to fall is finally caving in.
Lysander—the one who never wavers, who holds everyone else up—is falling apart. Right there in the next room.
Because of me.
Because of what I did.
I try to turn my face, but the restraints dig into my skin. I can't move much. I just stare up at the ceiling, biting the inside of my cheek hard enough to taste blood.
I don't get to cry.
Not when I'm the reason he's breaking.
Not when I'm the reason she might not survive the night.
The door to my room slides open.
I don't look.
I already know it's not Lysander.
It's Riven.
He steps inside, silent as a shadow, shutting the door behind him with too much care. Like he didn't want to make a sound. Like maybe noise might tip Lysander even further over the edge.
Riven doesn't speak right away.
He doesn't even look at me.
He just stands near the wall, arms crossed, his jaw clenched so tight I can see the twitch in his cheek from here.
He's not here for me.
He came to give Lysander space to fall apart.
The silence stretches.
Then, finally, Riven says, voice clipped and low:
"Her liver's failing."
I shut my eyes. My lungs turn to stone.
"She has two liters of blood pooled in her abdominal cavity," he goes on. "We can't operate. Not with the head trauma."
My throat closes.
"She's still bleeding internally. And the pressure in her skull keeps climbing. If it doesn't stop soon…"
He doesn't finish.
He doesn't have to.
I can feel the rest of that sentence like it's carved into my skin.
"She won't wake up," I whisper. "Will she?"
He doesn't answer.
He just lets the silence do it for him.
After a moment, he adds, quieter this time—flat, clinical:
"She has a punctured lung. Five broken ribs. Her right kidney is done. And the swelling in her brain isn't responding to anything."
Another pause.
Then:
"She's not conscious. But her body's still reacting to pain."
I flinch.
Like that could somehow soften the truth.
Riven's gaze finally lands on me. Hard. Empty.
"If her brain herniates," he says, "she won't survive the hour."
I try to speak.
Try to explain.
"She—she looked like someone else. I wasn't—I didn't mean to hurt—"
"Shut the fuck up."
Not a shout.
Just a razor across my throat.
He steps closer. No heat in his eyes. No chaos. Just disgust.
"You don't get to talk about what you meant," he says. "Not after what you did."
He stands over me for a beat longer, then finally turns and drops into a chair in the corner.
Still. Cold. Watching.
Not me.
The door.
Listening, in case Lysander starts to break again.
And in the next room, I hear another breath hitch.
A sound of grief wrenched from somewhere deep.
Lysander's crying again.
And I've never felt more fucking worthless in my life.
"I hope she doesn't wake up."
The words are so calm. So matter-of-fact, that I almost don't register what he said at first.
My breath catches. I turn my head slightly, straining against the restraints.
"What?"
Riven doesn't look at me.
His voice stays level. Still. Like he's discussing the weather.
"I hope she doesn't wake up."
The quiet finality of it slams into me harder than Lysander's fists ever did.
"You—you don't mean that—"
"I do."
Now he turns his head, eyes locking on mine.
Flat. Cold. Icy.
"But not because I want her to die."
He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees, fingers interlaced like he's trying to keep them from shaking.
"She's the closest thing I've ever had to family. The one person who gave a shit when I didn't even know how to want that. She stuck with me when I pushed everyone else away. She fought for me when I didn't deserve it."
His jaw tightens. Something flickers in his face—raw and broken—but he forces it back down.
"So no. I don't want her to die."
Another pause.
"But waking up in that body? With those injuries? With the kind of permanent damage she's going to have? That's not survival. That's cruelty."
I don't want to hear this.
I shake my head, eyes burning. "No. She's strong. She's the strongest person we—"
"That's not the point."
He's on his feet now, and I finally see the real fury beneath the calm.
"Do you have any idea what it's like to wake up and not recognize your own body? To be trapped inside it, knowing it'll never be what it was? Knowing every breath you take is pain? Every second you're alive is a reminder that something was taken from you?"
I can't speak. I don't think I should speak.
"She didn't just get beat down," Riven says, and now his voice is razor-sharp. "You destroyed her spine. You crushed organs she needs to live. You might've done damage to her brain that we can't fix. If she ever wakes up, she's not going to be the same. She's going to be stuck in a body that barely works, in a world where you did this to her—and she'll remember everything."
His voice drops, hoarse now. Quiet.
"And I wouldn't wish that on her. Not after everything she's already survived."
Silence drops like an avalanche.
I feel like I can't breathe.
I feel like I'm going to burst out of my own skin.
"I'll give her my kidneys."
Riven doesn't even glance at me.
"I'm serious," I say, louder this time, straining against the restraints. "My liver. Lungs. Bone marrow. Spinal fluid. Whatever the hell she needs, take it from me."
He doesn't answer.
"I hurt her. I broke her. But I'm still here. Still breathing. If there's any part of me—any goddamn part—that can be used to fix what I did, then take it. Cut it out of me. Let her have it."
Still nothing.
"Please," I whisper. "Please. I don't care if it kills me."
That finally gets a response.
Riven laughs.
Not a belly laugh. Not even a real chuckle.
Just a single, sharp exhale—mocking, bitter—like someone just told him the saddest joke in the world.
He stands again, slowly.
Turns to face me with an expression that says he's done pretending there's anything left to salvage.
"That's not how this works, Dorian."
I stare at him, eyes burning.
"I mean it—"
"I know you do. That's what makes it so pathetic."
He steps closer, just enough to loom over me. Not threatening—just crushing.
"You think this is a movie? Some noble self-sacrifice is going to make it better? You think you can throw your guts on a table and suddenly we forget what you did to her?"
"I'm trying to help—"
"No. You're trying to absolve yourself. Big difference."
His voice hardens, low and cutting.
"She doesn't need your organs. She needed you not to tear her apart in the first place."
The words knock the air out of me.
He doesn't stop.
"Even if we could take every last piece of you and stitch it into her like some twisted patchwork miracle, it wouldn't change what happened. She'd still wake up knowing it was your hands that put her in that bed."
He steps back, eyes raking over me with pure contempt.
"You want to help her?"
I nod, frantic. "Yes—yes, anything—"
"Then shut the fuck up. Stay tied down. And pray to whatever god you believe in that she never opens her eyes and has to see you again."
Riven doesn't wait for my reply.
He turns and leaves.
—
I wake up to the sound of silence.
But it's not the peaceful kind.
It's that heavy, suffocating quiet that comes after chaos. Like the world's holding its breath.
The restraints are still tight around my wrists, my shoulders aching from sleeping in the same fixed position all night. My mouth is dry. My head feels like it's packed with sand and broken glass.
I blink.
Slowly.
And that's when I see him.
Lysander.
He's standing at the foot of the cot. Still. Silent. Watching.
The light filtering through the old blinds cuts across his face, and I can see everything now in brutal clarity.
He didn't sleep.
His eyes are bloodshot.
His jaw is unshaven.
His shirt is soaked in something I'm too afraid to identify.
And in his hands—gripped too tightly to be calm—are tools.
Surgical ones.
Wires. Electrodes. A drill. A cortical inhibitor.
My stomach turns.
"…Lysander?"
He doesn't answer right away.
His eyes are on me, but not really on me. He's looking at a problem. A threat. Something that needs fixing or removing.
Something broken.
His voice, when it comes, is quiet. Flat. Shredded at the edges.
"She made it through the night."
I swallow, nodding. "That's… good."
"She hasn't woken up."
He steps closer.
"But she's alive. And that's more than any of us expected after what you did to her."
There's no fire in his tone. No outburst.
Just raw, hollow exhaustion.
I see his fingers flex slightly on the cord of the neural drill.
"And the only reason she might stay alive," he says, "is if I make sure you never hurt her again."
My heart skips. "Lys—"
"Whatever they did to your brain," he says, stepping even closer, "whatever programming, override, impulse—whatever made you look at my sister and choose to tear her apart—I'm going to rip it out of you."
He raises the drill slightly.
Even unpowered, the gleam of metal is enough to make my blood run cold.
"You don't get a choice," he says. "This isn't for you."
I shake my head, panicked. "Wait—listen. You don't understand. It wasn't just programming—they used trauma loops, pain-paired commands, conditioning I can't even remember—if you cut into the wrong part—"
"I don't care."
His voice is a snap of lightning in the air.
And for the first time, he drops the tired mask.
"You're a weapon," he snarls. "One that put Ardere in a coma. And until I'm sure that part of you is gone, completely, you're never going near her again. Not conscious. Not whole."
I stare at him.
His hand trembles slightly on the drill, and I realize—
He's not doing this out of vengeance.
He's doing it because he's desperate.
Because Ardere is all he has left, and this—this violation of my mind—is the only thing he can control.
"If you do this—" I whisper, "—you could break me."
Lysander stares down at me.
"I'm counting on it."
I feel the moment it starts.
There's a cold pressure at the base of my skull—a sterile burn that bleeds behind my eyes and into my spine. The machines hum louder. The restraints dig into my skin as my body flinches on instinct.
But I can't move.
Can't scream.
Can't breathe.
The world flickers.
One second, I'm here—
Lysander leaning over me, face cut from stone.
Riven somewhere in the corner, arms crossed, not intervening, not stopping him.
My vision swimming.
Then—
Gone.
I come back gasping. My chest arches off the cot—white fire flooding my brainstem.
Everything is too bright.
Too loud.
Too sharp.
I feel Lysander's hand braced on my forehead. Holding me still. Forcing me to stay under.
He's saying something, but I can't understand. My ears are full of static and ringing and the sound of my own brain trying to short-circuit.
The drill whirs.
Something presses into my temple.
Oh god—oh god, not again—
Darkness again.
A flash.
A sound like glass breaking underwater.
Memories flooding back—too fast, too loud, too wrong.
The lab.
The chair.
The way they trained me to kill.
Ardere screaming.
Blood on my hands.
My body moving without my permission.
I want to claw out of my own skull.
I wake up choking on the taste of metal.
Lysander's face is inches from mine. His eyes are wild. Glassy.
"There it is," he mutters. "That's the sector. Limbic tie to visual identifiers. It lights up only when you see her."
His voice fractures.
"You were wired to kill her on sight. Like an execution order—triggered by proximity. By emotion. You didn't stand a chance."
He says it like it's a fact. Not forgiveness.
Then he shoves something cold deeper into the side of my head and everything explodes behind my eyes.
I scream.
I think I scream.
I'm not sure anymore.
The pain doesn't feel real—just color and fire and sound. Like someone turned me into a radio tuned only to static and panic.
Memories unravel.
Names. Faces. Feelings.
All coming undone.
I lose time again.
The next time I wake up, I'm sobbing.
I don't even remember why.
There's blood in my mouth. My nose. My ears.
Lysander is still there.
His gloves are soaked. His shoulders are hunched. He looks like a man who clawed his way through hell and didn't make it back whole.
"You'll live," he mutters.
I can barely hear him over the sound of my pulse roaring in my skull.
"You won't remember all of it," he continues. "Some memories had to go. Some… responses. Reactions. Pieces of your identity."
He exhales slowly. Shaky.
"But you'll never hurt her again."
I stare at him.
I don't know who I am.
I don't know if I'm still me.
All I know is this ache in my chest.
Like something's missing.
Like something important died on the table.
I'm still strapped down.
Still alive.
Somehow.
There's a metallic taste in my mouth—like copper and rot—and something warm dribbling down the side of my neck. My brain feels like it's been put through a paper shredder and stitched back together with wire.
I try to move.
Nothing happens.
I try again—just a twitch of my fingers, a shift of breath—but my body doesn't listen. The signal leaves my brain and gets lost somewhere between ruined synapses and raw nerves.
I blink slowly.
My vision swims.
And that's when I see him.
Riven.
He's sitting in the corner, legs spread, elbows on his knees, watching me like I'm a problem he's already solved but still finds vaguely disappointing.
His eyes are sharp. Alert. But not worried.
Just waiting.
I try to speak.
The sound that comes out of me is… wrong.
A dry, garbled noise—slurred and broken—like a cassette tape melting in a fire.
"Muh—…uh—"
My throat tightens. Panic flares.
I try again.
"Ar…d…uhh…"
It doesn't sound like a name.
Doesn't sound like anything human.
I feel tears burn behind my eyes, helpless fury twisting in my chest.
Riven shifts, pushing up from his seat with a slow roll of his shoulders. He walks toward me, the heels of his boots thudding evenly across the floor. Not rushing. Not concerned.
When he stops at the side of the cot, he crosses his arms and cocks his head.
"You're gonna sound like that for a while," he says, voice flat. "Brain's still rebooting. Motor cortex took a beating."
I try to glare at him. Try to demand an explanation. What the hell did Lysander do to me?
But I can barely keep my eyelids open.
Riven just keeps watching me.
"Don't panic," he says after a beat. "It'll fade."
He pauses.
"Probably."
A humorless smirk ghosts across his mouth.
I want to scream at him. Hit him. Anything.
But all I can do is lie there—drifting between nausea and static—while my own body feels like foreign terrain.
Then Riven's expression changes.
Barely.
Just the slightest shift in his eyes.
"You think this is bad," he mutters, quieter now. "This confusion. This pain. This sense of not knowing who you are, or what the hell just happened to your mind."
He leans in slightly, and this time, there's heat behind the words.
"Imagine what she'll feel… if she wakes up."
That lands like a punch to the chest.
I freeze.
My heartbeat staggers.
"She's broken," Riven continues. "Inside and out. And if you think this little identity crisis of yours is hard, wait until you watch Ardere wake up screaming—confused, in pain, maybe not even remembering her own name—and realize you're the one who put her there."
He straightens up again, brushing his hands off like the conversation bored him.
"Get comfortable," he says, turning his back. "You've got a front row seat to what comes next."
The door slams open.
Riven doesn't even flinch.
But I do.
At least—I think I do. My body jerks, barely perceptible, like a dying nerve twitching under skin.
Lysander strides in, a wheelchair in front of him. Not some soft, padded recovery chair. No. It's the kind used to restrain threats—complete with straps and steel.
His face is unreadable. Not cold. Not angry.
Just carved out. Hollow. Like every emotion burned away, leaving only the mission.
He doesn't say a word.
Just grabs me—limp, useless, still not fully wired back together—and hauls me up like a sack of dead weight.
I grunt. The world spins. My legs drag uselessly beneath me.
Riven doesn't offer help. Doesn't offer protest. He just watches, arms folded, like this is exactly what should happen.
Lysander throws me into the chair.
Not places.
Not guides.
Throws.
Pain snaps through my ribs. I bite down hard to keep from crying out, but some wounded sound escapes anyway—a gasp, a strangled whimper—and Lysander doesn't blink.
He straps me in. Tight.
A hand on my shoulder.
Another at the side of my head.
"Time to see her," he says. Voice flat as iron.
I shake my head—barely. My neck doesn't work right. My mouth opens, but no words come.
This isn't a courtesy.
It's punishment.
He's going to make me look.
Make me understand.
The wheels grind as he pushes me through the hallway. I don't recognize the turns. The safehouse is sprawling, old and patchwork, full of rooms that smell like iodine and decay.
Each jolt of the chair sends shocks of agony through my spine.
I hate this.
I hate me.
But I also can't stop staring at Lysander's hand on the chair grip. Knuckles white. Muscles twitching beneath the skin.
I don't think he's breathed since we left the room.
We stop.
The door in front of us is closed.
A single breath hisses through Lysander's nose as he opens it.
The room beyond is dim.
Sterile.
Heavy with the hum of machines and the slow, stuttering beeps that measure the heartbeat of someone barely clinging to life.
And then I see her.
Ardere.
What's left of her.
My breath stutters.
My vision blurs.
There's a dull roar in my ears, and I think I might pass out again, but Lysander's hand shoots out and grabs my chin—fingers digging into my jaw, forcing my head forward.
"No," he growls. "You look."
He jerks my face toward her.
"You look, Dorian."
So I do.
Her body is wrapped in layers of gauze and trauma. Half her face is swollen, deep bruising blooming beneath translucent skin. Her lips are cracked. Tubes wind into her nose, her arms, her chest. Machines buzz and click and pump, keeping her alive by inches.
She doesn't move.
Not even a twitch.
Just the rise and fall of her chest, shallow and mechanical.
A sound escapes my throat—raw and involuntary. Somewhere between a sob and a scream.
Lysander lets go of my face like it burns him.
"You did that," he says quietly.
Not a shout.
Not a threat.
Just truth.
"You tore her apart. Her lungs were crushed. Her ribs were cracked inward. She has brain swelling. Internal bleeding. You left your fingerprints inside her."
I gag.
Not from nausea. From guilt. From the memory. From the fact that somewhere in my head, something enjoyed it.
Lysander circles to the front of the chair, crouching until we're eye level.
"And now," he says, eyes burning, "you're going to sit here. And watch. Every second. Every breath. Until she wakes up or until she dies."
He stands and walks toward the door.
"I don't care how long it takes."
Riven, still in the corner of the room, says nothing. But I can feel him watching. Judging. Approving.
They're not here to comfort me.
They're here to make sure I don't forget.
That I never escape this.
I don't know how long I sit there.
Minutes. Hours. Time bleeds and tangles, marked only by the rhythmic beep…beep…beep that says she's still here.
Her chest rises. Falls. Rises. Falls.
Each breath feels like borrowed time.
Her face is almost unrecognizable under the bandages and swelling, but I know every curve, every angle, every inch of the person I destroyed. The person Lysander would kill me for without hesitation, if not for the tiny chance that maybe—just maybe—she might open her eyes and see something in me worth sparing.
I try to think of what I'll say if she wakes up.
I'm sorry is too small.
I didn't mean to is a lie.
I wasn't myself won't matter, because I was.
I was me. And I still did this.
The words twist and collapse in my head. Nothing feels enough—nothing could ever be enough. I imagine her waking and seeing me here. The shock. The fear. The betrayal.
So I just sit there, staring at her, and pray for the chance to fail at saying it anyway.
Because if she never wakes up, I'll never get the chance to try.
The thought crawls under my skin and lodges there like a splinter I can't dig out. My throat is dry. My hands won't stop shaking.
And then I realize something worse—
if she wakes up, the first thing she's going to see… is me.