Chapter 50
THE FLARE
V stops me at the threshold, holding out a pair of metal containment cuffs. He doesn’t meet my eyes as he adjusts the sensors with careful fingers, like he’s handling something delicate. I’ve seen what these cuffs do; there’s nothing delicate about it.
“Just relax,” he murmurs under his breath. “You’ve done this before.”
Have I?
My pulse kicks.
V doesn’t wait for my response. Not that I had one to give. His fingers graze the inside of my wrist again. This time, I don’t flinch. The second cuff blinks a brilliant orange. It sends a shock through me, searching for my pulse. Then another. On the fourth try, it turns green. Safe, supposedly.
I don’t feel safer.
He looks at me now. Really looks. I brace for whatever it is he’s holding back. Warning? Doubt? Something worse?
“Maysie—”
“I’m ready,” I lie. I don’t know what he has to say right now, but I don’t want to hear it. His lips part like he wants to say something else, but he steps back, ice eyes lingering on mine.
The screen flashes as I step under the sensor. 214. Not my name. Never my name. Why even give me one if no one uses it?
When the door opens, I step in without waiting for permission.
I don’t recognize the instructor on the other side. The badge on his hip is still shiny. He’s likely new. He doesn’t meet my eyes. That’s fine. I don’t want to see his.
“Baseline calibration,” he announces. The lights shift to stark white, bright enough to be surgical. The vents above kick on. Everything reeks of metal and chemicals, then nothing at all.
“Sit.”
I sit.
“Stand.”
I stand.
“State your designation.”
“Two...fourteen.”
Again.
“214.”
Again.
“...214.”
Each repetition rubs like sandpaper. He continues the pointless questioning, circling me like a vulture. I don’t miss a beat, but the numbers don’t even sound like numbers anymore.
Carr’s voice crackles through the intercom. “Initiating auditory stimuli: Set A.” My stomach twists. I don’t know what that means, but it can’t make this any better. Sound blooms around me. At first, it’s nothing but static. The thrum of an old speaker warming up after months sitting idle.
Then, footsteps. Heels on tile, moving in measured steps.
One-two. One-two. One-two. Then faster. Uneven. Overlapping.
Someone playing piano.
A scale played wrong. A slew of notes too sharp. Keys slammed out of rhythm like a toddler with rage in their hands. My head jerks at the first chord, but it keeps playing. Offbeat, off-key, relentless.
Tension courses through my hands in waves. I strain against the cuffs, metal fasteners digging into my skin until I feel the sting of blood.
“Repeat your designation,” the instructor barks, eyes wary.
I try. I really try. I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. I hear the numbers in my head, loud and clear.
214, 214, 214, 214, 214.
Two. One. Four.
Nothing.
The sound doesn’t stop. It loops, layering and warping into something unrecognizable.
Laughter.
Jagged and piercing, ringing right behind my ears. I spin before I can think. The room’s sealed tight. I know that.
I still check. And it’s still locked. The instructor is in front of me again. “Repeat your—”
I tune him out. I can’t think. I can’t breathe. The cuffs click tighter, red prickling at the edges. Override mist releases overhead—a cool cloud that’s supposed to clear my head.
It doesn’t.
I taste metal. And sugar. And smoke. My hands tremble. My skin crawls. The room bends around me, everywhere and nowhere all at once.
What’s happening to me?
I don’t understand. I’ve followed every rule. I smiled when they told me to. I was perfect at the ball, Kade said so herself.
So why are they doing this to me?
The lights flicker.
Once. Twice.
The piano stutters. The laughter grows closer.
Something in my chest tightens, burning deep and raw. I try to speak, to say anything, but my voice catches on whatever’s clawing through my senses.
The instructor steps forward.
“Repeat—”
My pulse tears out of me. It slams into him, knocks him clean off his feet. He careens into the far wall, sliding down with a thunk, not moving anymore. The glass behind him shudders, trembling from a force I can’t see.
I gasp, but no air fills my lungs. I don’t breathe—
I ignite.
The cuffs dig impossibly deeper into my wrists, trying to restrain something already loose. I stumble backward, but the room moves with me. Tilts. Shudders. Vibrates.
What’s happening—
I can’t stop it.
I don’t even know what it is.
Did they know this would happen? I think of the way V looked at me, the words he said.
You’ve done this before.
I’m losing control. But that’s not fair. It’s not possible. No one told me I had anything in me to lose control of. A voice inside me whispers I wasn’t supposed to be like this.
I’m not like this. Right?
The mist streams in again, faster. My eyes sharpen on the observation glass. Three figures, completely frozen. I’m alone in here. Alone with this—thing—in me. This heat. This pressure. It’s not stopping, and if it doesn’t stop soon, it’s going to kill me.
I spin toward the mirror. The girl who stares back at me isn’t burning—she’s glowing, white-hot light streaking through her veins. The ceiling pulses, then warps.
No—no, that’s not right.
I blink, but it doesn’t fix it. It only makes the edges sharper, like the air itself is being cut apart. My eyes sting with tears. My hands aren’t mine anymore. They’re shaking. Flickering. Splitting in two.
Everything shifts. Stings. Burns. The world can’t hold me anymore. My reflection pulses like it can’t decide if I’m real or not.
I don’t understand what’s happening.
A light above me bursts; glass rains down in slow motion. I throw my arms up on instinct, but nothing hits me. The pieces still, hovering in midair. In every shard, I see a girl who isn’t me. Or maybe she’s not a girl. Maybe she’s not a person at all.
What am I?
Another pulse strikes harder. The mirrors rattle and crack. The air distorts. Everything’s breaking. I’m breaking. The instructor groans from the corner, barely conscious. I don’t remember hitting him. I don’t remember doing anything.
The seal breaks, the door flies open.
Enforcers. Four of them. Full gear. They see me—and stop dead. One raises his stun rod. Lowers it. His hand trembling at the motion.
They’re afraid of me. Why are they afraid of me?
I didn’t do anything. I didn’t—I didn’t mean—
A woman stumbles in behind them, a med tech. I know her. She checks vitals before diagnostics. She always smiles at me. She sees me now—
And runs.
Air claws at my chest. I’m not touching the ground anymore. I’m floating. Collapsing. Falling without motion over feet I can’t feel. Carr doesn’t move behind the glass. Neither does Maverick. I can’t make out their faces, just the stillness lacing their frames. Did they know?
The third figure snaps. He slams his fist against the glass, eyes wide and icy and furious. He shouts something I can’t hear over the ringing in my skull.
Another bulb bursts overhead.
I flinch—No, I jerk, a full-body spasm, and it hurts. Heat sears down my spine in waves, snagging sharp on every vertebra.
An emergency door to my left bursts open, half concealed by shadow.
No. No, he shouldn’t.
But it’s too late. He’s definitely not cleared for this, but the enforcers make no move to stop him. They stay pressed to the walls, frozen in terror. The mist coils in ribbons around him; he strides through it like it’s nothing.
My body spasms again. I can feel it now, every wrong part of me trying to tear itself free.
He’s too close.
I try to scream. To tell him to leave, to run, to get away from me, but the words melt on my tongue.
“Please,” I choke, but it’s not loud enough.
A pulse bursts from me, hard enough to crack the tile beneath my feet. Another light explodes. Something hits him—one of the shards, maybe? He stumbles, clutching his shoulder with a wince. But he doesn’t stop.
He doesn’t stop.
Why isn’t he stopping?
The cuffs restrain nothing. The heat sizzling down my arms is burning straight through them. My vision is completely fractured now, casting the world into wild hues dipped into endless shadows.
He’s still moving. He’s going to die in here.
I’m going to kill him.
Oh God—what am I doing?
“It’s okay, you’re okay.” V’s voice rubs like velvet. Steady. Calm. All wrong. His face is carved out of shattered composure and fear. Not for himself.
For me.
“You have to stop,” he continues, concern dripping onto the glass-coated floor. “Your body can’t sustain this. You’ll tear yourself apart.”
I open my mouth to scream, but my jaw isn’t working. His hand lifts slowly, reaching for something on his belt. A syringe of swirling amber.
“Please,” I beg again, hopeless.
V’s eyes flicker with dread. He takes my wrist in his hand, pressing my skin firmly just above the cuff. “Breathe.” He orders, with a softness that anchors me. Or breaks me. I can’t tell which. But I feel it, square in the center of my chest.
His name is already rising in my throat before I can think better of it. I don’t know why I know it.
But I do.
“Vincent—”
That’s when the glass shatters. It explodes outward. Into the hallway, into the chamber, into the last scraps of myself that felt human.
Vincent should retreat. He should run. Should flinch, at the very least. But he doesn’t—he lunges. The needle finds my arm.
And I fall. Hard.
Not down. Not asleep.
I fall inward.