and never came to find me.
My throat burns as I reach for the comms panel. “Dorian?”
“Yes, Miss Cole.”
“I need to go to the lab.” I hesitate, then quietly, “Can you… come up?”
“On my way.”
I change into jeans and a sweatshirt—my clothes. Soft. Familiar. Things that belonged to me before all of this. I scrub my face until my skin feels tight, but my eyes are still swollen, lashes clumped with what I couldn’t quite wash away. My hair goes into a knot that barely passes for neat.
Five minutes later, the elevator opens with a soft chime.
Dorian stands inside, immaculate as ever. Black suit. Perfect posture. Calm eyes that miss nothing.
And this time… they linger.
Not uncomfortably. Not unkindly. Just long enough that I know he sees me. Sees the cracks I didn’t manage to hide.
“Are you alright, Miss Cole?” he asks.
I meet his gaze. “No.”
He nods once. Doesn’t ask anything else. Doesn’t offer comfort I didn’t ask for.
He just holds the door.
The lab feels colder than usual. Or maybe it’s just me.
I shove my arms into my lab coat and try to lose myself in data. Sasha left everything neatly stacked: biometric readouts, metabolic studies, and behavioral feedback.
It’s perfect. Zephyra is perfect.
No crashes. No psychosis. Bonded pairs stabilized in under two hours. The emotional peaks last just long enough to sustain the illusion of intimacy—then taper off like a dream. There’s no withdrawal. No danger.
The drug works.
I should feel triumphant but I feel nothing. Just… hollow.
Sasha is out today. Cami’s probably hungover. Ella is gone. And Asher—
I almost reach for my phone. Almost call him. Almost whisper,I need you.
But I don’t.
I start packing up what little I’ve left at the lab. I’ll let Asher know it’s done. I’ll ask Dorian to collect my things from the penthouse. Maybe my apartment is still mine. Maybe my job didn’t dissolve while I was locked in a tower. And if not, maybe the payout from Zephyra will come through—just enough to start over somewhere else, to vanish and rebuild.
To pretend this all meant something.
I try to file the report into the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet —the one where I keep old notes, abandoned trials, and failures I didn’t want to face. The drawer sticks halfway through.
Something’s jammed in the back.
I dig until my fingers close on a thin blue folder.
Approval forms? Not mine. Dr. Patel’s handwriting.
My stomach clenches as I flip it open.
