There was no room for them now.
I walked around the car and joined Varessia. The guards nodded to her and hauled the heavy door open.
I fixed my mask in place and I followed her inside.
We metthe exodus in the service tunnel. A stream of white coats and tactical vests flowed towards the exit, eyes wide with panic. The fire alarm hammered a rhythmic, deafening clang against the concrete.
Varessia stepped into the path of a fleeing scientist, grabbing his arm to halt his flight. “Report.”
“The suppression system,” the man gasped, looking back towards the double doors. “Sensors picked up a heat spike in the main bay. We were moments from completion when the water triggered.”
Varessia released him. She smoothed her jacket and walked straight into the downpour. I followed.
Inside the lab, rusty brown water battered the room, turning the sterile floor into a swamp. Steam hissed violently where the spray hit overheating consoles.
“Shut it down!” a technician yelled from the far bank of monitors, his hands flying over a keyboard. “The core is destabilising!”
“Leave it!” Varessia’s voice cut through the noise. She wiped water from her eyes, a hungry smile taking hold. Her suit was ruined, the white fabric soaked through and clinging to her shoulders. Rusty streaks from the old pipes marked the lapels, destroying the sharp, clinical lines of her silhouette. The chaos of the lab was finally marking her.
“Override the safety!” she shouted over the blaring alarms. “Let it finish.”
I focused on the glass containment room in the centre of the bay. Eamon lay strapped to the metal table. He looked small, his skin grey and waxy. Three tubes ran from his arm, carrying a thick, glowing silver fluid out of his body and into a collection canister on the exterior wall. He was fading.
Then movement on the far side of the glass caught my eye.
Selene.
She stood there hammering a metal chair against the partition.
The deafening alarm swallowed her screams. Hair plastered to her face and jacket torn, she threw herself against the glass cage holding her father.
My gaze shifted back to the table. The flow inside the tubes had accelerated, the torrent of light leaving Eamon’s body turning him into a trembling, grey shell.
He tore his eyes away from Selene, his head rolling heavily against the metal table to face the entrance. Through the glass and the rain, he found me. He saw Varessia standing next to me. He saw me standing tall, hands in my pockets, playing the loyal dog.
He met my stare with an unyielding, stark stillness.
He closed his eyes.
Selene turned. She felt the shift in the room’s attention. She looked at Varessia, her face twisting in fury. Then she looked at me.
The room narrowed down to a single, brittle point of focus. The rushing water and shouting technicians receded into a distant background hum.
I watched recognition set in—a slow, devastating collapse. Her gaze tracked my stance, then moved to Varessia at my shoulder, before the memory of the failed message finally took hold. The message telling me exactly where she was. She had told me, and I had brought the monsters to the door. Hope rotted in her eyes, festering into a confusion so profound it looked like physical agony. I felt as though I had reached into her chest and crushed the heart she’d offered me last night.
“Riven?” she mouthed.
It was a silent, desperate plea for me to prove her eyes wrong. To be the partner I claimed to be, rather than the executioner standing by Varessia.
I kept my face like stone. I held her gaze. I let her see me standing at the right hand of the woman killing her father. I let her hate me, because hate would keep her warm when the grief tried to freeze her to death.
Static prickled my arms. Arcing silver light leapt from the containment unit, blurring the air between the gantries like a heat haze.
“Whatever she is,” Varessia shouted over the alarm, leaning close to me, “she’s annoying. Kill her, Riven. Before she breaks the glass.”
I stepped to the side and lifted my hand.
Selene flinched.
