The rain hadn't stopped in three days.
It came down in sheets now—angry, endless, as if the sky itself was trying to drown the academy and everything festering beneath it.
I hadn't seen Rhea since that night.
Not really.
We'd touched, claimed, burned—but when I woke, she was gone. Just the faint impression of her body in the mattress, and the lingering scent of whatever perfume she never admitted to wearing. Like ink and smoke.
I waited.
An hour.
Then two.
By the time the sun dragged itself up through the clouds, I was already tearing through the halls.
No one had seen her.
Again.
They were getting better at taking her.
Or she was getting better at vanishing.
I found her notebook first.
She hadn't meant to leave it. I knew that the second I opened the cover and saw it: the pages were still damp, ink smudged, symbols drawn over and over again like a prayer scratched into skin.
The first page was a word.
ECHO.
The second—my name.
Then a sentence:
"He doesn't know what they buried inside him."
I went back to the lab.
The one beneath the science wing, sealed with three keypads and a scanner that read bone marrow.
They thought I'd forgotten how to break in.
They forgot I was the reason it had to be sealed in the first place.
The door hissed open after I keyed in the override code Rhea had once whispered into my ear in her sleep.
Inside, everything was where we left it—except now, someone had been here after us. Files were scattered. A monitor still flickered. One security feed ran on loop.
But only one.
Camera A-17.
Focused on a hallway that didn't exist in any blueprint of St. Augustine's.
A hallway I'd seen only once—before the reset.
Before the fire.
I pressed my palm to the console, hard enough to bruise. Nothing happened.
Then:
"Voice authorization: Subject A-03."
Static.
Then—
"Echo code accepted. Proceed to Observation Sector."
The wall behind the console clicked.
And opened.
The hall was silent. Sterile. Lined with locked doors labeled with Greek letters and subject tags.
But I wasn't looking for files.
I was looking for her.
The deeper I went, the worse the humming got. It wasn't mechanical. It was something alive. A low vibration crawling up the spine, whispering in a voice that sounded like mine but wasn't.
Turn around.
I didn't.
The door at the end had no lock.
Just a nameplate etched in silver:
V-05 | Retained Memory Host
My breath caught.
I pushed it open.
And froze.
She was there.
Strapped to a chair, wires tangled through her hair, a needle sunk into her neck.
Eyes open.
But empty.
Like they'd taken the part of her that looked at me and recognized something worth staying for.
I lunged.
The moment I touched her, the room screamed.
Alarms. Red lights. Screeching metallic doors sliding shut.
And then—
She blinked.
Once.
Twice.
"Adrian?"
Her voice was fragile, unsure.
Like she was hearing her own name for the first time.
"It's me," I said, cutting the restraints. "I'm here. I found you."
But something in her eyes shifted.
"They said you would. That you always do."
I paused.
"Who said that?"
"The ones watching."
She touched my cheek. "They told me you'd kill for me. That's why they kept me alive."
My blood went cold.
"What did they do to you?"
She didn't answer.
Instead, she pressed something into my hand.
A vial.
Silver fluid inside.
"What is this?" I asked.
"Your last reset."
"What?"
She looked at me—really looked—and there it was. Her. Buried beneath the drugs and the trauma and the nightmares.
"They kept this in case you disobeyed again. In case the old Adrian came back."
I stared at it.
Shaking.
"Why are you giving this to me?"
She leaned in, mouth against my ear.
"Because I want to see what happens when they lose control of you completely."
Then she kissed me.
Hard. Fierce. Like it wasn't just about want—it was about burning down everything they built between us.
I didn't drink the vial.
Not yet.
I tucked it into my jacket and carried her out.
Alarms still blared, but no one stopped us.
It was like they wanted me to find her.
Like this was part of something larger.
A test.
Back in the dorms, she collapsed onto my bed, skin pale, breath shallow.
I sat beside her, watching her fingers twitch against the blanket.
"Do you remember the first version?" I asked quietly.
Her eyes fluttered.
"I remember pain."
"And me?"
"You were the only thing that didn't hurt."
I swallowed.
She opened her eyes again.
"But they told me I was built to destroy you, Adrian."
"And you believed them?"
"Not at first."
She looked away.
"But then I realized… I don't know who I am without you."
She reached for the buttons of my shirt, slow, deliberate.
"I want to find out," she whispered. "Together."
The next morning, a new message waited for us in her notebook.
Phase Three: Convergence confirmed.
Subject A-03 nearing threshold.
Do not intervene.
Observe emotional destabilization.
I stared at the page until my hands shook.
Rhea stepped behind me, wrapped her arms around my waist.
"They think you're going to break."
"Maybe I am."
She leaned in.
"Then let's make it worth it."
The sound came back first.
Not hers.
Mine.
My breathing—loud and ragged in the stillness, like something wild had crawled out of me and was trying to claw its way back in.
I was on the floor.
I didn't remember falling.
Across the room, Rhea stood at the window, barely a silhouette in the lightning-soaked dark.
Naked back. Silver scars. One fresh. Still bleeding.
And a single phrase etched into the fogged glass with her fingertip:
> "Do you still want me if I'm the one who breaks you?"
She turned slowly.
Eyes black in the lightning. No reflection.
I couldn't move.
Not out of fear.
Out of need.