"I don't know. There are cameras everywhere. But I can find my way out by myself."
He didn't want to leave. He wanted to stay with her, talking and laughing and stealing kisses until the sun came up. But that wasn't the world they lived in. Their world was one of surveillance cameras and suspicious guards and consequences neither of them could afford.
"Good night, Mattie."
"Good night, Dimitri."
He forced himself to let go of her and walk to the door. He made himself not look back. If he did, he would want to kiss her again, and if he kissed her again, he might never leave.
The corridor outside was empty and silent, the recessed lights casting pale pools of illumination on the concrete floor. Dimitri kept his head down as he headed toward the staff exit, his mind spinning and his emotions all over the place.
Mattie had shown him her scars, and the fact that she'd felt like she needed to do it right away pained him. How many had seen those scars and run out on her?
Cowards. Shallow men who had failed to see the beauty that was more than skin deep.
The mottled skin, the uneven texture, the evidence of trauma and survival etched into her flesh wasn't beautiful in the conventional sense, but it was part of Mattie, and she was beautiful, so how could it be anything other than beautiful too?
Still, that didn't mean he wouldn't do everything he could to ease her suffering and promote more healing.
It hadn't been idle talk. If he could create compounds that turned regular immortals into something more, he could definitely do something about regenerating damaged skin and muscle.
His mind was already turning over possibilities, cataloging what he knew about cellular repair and the compounds he might be able to synthesize.
The enhancement drugs he was being forced to work on had regenerative properties. That was part of what made them so effective. The subjects healed even faster than other immortals.
What if he could isolate those regenerative components? What if he could create something that promoted healing without the other effects? Something that could help scar tissue become more supple, more functional, less painful?
It was a long shot. The science was complicated, and he would have to work on it secretly, hiding his research from Dave and Losham just like he was hiding his attempts to break free of the compulsion. But if there was even a chance he could help her, it was worth the effort and the risk.
As he stepped outside, the humid night air hit him, warm and heavy with the scent of tropical flowers. The walk back to the laboratory building took him past the hotel, past the damaged structures that were still being repaired, past the guard posts where bored-looking men in uniforms paid him no attention. He was a known quantity, not worth worrying about.
He and Petrov had rooms in the lab, so no one thought much of him heading there in the middle of the night, or so he hoped. The hotel bar had been closed for a while now, but the brothel worked around the clock, so they might assume that he was coming from there.
Was Petrov back?
Probably not. He usually spent his nights at the brothel and returned to the lab in the mornings.
Dimitri punched in the code for the lab's front door, entered, and then closed the door behind him. He didn't go to his room, though. Sleep wasn't possible when his mind was working on overdrive, thinking of possible compounds he might use to create a healing solution for Mattie. Instead, he walked over to his workstation and sat down.
The vial of his experimental compound was where he had left it, looking innocuous among the other chemicals and solutions.
The mushroom extract and stimulant combination was slowly helping him break free of Dave's compulsion. Each dose gave him a little more freedom, a little more clarity. The pressure at the edges of his thoughts was still there, but it was easier to resist, easier to think around, and his head didn't ache as much when he was thinking for himself.
He still needed to refine the formula further, though, and find the perfect balance that would give him true freedom without the side effects that made extended use dangerous. And now he had another project to work on as well.
Dimitri pulled out his coded research journal and began to write, documenting his thoughts while they were still fresh. The enhancement drugs worked by accelerating cellular processes, promoting rapid healing and physical optimization. But they also had psychological effects, binding the subjects together and reinforcing the hive mind.
What if he could isolate the regenerative properties? What if there were a way to extract the beneficial components without the dangerous ones? Most importantly, he needed to adapt the formula for human use.
The image of Mattie's face when he'd touched her scarred leg haunted him. The fear in her eyes, the tension in her body, the way she'd braced herself for rejection. How many times had she shown someone the damage she'd suffered only to be met with disgust or pity? How many times had she been made to feel less than whole, less than beautiful, less than worthy of love?
He wanted to find every person who had ever made her feel that way and introduce them to some of his more creative chemical compounds.
But violence wasn't the answer. Revenge wouldn't heal her scars or erase her pain. What she needed was someone who saw her for who she truly was and cared for her. Someone who recognized her strength, her resilience, and her beauty, inside and out.
Someone like him.
The thought should have terrified him. After Mila, he had lost trust and sworn off love. He had built walls around his heart so thick that nothing could penetrate them. But Mattie had walked right through those walls like they weren't even there. She had looked at him with those clear blue eyes, and something inside him had recognized something inside of her. Two people who had been hurt and betrayed, finding each other in the most unlikely of places.
