Three seconds.Maybe four.
The door burst open.Rick Charming crossed the room in three strides and physically hauled Gray backward, breaking his line of sight to Larsen.Evie Danger was right behind him, dropping to her knees beside the operative's slumped form, her eyes going unfocused as she reached into his failing body with her mind.
"His heart stopped," she said, voice tight with concentration."I'm restarting it."
Rick's grip on Gray's arm was iron.He didn't let go until they were in the hallway, the reinforced door sealing shut behind them, and even then he kept himself between Gray and any path back to the interrogation room.
"What the hell was that?"
Gray's hands were shaking.He stared at them, at the residual static still crackling between his fingers, and tried to remember how to breathe."I lost control."
"No shit."Rick's face was unreadable, which was somehow worse than anger."You almost killed him."
"Good."The word came out before Gray could stop it, raw and vicious."He deserves it."
He heard the Pollux aggression in his own voice, the dark satisfaction that the Aethor Institute had engineered into his DNA, and it made his stomach turn.
Rick studied him for a long moment."Evie will wipe his memory of the incident.We'll say the dampening field malfunctioned."
"Let’s continue this discussion in my office."
Gray's office occupied the top floor of the Gemini Initiative's headquarters, all glass and chrome and the kind of sweeping city views that were supposed to inspire confidence in the organization's leadership.Right now, the only thing it inspired was a keen awareness of how far he'd have to fall.
He stood at the window, watching the lights of New Athens City spread out below him like a circuit board, and tried to remember the last time he'd slept through the night.
Rick hadn't said a word during the elevator ride up.Now he leaned against Gray's desk, arms crossed, waiting.
"How long has this been going on?"Rick asked finally.
"I don't know what you mean."
"Bullshit."Rick's voice was flat, tired."I've known you for ten years, Gray.I watched you build this organization by being the 'good' Pollux, the one who proves we can be civilized, that we're more than the weapons Aethor tried to make us.But you're not civilized right now.You're barely holding it together."
Gray turned from the window, and the city lights caught on his face, throwing half of it into shadow."Since Tasha and Kumar.Maybe before."He sank into the chair behind his desk, suddenly exhausted, and stared at his hands.They were steady now, but he could still see the afterimage of lightning dancing across his knuckles."Every loss makes it harder.I can feel it building.The rage.The need to just unleash everything.Burn it all down and let the ashes sort themselves out."
"That's not a bug," Rick said."That's a feature.You're a Pollux variant, Gray.We're built for war."
"I'm the head of the Gemini Initiative.I can't be a warmonger."
"You're the head of a military organization fighting a war."Rick pushed off the desk and began to pace, restless energy radiating from him."What did you think that meant?You've been suppressing your nature for years, playing diplomat, playing peacekeeper.But we're past that now.Protogenus isn't going to negotiate.They're building weapons to strip us of everything we are, and you're worried about being too aggressive?"
Gray didn't answer.Instead, he pulled up his holographic display, the blue light casting strange shadows across his features.The footage was from earlier that day, captured by someone's phone and uploaded to a dozen news sites within the hour.
Protesters crowded the sidewalk outside a suburban apartment building, their signs a familiar litany of hate: SUPES GET OUT.SHE FOOLED US ALL.REGISTER THEM ALL.A woman pushed through the crowd toward a battered sedan, her midnight hair falling across her face as she ducked to avoid something thrown from the back of the mob.Electricity crackled around her fingers, visible even in the shaky footage, but she didn't fight back.She just kept moving, kept her head down, kept trying to reach her car.
Lightning snapped down Gray's spine the moment her face appeared on-screen, an instinct his body recognized before his mind allowed it.His mate
Hannah Charge.
Even in the grainy footage, she was striking.Eyes like lightning, the files had said.Gray remembered the moment he'd seen her in that Protogenus facility, strapped to their machines, electricity arcing from her body into massive conductors.He'd taken one look at her and everything changed for him.The recognition went deeper than conscious thought.His DNA knew hers.His body had known before his mind caught up.
"You're watching her," Rick observed.It wasn't a question.
"Making sure she's safe."He told himself he was monitoring her for safety.Not because he couldn’t stop thinking about the way her power had coiled around his, fitting too perfectly.Not because the memory of her looking up at him had carved itself into him like a brand.
"From a distance."Rick's tone sharpened."You know she's your created mate.And you're watching her get pelted with garbage from forty miles away."
"She made it clear she wants nothing to do with this world."Gray closed the display, and Hannah's face vanished into blue mist."With me."
