The words died.
Who was I calling for? Guards who’d put me here? People who wanted me bound?
I made myself breathe. In through my nose, out through my mouth. The way I’d coached a thousand patients through panic attacks.
Except I was the patient now. And coaching didn’t work because my chest was too tight and my heart hammered and...
Focus. What’s the last thing you remember?
Xavier’s room. The boarding school. I’d been smiling, for God’s sake. Walking out to get water, thinking about how peaceful he’d looked, how the tremor was finally gone, how maybe we’d actually done it.
Then nothing.
A blank space where memory should be.
How long had it been? Hours? Days?
The nausea surged. I turned my head to the side, gagging, but came up empty. Just dry heaves that left me gasping and shaking.
Xavier didn’t know where I was.
Neither did Hellhound nor Havoc.
I pulled against the wrist bindings again. They held. Of course they did. I’d designed protocols around these exact models. I knew how strong they were.
The monitoring equipment sat silent beside me. Heart rate, blood pressure. They’d been tracking my vitals. Watching me sleep. Studying me like a specimen under glass.
The thought crawled across my skin.
This wasn’t random. This wasn’t some opportunistic grab. The medical equipment, the bindings, the observation room setup. Planned. Professional.
They’d been waiting for me.
I stared at the one-way mirror, knowing whoever was behind it could see my face. See the fear I couldn’t hide.
Let them look. Let them see I was terrified.
Because I was.
I was absolutely terrified, and trying to pretend otherwise wasted energy I didn’t have.
The door opened.
I flinched, hating myself for it. Hating that I couldn’t control the response, couldn’t stop my body from trying to curl away from whatever was coming.
A man stepped through.
Older. Sixties, maybe. Impeccably dressed in a tailored suit. Charcoal gray, crisp white shirt, no tie. No lab coat.
He looked... normal. Pleasant, even. Like someone’s grandfather. Like a businessman on his way to a board meeting.
But I’d heard about him. Xavier’s nightmares. Havoc’s briefings during the planning sessions. The name spoken with the kind of fear usually reserved for natural disasters.
Dresner.
My breath caught.
He was real. Standing in the doorway, studying me with calm interest. Not angry. Not rushed. Just... curious.
