Chapter 46
NOTHING OUT THERE
When he finally releases my wrist, we’re in his room.
Not his office—his room. I always thought it’d be polished, like him.
Ordered, precise, nothing out of place. Instead, it’s chaos.
Folders spill across the desk in uneven towers, their corners dog-eared and bent from overuse.
Loose pages litter the floor near the desk like he stopped caring where they landed.
Multiple half-finished mugs of tea sit abandoned.
The curtains hang stiff around the window, the sunset beyond a hazy pink.
The lower shelves against the wall are in ruins, the center panels cracked through the middle like something drove a boot through them.
I don’t need to ask. I know with near certainty who did it.
Mister M’s temper leaves fingerprints everywhere.
V made no effort to fix or hide it. He left it there, broken.
It makes the whole room feel fractured. Like him. Like me. My mind is battling with too many desires all clawing their way to the forefront: I want to leave. I want to know. I want to breathe.
I force my head up.
“You knew who I was before tonight?”
He freezes, but he doesn’t speak.
“You did.” My chest tightens. “And you didn’t say anything. Why? Why didn’t you tell me?”
He exhales, long and strangled. “Because you weren’t ready.”
Not ready. The words slam into me like a blade.
Not ready when I’m being dressed up and paraded around like a trophy.
Not ready when the ground feels like it’s giving way every time someone says they’ve seen me before.
I laugh, but it comes out broken. “Not ready? I’m standing in front of strangers who look me in the eye like they own me. And you think I’m not ready?”
“Maysie—” The cuff on my wrist buzzes. His eyes flicker there before snapping back to me. He runs his thumb along his sleeve. Breath reset. I bite back the training.
“You’re spiraling,” he says, soft and steady, like if he stays calm, I’ll follow. “Breathe. In for four. Out for eight. Stay with me.”
I can’t. My skin feels too tight. I stumble toward the window, wondering if I could open it. Fresh air could ground me. Anger floods my thoughts with every step. He grabs my arm, but I shake him off.
“No! You don’t get to smooth this over. Not anymore.” My pulse hammers in my ears. The cuff flashes red. V’s eyes go wide.
“You have to stop, Maysie. You’ll get flagged.”
“Why am I here? What is this place?” My questions tumble out in waves. He raises his hands in surrender, face set in panic.
“You’re here because this is the only path for you. You were given another chan—”
“I don’t want another chance!” I cry, words tripping over themselves. “I want to leave!”
His jaw tightens. “Don’t—”
“I mean it!” My chest feels like it’s caving. “I want to go home, V! Why won’t you listen to me?”
“You can’t—”
“You’re lying.” My cuff screeches against my wrist, but I push through it. “Admit it!” The lights flash overhead.
I stamp my heel into the carpet, shouting freely now. “Tell me there’s more than this!”
Something in him breaks.
V moves like a shadow turned violent, crossing the room in a rush and slamming his palm against the window. The glass shatters in a web of cracks. The skyline dies, glitching and collapsing in on itself, revealing a sea of bare gray concrete and steel.
The truth stares back at me, raw and merciless.
“There’s nothing out there!” he shouts. He turns back toward me, breath ragged. “You want the truth? There. That’s the truth. This is all there is. These walls. Us. That’s why you’re here. That’s why you were brought back.”
The weight of it crushes me. My chest locks, breath tearing short. Ribbons of pain slice my mind, tangling into a web too thick to see through.
I stagger back, tears burning my skin. “You’re lying.”
“I’m not.” His breath stutters. “I wish I was.” My cuff presses, sinking its metal pronged teeth deep beneath my skin.
V doesn’t move. His hand stays pressed to the ruined pane, trembling. His eyes close like he can’t stand what he just did.
I can’t breathe.
“No,” I whisper, though I don’t know who I’m arguing with. Him. The window. The cuff screaming on my wrist. Myself. All of the above. “That’s not true. It can’t be true.” The walls feel closer, threatening to crush me.
“Maysie,” he pleads. His hand slides off the cracked pane. He looks like he’s aged a decade in a minute.
“I can’t—” My knees buckle. I hit the edge of his desk, sending papers skidding across the floor. Numbers, names, reports. Proof of everything I don’t understand. The broken shelf gapes at me from across the room like an open wound.
“I can’t live like this,” I rasp. “Not if this is all there is.”
His mask slips entirely. The elegant control, the careful restraint, gone. He steps forward like he might catch me, but stops short, fists tight at his sides.
“I was trying to protect you,” he says hoarsely. “I didn’t—”
The door bursts open. For a split second, I think it’s Carr himself—come to drag me under.
But it’s Colt. He takes in the scene rapidly: the shattered window, me trembling on the floor, the cuff burning red-hot on my wrist. He doesn’t hesitate.
He crosses the room in two strides, drops to one knee, and pulls me into his arms. I choke a sound that’s half-protest, half-relief.
“Hey— Hey, it’s okay, I’ve got you.” He braces his hands on my shoulders. The warmth of his grip cuts through the static in my veins. “Breathe. Just breathe with me, all right? In. Out.”
I try, but it falls out in shallow sobs.
V hasn’t moved. He’s frozen by the ruined window, shoulders rigid as if the concrete beyond demands his full attention. Colt glances up at him, fury flashing in his eyes. But he doesn’t waste words. He pulls me closer, steadying me against his chest.
“I’ve got you,” he murmurs again, firm against the storm in my head. “You’re not breaking on me, you hear?”
“There’s nothing,” I whisper into Colt’s shoulder. His arms wrap tighter like he can shield me from it all.
Behind us, V says, “We need to get her to—” Colt raises a hand to silence him.
“Mays— Hey. Look at me.”
I can’t. My chest is on fire. The lights overhead are sputtering like the power’s on the fritz. His comm crackles on his shoulder, but he doesn’t even reach for it.
“You’re burning up,” he mutters, more to himself than me. He presses my wrist into his chest, pinning it between us. The skin at my wrist sears against the fabric of his uniform. It chirps once, then slows as the signal muffles.
Colt scoops me up, arms hooking under my knees and back like I weigh nothing at all. “We’re leaving.”
“You—” My voice breaks. “You’re supposed to—”
“I’m supposed to do a lot of things,” he mutters, already turning for the door. “But I’m not going to let them throw you in the lab.” V doesn’t move to stop him.
Colt shoulders through the hall like a soldier in enemy territory, head down, pace fast but measured, comm still prattling alerts.
“Stay quiet,” he breathes against my hair. “I’ll get you out.”
His comm shrieks again:
Status: Enforcer C19. Report the spike.
Colt shifts me higher against him and keeps walking. “False alarm,” he says flatly, tapping the comm with the arm he has wrapped around my back. “Subject’s stable. I’ve got it under control.”
A lie, terrifyingly natural.
The corridor is wide and cold. Countless cameras blink overhead in sync. Colt masks the annoying cuff with every step, offering an easy smile to passing enforcers.
“Nothing to see,” he calls, voice laced with soft demand. “Move along.”
And somehow—they do.
By the time he kicks my door open and eases me onto the edge of my bed, my body’s shaking too hard to breathe. Colt drops to one knee in front of me. His thumb brushes against the band.
“You’re fine now,” he murmurs. “They’re not coming.”
I want to believe him.
The room’s quiet, save for my ragged breath and the faint tick of the ever-present cuff. I don’t know how long it stays that way. Eventually, footsteps pad closer. Slow. Deliberate. The doorframe darkens, and V fills it.
He’s still pale, dark hair mussed like he dragged his hand through it too many times, eyes like thawed ice. Unease flickers in his expression as he takes in the scene.
“Protocol dictates she should be in medical.” He doesn’t look like he believes it—more like he just needed to say something, and the only thing he has to fall back on is the protocol he’s made to enforce.
Colt doesn’t even look up. “Protocol doesn’t know a damn thing about her.” The words hang, electric in the tense air.
“You’re risking more than yourself.”
“I’ll take it,” Colt fires back. “Better me than her.”
For a heartbeat, I think V might drag me out himself, cuff or no cuff.
But he’s frozen, every line of him pulled taut.
His eyes land on mine, but I can’t hold them.
Not after what he said. Not after what I saw.
My fingers twist in the blanket until I lose circulation.
V finally steps into the room, toward Colt.
“Take your hand off the cuff.”
Colt looks up, eyes narrowed, face set in pure rage. He cocks his head as if to say, “Try me.” Instead, he levels V with another glare and says, “If she spikes again, you’ll lose her. You really want that on your conscience?”
The silence is brutal.
V’s gaze cuts back to me—just for a second—then he turns away, jaw tensed. “I’ll file the report,” he says tightly. “It’ll read as stable. See to it that yours says the same.”
The door shuts, and the air collapses around me. Colt’s hand is still warm over the cuff, the only thing keeping me here.
“You’re okay,” he says. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Just when my breath starts to fall back into rhythm, the door opens again. Ryder—of all people—peeks in, curiously amused. “Oh damn. This is gonna be good.”
Colt’s head snaps up. “Why are you here? You weren’t dispatched.”
Ryder shrugs, unbothered. “Ballroom’s dull. Thought I’d stretch my legs. And look—front row seats to this.” His gaze flicks to the light still pulsing under Colt’s palm. “Carr’s gonna have a field day.”
“Ryder,” Colt starts, firm. “You didn’t see this. If you’re asked to report, you’ll file her as stable.”
Ryder raises his brows, mock-offended. “Oh, sure. And when Carr asks how she didn’t get hauled to medical, I’ll just say—what? Colt cuddled the problem away? Yeah. I’m sure that’ll fly.”
“Do it.”
Ryder’s grin falters. “God, you’re serious. Fine. But if she explodes, Carr’s going to wipe the floor with all of us, and I’m far too pretty to die.”
His words tip me over the edge. A laugh bursts out of me, high and shrill. I press a hand over my mouth, but the sound claws out anyway, too loud in the suffocating quiet.
Colt panics. “Mays!” He runs a hand along my back. “Stop. Look at me.” I can’t. The laughter wracks my chest until tears blur my vision.
“Maysie.” Colt’s hand shifts, firm on my wrist, the other bracing my shoulder. “Breathe. You’re safe.”
Safe—that finally hits. The laugh dies in my throat, leaving me trembling, breath coming in ragged pulls. Colt breathes a long sigh of relief.
Ryder looks wholly unfazed.
“Stable,” he mutters with a mock bow. “Glad I could be of service.” His eyes cut toward Colt.
“Don’t make me regret this.” He leaves as casually as he arrived, still chuckling to himself.
Colt follows, but returns moments later, dragging a chair from the common room.
He plants it beside the bed, close enough that his arm rests on the edge of the mattress.
He sits gently, the valiant guarding my mental state.
Every time I close my eyes, I see the window again.
The shards, the glitching skyline, V’s shout splitting the air as it tore me open. There’s nothing out there.
My body aches with exhaustion, but sleep is a luxury I’ve never been afforded, even in my darkest moments.
I roll onto my side, curling toward the wall, and the tears I’ve been holding back finally break loose.
Relentless in their wake, quiet sobs rake through me, dragging months of pain to the surface.
I don’t mean for him to notice, but of course he does. Colt shifts closer, hovering close enough to anchor me with his presence. “They won’t take you,” he says, steady. “Not while I’m here.”
I almost laugh at the absurdity of it. He’s just one enforcer. One boy with scarred knuckles and too much stubbornness. He can’t stop them. Not if they decide I’m broken. But he says it like he believes it. Like he’d fight the entire system bare-handed if it came to that.
I bite the inside of my cheek until the taste of iron drowns the sob. “Why?” I whisper, hoarse. “Why are you helping me?”
“Because you’re not like the rest of them. And I…I can’t watch them strip you down to nothing.” The words sit heavy between us. Dangerous in their honesty. I bite back another wave of tears.
“I’m just like the rest of them. Don’t you see?”
“I know what I see,” he says sharply. “I see someone fighting like hell not to drown in their rules. I see someone who thinks, who feels, who lives. And I won’t be the one to hold your head under. Protocol be damned.”
My chest still hurts, a dull bruise now, replacing the sharp panic with something that may never fully heal. I curl tighter into myself, pressing my damp face into the pillow.
“This place—” I whisper, each syllable fracturing. “This place is poison.” A rogue tear slips down my cheek. The words burn at the back of my tongue like venom, begging to be spoken. “It’s killing us.”
Colt rubs my back until my breathing evens, and I’m suddenly overcome with exhaustion. My skin prickles with the weight of everything I’ve seen. Worse, everything I can’t unsee.
In the fragile edge before sleep takes me, one thought stutters on loop, jagged and sure: If V’s right, if there’s really nothing out there, I have no choice.
I have to fight for what’s left.