CHAPTER 26 - Madeline
My hands are locked onto the steering wheel so tightly that my knuckles look like bleached bone. Every second that passes, I think about Lucy and her voice. And then I hear my own voice.
She is a liability, Deimos.
I had to say it. I had to become the same monster to trick him. But the trick is already in motion, and it started hours ago, before I even reached his gates.
As soon as I left my apartment, after I thought about my next move, I made the call I swore I would never make. I called Detective Sterling.
"I know who he is," I told him, my voice shaking, but certain.
"The Arbiter. The ghost you’ve been chasing for years. I can give him to you, but you have to follow my lead."
I lied through my teeth. I didn't tell him about the nights with him. I didn't tell him about the DNA or the fact that I touched the killer and felt something other than horror. I played the part of the concerned doctor, a witness who stumbled upon a nightmare.
Sterling gave me the instructions. He coordinated a strike team. They will be in the morgue, hidden among the refrigerated units and the chemical vats. I am the bait. I am the lure meant to draw the predator into a cage of steel and law.
"What am I doing?"
I whisper, my breath fogging the windshield.
A wave of nausea hits me. I am betraying him all over again. The man who, in his own twisted, broken way, tried to show me his truth. I feel the ghost of his touch on my skin, and it sickens me that even now, with Lucy’s life hanging by a thread, I still feel that pull toward him.
But I had to choose. I chose the girl who I love over the man who wants to dismantle my future. I chose Lucy. Even if it means I have to lie to the only person who ever truly 'saw' me.
"He'll know," I mutter, panic rising in my throat.
"The moment he steps into the room, he'll see it in my eyes. He’ll see the lie."
Deimos doesn't just read people; he dissects them. If my heart rate is too high, if my pupils dilate when the police move, he will know. And if he knows, he won't just run. He will finish the 'masterpiece' by killing me, Lucy, and anyone else in that room.
I pull into the hospital parking lot, the morgue entrance looming like the mouth of a cave. My phone buzzes. A text from an unknown number. Sterling.
"Units in position. Lab B is a kill zone. Just get him to stand on the marked tiles. We'll take it from there."
I stare at the screen, my thumb hovering over the 'delete' button. I could warn him. I could send a single word to Deimos and we could disappear together. But then I remember his words and the fact that Lucy’s and even my life is hanging on by a threat.
I step out of the car, the cold night air biting at my face. Tonight, I am the woman who has to break a villain's heart to save a best friend’s life and my own sanity.
I walk through the long, echoing corridor of the morgue. Every step feels like a hammer blow to my own integrity. The sterile white light of the fluorescent lamps burns my eyes, and the smell of disinfectant irritates my throat.
I know they are there. Sterling and his men. They stay hidden. They are just waiting for the right moment for the trap to snap shut. For them, Deimos is not a human with a story; he is "The Arbiter", a trophy they want to collect.
I head straight into my office and sit behind my desk, the darkness in the room wraps around me like a cold blanket. My thoughts are shattering.
Images of Charles rise before my eyes, the man who created him. I imagine young Deimos, a boy who never knew an embrace, only the cold of the laboratory and the pain of his father's experiments.
A sharp, physical pity burns in my chest. I want to save him.
I want to tell him that the world can be different, that he does not have to be the architect of destruction.
I feel a bond with him that is stronger than fear.
It is the worst form of betrayal, to fall for someone you are about to send to a cage.
"I'm sorry," I whisper into the void, while a tear rolls down my cheek.
"I am so sorry."
My mind is running with so many outcomes. Deimos does not see her as a sister. He sees her as a mistake. And I am the only one who can rewrite that line in his code.
My personality is finally falling apart. Dr. Madeline, the calm and rational woman, is gone. Only this broken creature remains, waiting for the arrival of her killer.
I feel the air pressure in the building change. The door at the end of the hall clicks softly. He is here.
Deimos doesn't move with the heavy thud of the tactical boots the police are wearing; he glides, a silent predator reclaiming his territory.
Despite the sensors he surely has in his head, the internal alarms that must be screaming about the shifted air pressure and the faint, metallic scent of gun oil from the hallway, he chooses to ignore them.
He wants to believe me. For the first time in his life, he is letting a flaw remain in his plan because that flaw is me.
He approaches my desk, the silence between us heavy enough to crush my lungs. He doesn't say a word. He reaches out, his gloved hand cold but steady, and cups my face. His thumb traces my cheekbone with a tenderness that shatters what little remains of my composure.
He thinks he won. He thinks that by breaking me, he finally made me his. He looks into my eyes, searching for the reflection of the woman who claimed Lucy was a liability, the woman who said he was her only reality.
I look back at him, seeing the killer, the victim, and the man all at once. I see the boy Charles destroyed, and the weight of the betrayal I am about to execute collapses in my chest.
I burst into tears.
The sobs are violent, racking my body as I lean into his palm. It isn't part of the plan. It isn't the signal. But I can't stop it. I am mourning him while he is still standing right in front of me.
"Madeline," he whispers, his voice low and vibrating with a rare, terrifying vulnerability.
He thinks these are tears of relief. He thinks I am crying because I am finally home. The "kill zone" is only feet away, and Deimos is standing exactly where they need him to be.
I clutch his wrist, my fingers digging into his coat. I want to scream at him to run. I want to tell him that the morgue is full of hunters. But the words die in my throat.
"I'm sorry, my ghost," I choke out through the tears, my voice barely audible.
He freezes. His thumb stops its rhythmic stroking. The softness in his eyes vanishes, replaced by a sudden, glacial realization. He is a master of patterns, and he just recognized the shape of a trap.
The air in the office shatters.
The heavy oak door is kicked inward with a deafening crack that echoes through the sterile halls like a gunshot.
"POLICE! ON THE GROUND! NOW!"
The screams are a wall of noise, followed by the blinding glare of tactical flashlights cutting through my darkness.
Deimos doesn't reach for a weapon. He doesn't fight. The realization of my betrayal is a faster strike than any bullet could be. He freezes for a split second, his hand still hovering near my cheek, the warmth of his skin lingering on mine for one final, agonizing heartbeat.
Then the weight of the strike team hits him.
Three officers tackle him, forcing him down onto the cold linoleum floor. I hear the dull thud of his body hitting the ground and the metallic clink of the handcuffs ratcheting shut around his wrists. They are rough with him, pushing his face into the floor, but he doesn't make a sound.
He doesn't look at the guns pointed at his head. He doesn't look at Sterling, who is barking orders in the background.
He looks only at me.
I collapse to my knees right there on the floor, my legs giving out as if the bones have turned to water. I am inches away from him, my face streaked with tears and my chest heaving with a pain that feels like a physical wound. I sob, my voice breaking into a thousand jagged pieces.
He is pinned down, his cheek pressed against the floor, but his eyes stay locked on mine.
There is no rage in them. There is no "Arbiter" left in that gaze.
There is only a profound, glacial disappointment.
It is the look of a man who finally allowed himself to believe in a miracle, only to find out it was just another calculated lie.
He looks like I just handed him back to Charles, back to the darkness, back to the world where no one can be trusted. Every silent second of his gaze is a knife twisting in my heart.
He doesn't say a word, but his eyes tell me everything:
You were the only part of me that I didn't want to destroy. And you are the one who finished me.
Sterling grabs my arm, trying to pull me away.
"Step back, Doctor. We have him. It's over."
They drag him toward the door. He doesn't struggle. He walks with a hollow, robotic gait, his head turned back toward me until the very last moment. That look of absolute hurt is burned into my retinas, a masterpiece of pain that I created with my own hands.
The room is suddenly full of people, radios, and shouting, but to me, it is as silent as a grave. I am alone on the floor of my office, knowing that I saved Lucy’s life, but I liquidated the only soul that ever truly belonged to me.
Sterling grabs my shoulder, his grip firm and triumphant.
"We got him, Madeline. After all these years, we finally have him. You did the right thing. You’re a hero."
The word makes me want to vomit. I stare at the spot on the floor where Deimos was just pinned down. The cold linoleum is still smeared from his coat.
Lucy. I know Deimos. He doesn't leave logs. He doesn't use phones that can be traced by a precinct. If I want to find Lucy, I have to use the only thing he actually gave me, his trust, even if I shattered it.
I shove Sterling’s hand off me and stumble back toward my desk.
"I need... I need a moment. I'm going to be sick."