Kane stared at Rina's flickering form, his mind racing through every protocol, every case study, every desperate possibility he could remember from his Bureau training.
Nothing prepared him for watching a friend dissolve before his eyes.
"We'll figure this out together," he said, his voice steady despite the horror clawing at his chest.
"There has to be a way to reverse this. The binding agent, the transformation—everything has a counter-reaction."
Rina's grateful smile wavered as her form shifted from solid to translucent again.
The temperature in the office plummeted, then spiked, making Kane's breath mist momentarily before sweat beaded on his forehead.
Cyrus observed the temperature fluctuations with calculating eyes.
Kane barely noticed as Cyrus moved two steps closer, positioning himself at an angle that put him between Kane and Rina's unstable form.
"Your energy signatures are bleeding into the environment," Cyrus noted, his tone clinical.
