The motel room was soaked in orange lamplight, shadows crawling across the peeling wallpaper. Rain tapped at the windows like impatient fingers, the world outside lost in mist and midnight.
Inside, Maya stood by the dresser, a black hoodie clinging to her damp skin, her silhouette lit by the flickering TV. She was barefoot again, her hair still wet from the rushed escape.
Liam sat on the edge of the bed, watching her.
Watching every movement.
He hadn't said much since the drive. He didn't have to. The air between them buzzed with unspoken things — tension, fear, desire, all tightening into a singular thread.
"You're staring," Maya said softly, not turning.
"You stopped looking like her," he replied.
She turned then, slowly, like a storm unfolding.
"Like who?"
"Like the version they designed to blend in. Now… you look like someone who remembers."
Maya stepped forward, her voice barely a whisper. "What if I don't want to remember anymore?"
Liam stood.
Their bodies met halfway.
She was trembling — not from fear now, but from something molten crawling beneath her skin. His hand cupped her cheek, rough thumb brushing against the soft edge of her lip.
"You're still you," he whispered. "Even if the truth changes everything, I'll still find you."
She leaned into him, lips parting, breath catching.
Then — she kissed him.
It wasn't cautious. It was starved. Desperate.
Their mouths moved like they'd been waiting through lifetimes. His hands gripped her waist, lifting her gently onto the dresser. Her legs wrapped around him, pulling him closer, deeper into the storm between her ribs.
Maya's hoodie slipped off one shoulder, revealing the glowing lines of scar-code stitched into her skin. Liam's lips brushed her collarbone, down the edge of her jaw. Her fingers tangled in his hair, her breaths becoming moans swallowed between kisses.
She whispered his name like a secret she didn't want the world to hear.
"Liam…"
His mouth hovered just above her chest.
"Tell me to stop," he murmured.
She didn't.
But something else did.
CRACK!
The mirror above them shattered — not from impact.
From pressure.
A pulse of sound vibrated through the room like a scream. The lamp sparked, then exploded in a flash of white.
Maya gasped — her body arching, her eyes snapping open.
And in the fragments of the broken mirror—
Kai appeared.
Not a reflection. A projection. Flickering and glitching, like an old recording overwritten by something alive.
He stood shirtless, skin etched with mirrored symbols glowing blue, silver eyes boring straight into Maya.
"You're getting too close," he said. "And you're not ready."
Maya slid off the dresser, breathless. "Why are you doing this?"
Kai tilted his head. "Because they'll kill him to keep you compliant. He's your leash, Maya. And you don't even know who you really are yet."
Liam stepped forward. "Then tell us."
Kai smirked. "You were designed as a hybrid — mind fractured between male and female consciousness. They deleted me to keep her under control. But now I'm waking up… and every time you touch her, you bring me closer."
Maya's pulse roared in her ears.
"Who are you to me?"
"I'm what you buried," Kai whispered, fading. "And soon, I'll be what survives."
Then he vanished.
Silence rushed in like a tidal wave.
Liam reached for her, but Maya backed away, stunned.
She looked at her hands — glowing.
Not from the outside.
But from within.
And somewhere in the depths of her mind, a voice whispered—
"You were never just her. You were always us."