Chapter 25
Clare
The door crashed open.
I jerked my head up, pulse slamming against my ribs.
Two guards dragged Xavier into the room between them. His weight sagged against their grip like they were the only thing keeping him upright.
My pulse stopped.
Xavier looked like death.
Pale. Trembling. His head lolled forward, chin nearly touching his chest. Every few seconds his entire frame convulsed with violent spasms, full-body tremors that made the guards struggle to hold him.
“Oh God, no.”
This wasn’t right. Twenty-four hours ago, he’d been stable. Chip deactivated. Symptoms improving. He’d been healing.
What the hell happened?
Dresner followed behind, calm and clinical. Like he was observing an interesting specimen instead of a man barely clinging to consciousness.
“What did you do to him?!” I yanked against the restraints hard enough to feel cuffs bite deep. “Xavier!”
His head lifted slightly at the sound. Pupils unfocused, blown wide and uneven. He tried to speak, mouth moving, throat working, but nothing came out except a strangled sound that made my chest crack open.
The guards dragged him to the table beside mine. Medical table. Same restraints. Same monitoring equipment.
They dropped him onto it with zero gentleness.
Xavier jerked on impact. Another convulsion wracked through him, violent enough that one guard had to pin his shoulder down to keep him from rolling off.
“Careful.” Dresner’s tone stayed mild. “The subject is valuable.”
Subject.
Like Xavier wasn’t a person. Wasn’t someone who’d fought through hell to survive.
Rage flooded hot and vicious through my veins.
“Help him!” The words cracked as they left my throat. “You did this. Fix it!”
Dresner moved to stand between our tables, hands clasped behind his back. “The chip didn’t seem to have fully deactivated, Ms. Bolton. Another flaw from the chip? Residual damage to the neural pathways. The compound is still leaking.”
Horror crashed over me.
No. That couldn’t be true. We’d entered the codes. All three sequences. Havoc had confirmed shutdown. The seizures stopped. Xavier’s vitals stabilized.
“You’re lying.”
“I rarely lie. It’s inefficient. The truth serves me better.”
Dresner’s smile was small. Condescending.
I watched the guards strap Xavier’s wrists down. Chest restraint across ribs. Ankle cuffs locked tight.
He didn’t fight them. Could barely lift his head.
Another tremor seized him, worse than before. Spine arched off the table, muscles locked rigid for three heartbeats before releasing.
“Stop!” Vision blurred with heat. “Please, just help him!”
Xavier sought me through the fog. Pupils glassy. Unfocused. But searching for me through whatever was drowning him.
“Clare.” My name came out broken. Barely audible.
“I’m here.” I strained against my own restraints, trying to reach him. Our tables were maybe three feet apart, but it might as well have been miles. “Right here, Xavier. Stay with me.”
His fingers moved, slow, trembling, toward me. Stretching as though if he could touch me, everything would be okay.
The guards finished securing ankle restraints.
Xavier’s fingers dropped back to the table. Too weak to keep trying.
“He’s dying, Ms. Bolton.” Dresner moved to the monitoring equipment beside Xavier’s table, studying displays with clinical interest. “Slowly. Painfully. Complete system failure within...” He paused, consulting readouts.
“I never could assist or record it before. It’s a unique opportunity.
I need to time this too. It’s too late to bring a medical team, but. ..”
The devastation must have shown on my face because Dresner’s smile widened.
“There is, of course, a solution.”
Hope flared. Desperate, irrational hope that I hated myself for feeling.
“What solution?”
“Reactivation. The implant can be brought back online. Conditioning protocols restored. The chemical balance regulated properly this time.”
Dresner gestured to equipment being wheeled in by a third guard. Technical machinery I didn’t recognize. Cables. Monitoring devices.
Understanding hit like ice water.
“You want to recondition him.”
“I want to save his life. The reconditioning is merely... a necessary component of survival.”
Dresner corrected.
Fury and horror warred in my chest.
Xavier would rather die than go back to being Blackout.
“No.” The word came out flat. Absolute. “You can’t do that to him.”
“Can’t? Ms. Bolton, I’m offering him survival. Maybe a few hours versus indefinite operational lifespan. The mathematics are quite simple.”
Dresner’s eyebrow rose.
“It’s not about math!” I was shouting now, past caring about control or strategy. “You’d be erasing him! Everything he fought to retrieve!”
“I’d be preserving the neural architecture before it deteriorates beyond salvage. What he ‘fought for’ is irrelevant if he’s dead.”
Dresner’s calm never wavered.
Xavier made a sound, low, agonized. Convulsed again, harder this time.
“See? He’s suffering. Unnecessarily. I can end this.”
Dresner gestured to the displays.
“Don’t.” Xavier’s rasp was barely audible. Directed at Dresner. “Don’t... help.”
“The subject is delirious.”
“He knows exactly what he’s saying!” I yanked against the restraints so hard the table rattled. “Xavier, I’m here. Tell him...”
Xavier sought me again. Clearer for a moment.
“Kill me.” Each word came with visible effort. “Or... reactivate. Can’t... can’t take this... anymore.”
The plea shattered something in my chest.
He was begging for death. Preferring it to this slow, agonizing deterioration.
“I’ll do it.” Xavier continued, looking at Dresner now. Desperate. Broken. “Whatever... you want. Just... please.”
Wetness streamed down my cheeks. “Xavier, don’t...”
“Please.” His eyes squeezed shut. “Make it... stop.”
Dresner’s expression shifted. Satisfaction. Xavier had confirmed a hypothesis.
“You see, Ms. Bolton? Even the strongest will breaks under sufficient pain. Survival instinct overrides sentiment eventually.”
He moved to the technical equipment, fingers dancing across touchscreens.
“Don’t do this.” I was begging now. Past pride. Past strategy. “Please. Just let him go.”
“Letting him go means letting him die. Is that what you want? To watch him suffer and then expire?”
Dresner didn’t look up from his preparations.
“I want you to fix him without erasing him!”
“Unfortunately, those options are mutually exclusive. But I’m willing to offer a compromise.”
Dresner almost seemed sorry.
“What compromise?”
“Observation. I reactivate the implant. Restore his conditioning. But I monitor both your neurochemical responses throughout the process.”
He gestured between our two tables.
Horror crawled up my spine. “You want to measure how I react while you break him.”
“I want to measure the bond. If your connection is truly neurochemical, if it runs deeper than conscious choice, your brain will fight the reconditioning even while watching it happen. Oxytocin floods. Cortisol spikes. Desperate attempts to maintain an emotional attachment to someone whose identity is being systematically erased.”
Dresner’s gaze gleamed with scientific fascination.
He leaned closer, studying me.
“But if the bond is merely circumstantial, trauma bonding, perhaps, or simple attraction, you’ll accept the necessity. Your vitals will stabilize. You’ll let him go.”
“That’s sick.”
“That’s science. And you, Ms. Bolton, are the perfect control variable. A woman who claims to love a man she barely knows. Let’s see if your biology agrees with your sentiment.”
Dresner straightened.
Xavier convulsed again. Harder. Longer. Spine arched so violently I heard something pop.
“Stop it!” I was sobbing now. “Save him!”
“I’m saving him. This is mercy, Ms. Bolton. The humane option.”
Dresner’s certainty was absolute.
He moved to stand at the head of Xavier’s table, one palm resting almost gently on his shoulder.
Dresner took out a tablet and tapped a few keys. “Beginning reactivation protocol.”
“NO!” I thrashed against the restraints, desperate to break free. “Don’t you dare...”
Xavier’s scream cut me off.
Pure agony. Raw and unfiltered. The sound of someone being torn apart from the inside.
Entire frame convulsed, catastrophic, violent seizure that made the earlier tremors look like nothing.
“STOP!” I was screaming. “You’re killing him! STOP!”
But Dresner didn’t stop. Just watched Xavier seize with clinical interest, occasionally glancing at the monitoring equipment tracking my vitals.
Measuring my horror. Cataloging my desperation.
Using my love as data.
Xavier’s pupils rolled back. Foam gathered at the corners of his mouth. Arched so severely I thought his spine would snap.
“Please!” I couldn’t see through the blur. “Please, I’ll do anything! Anything you want! Just stop!”
Dresner looked at me. Considered.
Then nodded to one of the guards. “Increase her sedation. I need her conscious but calm.”
The guard moved toward me with a syringe.
I barely registered it. All my attention locked on Xavier, watching him die, knowing I couldn’t save him this time.
“I’m sorry.” The words came out broken. “I’m so sorry, Xavier. I love you. I...”
Then everything changed.
The lights died.
Complete, total darkness. Absolute. Like someone had severed power to the entire building in one precise cut.
I couldn’t see anything. Not the monitors, not the restraints, not Xavier seizing on the table beside me. Nothing but black.
Then sound erupted. Deafening, disorienting static blasting through speakers and earpieces. High-frequency noise that made my skull vibrate and teeth ache.
Pulse hammered. “Xavier?”
Guards shouted. Confusion. Panic.
Footsteps stumbling, crashing. Someone cursed violently.
I strained against the darkness, trying to see anything, but the black was impenetrable.
Then, the air shifted close to me. Someone standing. Moving with purpose.
The guard with the syringe made a choking sound. A crack. Bone breaking. The syringe hit the floor with a sharp clatter.