Same Time – Beneath the East Wing, Igor's POV
He crouched low in the dark, one hand braced against the wall's damp stone, the other clenched around nothing at all. The sound of her voice, Gene's, reached him even here. Faint, distant. But not lost.
She was getting closer.
The metal around him vibrated with her footsteps, careful and slow. She knew he was near.
Igor didn't move. Not yet.
The cold of the tunnel suited him. It dulled the noise in his head, muffled the chaos that had been building ever since the collar snapped. But even here, the voices warred. The one that wanted to hide. The one that wanted to lash out. The one that simply wanted to be understood.
And then: Maisie.
Her voice came through the comm unit Gene carried, trembling, fragile.
"Gene… if you see him, tell him I don't want to fight. Just get him to talk. Please."
His breath hitched.
Maisie.
The one person who had spoken to him like a man, not a monster. Who'd never used the number. Who'd given him a name when no one else would.
He pressed his head against the cool pipe beside him, jaw tight. The part of him that remembered warmth, remembered her smile, remembered the feel of sunlight on skin… it ached.
But then the other part. The one who had seen what Harry did. The memory of that man's blood soaking into his gloves. The way no one, no one, stopped it from happening until it was far too late.
They hadn't protected him.
They hadn't known how.
He'd scratched the message into the greenhouse bench before he fled underground. Not out of cruelty, but desperation
Which one of you remembers?
It wasn't a threat. It was a question. A cry. A test.
Because if none of them remembered what the White Angels did, what they let happen, then he couldn't trust them. He couldn't afford to.
His back ached where the wings had torn loose, tendons still strained from the internal bindings he'd severed hours ago with a shard of shattered mirror and blind instinct.
The pain hadn't faded. Not fully. His body trembled from the effort of controlling it, keeping the monster behind his teeth.
But it was getting harder to tell which version of him was in charge.
He heard Gene's footstep pause above him.
"Igor," she whispered. "Are you there?"
He didn't answer.
Not because he didn't want to.
But because he didn't know who he would be if he did.
The tunnel's darkness pressed close, cold and unyielding. Gene's breath came shallow as she stepped deeper, her comm unit clutched tightly in one hand, the faint hum of its scanner the only sound beyond the ragged breathing ahead.
There, crouched against the rough stone wall, was Igor.
His shoulders trembled, not with fear, but with the weight of a storm raging inside, a fractured mind struggling to hold itself together.
His eyes, sharp yet glazed with pain, flickered to her as she approached, a flicker of recognition, and something like hope, briefly breaking through.
"Gene," he rasped, voice cracked and low. "Why... why are you here?"
She knelt slowly, careful not to startle him. "I had to find you. We need to talk. I know you're not just what they made you to be."
Igor's gaze dropped to the ground. His fingers absently traced a shallow cut on his forearm, as if trying to feel something real in the chaos inside. "I'm... broken. Not like they wanted. My mind... it fights against the control. But the voices, they still scream."
Gene swallowed, her own heart aching for the man who was both monster and victim. "You're not alone. Maisie named you Igor because she saw your strength. Your bravery. You protected her, even when you didn't believe you could."
He let out a bitter laugh, but it cracked under the weight of truth. "Like an injured animal. Not sure if I should fight... or run."
"You don't have to do either," she said softly. "Not alone."
For a long moment, the only sound was the steady rasp of his breath and the faint drip of water somewhere deep in the tunnel.
Then, Igor lifted his head, eyes meeting hers with a fragile clarity. "Can I trust you?"
Gene's voice was steady, but her eyes held the promise of a lifeline. "I'm here. And I'm not leaving."
Igor's eyes flickered with a storm of emotions, trust, fear, and confusion, all warring beneath the surface. For a heartbeat, he seemed ready to stay, to lean on the fragile thread Gene offered.
But then, something deeper stirred: the primal instinct, the scarred survivor who had learned long ago that weakness could be fatal.
His jaw clenched. The fractured mind screamed louder, drowning out reason.
"I... can't," he whispered, voice breaking. "Not yet. Not like this."
Before Gene could reach out, Igor was already moving, silent, swift, a shadow slipping back into the darkness of the tunnels.
Her hand barely brushed the air where he had been.
Gene swallowed the lump in her throat, heart pounding in the sudden emptiness.
"He's running," she murmured to herself, eyes searching the black void he vanished into.
But deep down, she knew.
He wasn't gone.
Lennox Estate — 10:30 PM
That night, when the estate finally settled into uneasy quiet, Maisie returned to her room. The distant hum of police cars outside was a harsh reminder of the chaos that had erupted just hours before.
The officers had arrived promptly, combing the mansion for evidence. Blood trailed to her father's armchair, a grim, silent testament to the violence that had unfolded.
Her brothers remained silent, their expressions hard and unreadable as officers questioned them. They refused to answer, their loyalty unshakable as they guarded the family's darkest secrets.
Instead of speaking, they insisted the family lawyer be brought in to represent everyone, determined to keep control of the narrative and shield themselves from scrutiny.
Gene stayed hidden, slipping away to avoid the scrutiny, her presence a ghost among the shadows.
Now, in the quiet of her room, Maisie's fingers trembled as they brushed something unfamiliar on her pillow.
There, resting against the cool fabric, was Igor's collar, broken, battered, yet unmistakably his.
No note. No blood. Just the collar, and a faint smear of dirt that looked like a whisper of his presence.
Her breath caught, but she didn't scream.
She sank onto the edge of her bed, clutching the collar tightly, her mind swirling with confusion and pain.
Her father was dead. The man who had ruled their lives with secrets and fear, whose choices had shattered their family, was gone, murdered in cold blood.
Part of her felt relief, a bitter taste that maybe some justice had finally been done.
But beneath that, a deeper turmoil gnawed at her.
She was angry. Angry that he had sacrificed so much, her mother, their family's peace, for power he could never truly hold.
Angry that his death came at the hands of Igor, someone she cared for despite everything.
She wasn't sure when or how the feeling had grown, why she felt something like love for Igor, but it had crept up subtly over the years, a quiet presence she hadn't dared to name until now.
She loved Igor. Quietly, fiercely, in ways she barely understood herself.
And now, the man who was both monster and victim was gone, or maybe not gone at all.
Her heart ached with the weight of loss, betrayal, and a fragile hope that the pieces might still fit together.
"He's not gone," Maisie whispered, voice trembling in the dark. "He's waiting."