Chapter 43
Malcolm screams again. The sound of it bounces off the curved walls of the chamber and drills straight into my skull. But the really fucked up part is that I don’t feel bad. Not even a little.
I probably should. This is my uncle. The man who used to bring me weird expensive candy back from business trips. The man who pretended not to notice when I stayed up too late playing video games at his house.
But every time I look at him now?
All I can see is Reese bleeding out on a basement floor.
The shadows tighten again, black tendrils digging into Malcolm hard enough to force another broken sound out of him.
They squeeze and strike and suffocate. They fill his lungs, and I know from experience the kind of agony that is.
They beat him. They crush him. Blood spills from the corner of his mouth as he struggles against them, his breaths uneven and wet.
And all I can think is…
Good.
He fucking deserves it. Hell, he deserves a lot worse.
“Well,” I mutter, pushing my hair back from my face. “This is probably not what my therapist would’ve recommended.”
Malcolm lifts his head at the sound of my voice, and before he can say a word, electricity flashes down my arm before I even fully decide to do it.
The current slams into him, and his back arches against the machine.
The smell of ozone fills the room as blue-white light tears across his skin.
It has to hurt like a bitch, enough to make him scream again.
Reese’s head snaps toward me, and concern flashes across his face. “Cason.”
The electricity dies from my fingertips in flickering sparks.
“You don’t have to do that,” he says, brow furrowed.
I look back at Malcolm. At the blood, the shaking. I almost hate how satisfying it is. Which makes Reese’s concern valid. But…
“We lost too much fucking time because of him.” My gaze drifts back to him, my jaw set with determination. “So, yes, I fucking do.”
Something settles in his expression. He doesn’t approve, but he understands.
His shadows finally loosen enough for Malcolm to collapse forward, coughing hard against the restraints still barely holding him upright. He looks older. More…human.
“Let’s go,” Reese says coldly before his shadows yank Malcolm away from the machine.
My uncle stumbles, his legs barely working. But Reese doesn’t care. The shadows drag Malcolm behind us as we leave the chamber, his shoes scraping harshly against the floor while blood smears faintly across the polished tile beneath him.
For once in his life, Malcolm Bellrose looks exactly like what he is.
Not a visionary. Not a savior. Just another man drowned by the consequences of his own choices.
Reese and I walk side by side back upstairs while the shadows haul my uncle, who’s gone quiet, not putting up a fight. I get the feeling that the fight has been bleeding out of him slowly for the past twelve years. But after everything he’s done, I’m kind of glad I’m here to witness his downfall.
I don’t even bother to look back at him the entire way to the ground floor. And when we get there…
The atrium looks like a fucking apocalypse.
There’s glass everywhere. Parts of the kinetic installation hang broken from the ceiling, twisted metal filaments swaying overhead while shattered translucent panels crunch underfoot.
Water from the artificial stream spills across sections of the gleaming white floor now streaked with blood and ash.
Several people are still fighting when we emerge into the lobby. Mia has someone pinned against a collapsed section of wall while Sebastian looks like he’s actively enjoying himself way too much.
Then Reese grabs Malcolm by the arm, yanking him away from the shadows and shoving him forward so hard he nearly falls.
“You know what the fuck to do,” Reese snarls at him.
Malcolm catches himself against one of the ruined support columns, breathing hard and ragged. He slumps against the structure and stares out at the ruin spreading through the Institute like wildfire, the one that he started. And, yet, I swear I see a flicker of sadness in his eyes.
Then he straightens as much as his battered ribs allow and shouts, “Enough!”
Despite the state of him, the one word cuts through the atrium loud enough to make the fighting hesitate like a glitch. Then everyone turns.
Malcolm stands in the wreckage, clutching his side, blood trailing from one corner of his mouth, one eye already bruising dark beneath the harsh lobby lights. His breathing shakes once, twice, before he forces the next words out.
“Bellrose Institute belongs to Cason Bellrose now.”
My brain short-circuits.
What?
“Whatever he asks of you,” he continues hoarsely, looking directly at his people, “you will follow him.”
Silence crashes through the atrium. Mia looks stunned, but not nearly as stunned as I feel. Rory still looks cautious, eyeing the Institute Ascended as though waiting for them to continue their attack.
Meanwhile, I don’t think I’m breathing. I always thought the Institute could be mine one day if I wanted it, but I didn’t expect it to come up for a long fucking time.
Decades. I suppose this is the most logical course of action, but I guess I also didn’t expect Malcolm to give it all up that easily.
Sebastian slowly lowers his gun when it seems like Malcolm’s people are done fighting. “Well, alright then,” he mutters. “I’m personally very into the rich boy inheritance arc.”
Reese’s shadows tighten around Malcolm again, making him wince, before they shove him roughly in Sebastian’s direction.
“Find somewhere to put this soulless bastard,” Reese tells him.
Sebastian peers down at my uncle, slow amusement spreading across his face. “Oh, how the mighty have fallen.”
Malcolm glares at him weakly.
Sebastian grins wider. Then he grabs Malcolm by the arm and starts dragging him away. “Come on, you miserable fuck. Let’s go find you a cage.”
I watch them go, making their way across the devastated lobby that’s been all but smashed to pieces.
I’m inheriting a crime scene. A very expensive crime scene, but still.
It’s a fucking battlefield and generational trauma.
How very Bellrose.
Around the atrium, the remaining Institute Ascended slowly surrender their weapons and stand down as Reese’s people move through the wreckage securing the lobby.
Rory and Delilah start rounding people up near the shattered front entrance while Mia helps restrain the ones still trying to look dangerous despite clearly losing.
The fight’s over. The head of the snake finally bowed.
For so long, Bellrose Institute felt untouchable. Too big, too powerful. Too woven into every horrible thing that happened to Reese and the resistance and me.
And now?
It’s quiet. Broken.
Shattered glass crunches under my shoes as I take a slow step forward, staring up at the remains of the kinetic installation hanging crooked from the ceiling.
My dad loved it. He loved this entire place.
I’m angry at him for leaving me and my mom the way he did because now I know he didn’t have to fucking die.
But I’m going to choose to believe what Malcolm said is true, that my dad wanted to protect us.
He didn’t care about the power that came with Ascension, not in the way I did.
I think for the first time, I truly believe he loved us more than he did the Institute.
Reese moves beside me, close enough that his shadows brush against my ankles like restless cats.
“You alright?” he asks softly.
I let out a short laugh. “Define alright.”
My gaze drifts across the atrium, across the ruined Institute. Across the people now looking to me for direction.
Well.
Fuck.
Reese follows my line of sight. “Are you going to take it?”
The question hangs heavy in the air between us as we stare out at it. Bellrose Institute. The laboratories, the resources, the research, the power. My father’s legacy. Malcolm’s too.
Not intimidating at all…
I swallow hard and answer, “Yes.”
Reese turns his gaze on me, studying me. “You sure?”
“No,” I answer honestly. “But I think I have to.”
Because if I walk away from this place, someone else becomes Malcolm eventually.
Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe not next year.
But power like this doesn’t stay empty for long.
And despite everything, there is good here too.
Scientists who have good intentions, who only want to help.
Research that could actually save lives instead of destroying them.
And maybe even Ascended who deserve better than cages.
My fingers flex at my sides, little sparks flickering unconsciously beneath my skin.
“I don’t want Bellrose to stay…this,” I admit quietly.
“Not anymore. I just…” I turn to face Reese and immediately feel a little better just at the sight of him.
“I’m probably going to need help though.
With everything. Especially figuring out how to run a morally questionable superpowered death laboratory. ”
That gets a real laugh out of him, low and warm.
God, I love that sound.
“I think we can manage,” he says.
We.
Not you.
The knot in my chest loosens a little more. It’s nice to feel like I’m not alone. I spent a long time feeling that way, but now I have Reese. Even Harrison and Lane. I don’t know if they would’ve been able to survive this battle, but maybe now they could help like they offered.
Reese steps closer until his body brushes mine, and the rest of the lobby fades a little around the edges. Mia yells at someone. More glass breaks. The smell of smoke and ozone and blood drift through the air. All of it suddenly feels distant compared to the warmth of him standing beside me.
“I meant what I said earlier.”
I arch my brow at him in question. “Which emotionally devastating declaration are we talking about? There have been several.”
A faint smirk pulls at his mouth. “I’ll follow you anywhere. Always.”
My throat tightens, and I have to look away before my face can betray me too much. I stare very hard at a random piece of broken glass on the floor. “I hope you’re happy.”
“Why?”
“Because now I’m having emotions again.”
He laughs once more, pulling my eyes back to him. His smile is fucking beautiful, and I realize now what a rare sight it is. I want to see it all the fucking time.
Even though he laughs, I know he sees right through it.
Right through me. I think he always has.
It’s easier to grin through pain, to make a sarcastic comment than admit something hurts or matters or terrifies the hell out of me.
But maybe with Reese, I don’t have to hide behind all of that anymore, pretend that’s all there is to me.
Am I going to change? Fuck no.
But I think I’m okay with him seeing more.
Reese’s fingers brush lightly along my jaw, his eyes holding mine. “I don’t want you to hide them, Cason.”
My throat tightens all over again because it feels as though he’s read my mind.
His shadows slide slowly around us, curling tighter and tighter until they wrap around both our bodies like living darkness. It’s not scary or suffocating. It’s protective and possessive.
Safe.
“I want all of it,” he says, resting his forehead against mine. “The good parts. The ugly parts. The things that hurt. The things that bring you joy or scare you or piss you off. I want you to feel everything with me.”
I don’t stand a fucking chance.
Electricity sparks softly beneath my skin where my hands settle against Reese’s chest, blue-white light flickering against black shadow.
Two dangerous things. Two ruined things.
And standing here in the wreckage of everything that tried to destroy us, I think I finally understand something.
Ascension does reveal who you really are.
Because I crossed Pulse Zero and came back wanting one thing more than I already did, just louder, deeper, stronger than I ever had before. One thing I would willingly burn the entire fucking world down for.
Not even death could keep us apart.