Chapter 10
TEN
Zayne
Smoke pulled me out of sleep.
It slipped under my bedroom door, crawling along the floor. Beyond the walls, something cracked and popped, and a sharp scream cut through the noise.
I swung my legs off the bed and crossed the room. I reached for the handle, and a wave of heat stung my palm. I yanked my hand back with a gasp, skin already stinging from the burn.
I took the sheet from the bed, tore it free, wrapped it around the handle, and twisted. The metal burned through the sheet, and the door gave way, opening.
The hallway was chaotic.
Two of the patients my father used to work with staggered past me, shrieking. Their arms were on fire, flames rolling up their sleeves, skin blistering and blackening as they swung wildly at the air. My eyes widened. My chest seized as smoke poured into my lungs.
I coughed hard, pulling my sleeve over my mouth.
A chair burned near the doorway, flames eating through the legs. I backed up, then ran and jumped over it, heat snapping at my feet when I landed. I spun in place, searching for my father through the haze.
He was still behind his desk.
I saw him through the smoke, bent over his computer, his hands moving fast as he collected the papers that were scattered across the desk. Tapes piled at his feet in a paper box.
I ran toward him, but something yanked me back.
I turned around, noticing one of the nurses clutched my arm.
“You have to run,” she shouted, pointing toward the exit. “I’ll take care of the rest.”
“Dad!” I screamed.
She tightened her grip, but I shoved her aside and stumbled forward. My shoes skidded on the floor as smoke burned my throat. I reached him just as he swept more papers into his arms.
He was coughing, but he didn’t stop.
It was always like this.
He grabbed tapes and folders, stuffing them into a box as his hands shook. The nurse seized me again, pulling me back.
Finally, he turned, but not towards me.
“To the boy,” he shouted at her. His voice cracked. “Protect the boy. Protect the boy. Seven. Five. Thirteen. Nine. Fourteen. Nine. Protect the boy.”
He shoved the box into my chest.
“Go.”
The nurse dragged me backwards. I reached for him, but he had already turned away. He was back at the desk. Flames crawled up the walls, devouring shelves, papers, names, and dates. Faces trapped inside curled and vanished as fire spread.
And he didn’t look at me again.
The ceiling groaned, and something collapsed behind us. The nurse swore and shoved me toward the hall. Heat instantly hit my back. Smoke clawed down my throat until every breath felt like glass. I clutched the box to my chest. The cardboard was already warm, already softening in my hands.
“Move,” she shouted. “Don’t look back.”
But I did.
Just for one second.
I saw him catch fire. Flames climbed his clothes, wrapped around his body. He screamed, but not once did he ask for help.
I once heard that a captain always sinks with his ship. Father burned with his sins.
The nurse dragged me outside without saying a word, pulling me away from the fire. When we reached the yard, there were only two of us standing there. She held an iron bottle in her hand while I had the box. Behind us, the fire swallowed everything.
That was all we had left.
Sirens wailed somewhere in the distance. When she noticed they were getting closer, she grabbed me again and pulled me toward the car.
I felt nothing. No tears came to my eyes.
The only person and the only place I had ever known was burning behind me, and I felt empty.
Instead of getting into the car, I let the box fall to the ground. Papers spilled out. Tapes rolled across the ground. And as she dropped to her knees to gather them, I turned and ran.
I didn’t look back.
My feet moved faster than they ever had. I ran toward the road, away from the Halden Institute, straight into the dark. The nurse stood still for a moment, watching me disappear. Then she got into the car and drove away.
My breathing grew ragged. My ears rang. The wind burned my eyes. The gray tracksuit I had slept in did nothing to stop the cold. Snow crunched under my feet as I entered the woods.
At the start of the path, a sign stood half-buried in white.
OZARK.
I entered the Ozark woods, and everything felt familiar.
My feet knew the path, and I didn’t question it. It was as if I had walked this way before, as if my body remembered something my mind had forgotten. After some time, I stopped.
My knees hit the ground.
I stared at the earth beneath me. It looked solid, frozen even, but it was not. I lifted my head and looked around. It felt like this place belonged to a dream. Like I was inside something I could control now.
I leaned forward.
The ground cracked.
I dropped through it.
“What the…”
My head buzzed as I hit hard, pain exploding on the left side of my skull. Darkness pressed in. My eyes tried to close, but I forced them open.
I was underground.
Wooden stairs rose beside me, already dark and rotten with time. The space around me looked like a cottage buried beneath the earth.
The air smelled damp and old.
Shelves lined the walls, jars filled with liquid, shapes floating inside. Tools lay scattered across a table. Heavy and rusted chains hung from hooks. A small bed sat against the wall with chains fixed to its sides.
The longer I looked, the more my chest tightened.
I knew this place.
I hissed and grabbed my temples as pain burned through my head. Something was coming through, pushing forward.
A memory breaking through.
A boy.
He was hiding. Curled in on himself. His mother stood over him, striking again and again. He raised his arms to shield his head, but it did nothing. I couldn’t hear her voice, only see her lips moving, twisted with rage.
I felt every blow.
My skull burned. My body shook. Everything rushed in at once. I collapsed onto the floor, staring up through the hole above me.
The sky.
I saw it for the first time.
Stars scattered across the black sky; the full, bright moon cast the only light upon me.
Beautiful.
I lay there, breathing hard, staring upward.
Free.
For the first time in my life, I felt alive.
Present Day
It is close to three in the morning when I come by her place.
The door is unlocked.
Something in my chest tightens the second I notice it. The kind of quiet that feels wrong. So wrong.
The street is empty; no neighbors are awake, no lights glow behind the windows. Still, I pull my hoodie farther over my head as I step inside and lock the door behind me.
Daisy is not barking.
She is not here.
The lights are on.
I move toward the table. Photographs are scattered across it, files spread open, all marked X-Files. My gaze shifts down, catching on the floor near the fridge.
A single drop of blood.
My breath stalls.
The living room is dark. The television is on, filling the space with static noise. I step closer, every muscle in me tight.
Kiki sits on the couch, Daisy in her arms, but Dr. Beckett is not around.
She rocks back and forth, her eyes locked on the white noise flickering across the screen.
Daisy doesn’t move. She’s holding her too tight.
She doesn’t bark. She always barks when she feels me nearby.
This is wrong.
My jaw locks. My fist clenches, nails biting into my palm as I come closer.
“What did you do, Mabel?” I ask.
“She knew too much,” she says. “Evil.”
My teeth scrape together as I step closer. “Put the dog down.”
She lifts Daisy.
Her body sags, limp, slipping out of balance as she sets her on the floor.
Something twists hard in my chest.
“Is she breathing?” I ask.
She shrugs, still rocking.
I can’t bring myself to look. My heart pounds as my hand hovers above Daisy’s still body.
“Where is Emily?” I ask.
“Taking a bath.” She points toward the bedroom door, then looks back at me. “You were wrong. She was not helpful at all.”
I turn and run.
The bedroom door flies open, and my boots splash through water pooling across the floor. It soaks into my socks as I rush toward the bathroom. The tub is overflowing, water spilling over the edge.
I drop to my knees.
Dr. Beckett floats in the water.
I turn off the faucet and pull her out, her body heavy, leaving a trail on the floor behind us.
Her skin is still warm, but her lips are turning blue.
For someone who fears nothing, fear finally finds me.
I pinch her nose, press my mouth to hers, force air into her lungs. I pull back and press my hands together against her chest, counting, pushing, begging her body to remember how to live.
One, two, three...
“Come on, baby,” I whisper.
I seal my mouth to hers again, breathe for her, then go back to her chest, pressing harder now, faster.
One, two, three...
Please. Stay.
“No, no, no, Freckles,” I shout. My breath turns shallow as I press against her chest. I lift her, shaking her once, twice, then grip her face and lower her back down.
Nothing.
“This is not supposed to end like this.” I swallow hard and press my lips to hers again, force air into her lungs, press her chest again.
Still nothing.
My jaw clenches as I stand. There are no tears, only heat from anger that reaches my temples. My vision blurs, not from crying, but from rage as I storm into the living room.
“Kiki,” I say.
I grab a pillow from the sofa. She turns her head toward me. I seize her by the throat and slam her to the floor.
She smiles, says nothing, as if she had waited for this moment all the time, and I press the pillow down over her face.
Her hands fly up, striking my arms, clawing, desperate as she fights for air.
But I have zero fucks to give.
I hold the pillow there until she stops moving.
Coughing sounds behind me, making me stop for a second.
The second I hear it, I leave the pillow where it is and run back to the bedroom.
Emily has pulled herself upright, leaning against the cold bathroom tiles. She slides down into a sitting position, her hands limp at her sides, her body refusing to cooperate.
Her eyes flutter, and she starts to close them again.
I rush to her and drop to my knees. My palm presses against her cheek, searching for warmth, for proof she’s alive. Her head tilts, her body slackens.
“Freckles,” I whisper.
No response.
I pull her into my arms and lift her, carrying her to the bed. I lay her down and strip away her wet clothes.
She opens her eyes, closes them again, too weak to resist.
How can someone look so empty and still be so beautiful?
When I pull off her shirt, I see small white marks.
Thin lines carved into her skin, some deeper, some faded, some fresh enough to still hold shape. Both arms are covered, as they have always belonged there.
You don’t have to be a genius to know what they are.
Her scars. She was self-harming.
They say scars mean you survived. No one talks about how heavy surviving can be.
I know that well. I survived torture. Just hers came from her own hands, mine came from my own father.
I trace the lines gently with my fingers, following them down to the small rose tattoo on her wrist. I press my thumb there, feel her pulse under my skin.
Steady.
The tension in my chest loosens.
I pull a blanket over her and step back from the bed. I turn, already thinking about the body in the living room, about what has to be done next.
Her fingers close around my hand.
“Stay,” she whispers.
I should leave. I should finish what I started. I should clean the blood, erase the evidence, disappear again, and go back to the Institute and pretend as if nothing happened.
Instead, I stand there, torn between wrapping myself around her and pretending this is one of the dreams I let myself have.
A life where she is safe. A life I could never give her.
It doesn’t matter.
I can’t escape what I am.
I am a monster, born in a lab, shaped by my father. I have an expiration date. My instinct is to kill and survive by killing. Love was never part of the design.
She was never part of the plan.
She just happened.
And that makes everything more complicated.
She is the complication I should get rid of.
She is also the reason I want to be someone else.
I want a different life. One where choice exists. And if there is even the smallest chance that life could give me another path, she is the only one I would ever choose.
For ten years, I have followed her. Every step. Every turn she made.
Somehow, she makes me feel alive. Now I can’t stay away.
If I leave, the monster walks away untouched.
If I stay, it tears itself apart trying not to hurt her.