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Hands tightened around my shoulders and forced my knees to the ground. A ringing blasted against my eardrums. My neck rolled and cracked. A sudden burst of energy exploded as a numbing took over, my eyes blurring with tears.

“You’ve turned into a monster, Nina.” Lace picked up the gun and raised it to his left, aiming at Alek. “You’re the reason this night turned out like this.”

“No!” I shouted, the nausea rumbling in my stomach and the endless burn clawing at my throat. Every moment of us together in the CEG, every conversation, cry, and laugh turned to fucking ash in a blink. That piece of me crumpled as I stared at Lorenzo’s unmoving body and at the man that I thought was my best friend.

“Please, Lace. T-this isn’t you. This isn’t what you—”

“What I wanted?” A smile edged across his face as he lowered the weapon, his eyes bleak. “I got tired of playing the best friend, you see.”

Me.

A coldness drowned my body as every inch of myself merged and reformed, memories vanishing and hitting me at once.

“I wanted excitement; I needed it so much that it led me to agree to all of this in the beginning.”

Say it.

He walked around me, the guardians holding me tense against my skin. Deep underneath, arms and legs cracked out of place. They elongated and expanded, ripping muscles and flesh. Blood-filled tears ran down my cheeks, but as the memories came back, I couldn’t stop. Wouldn’t stop. Shouldn’t stop.

“To some extent, I wanted to try and help you too. Not for the better, but to make you want the worst.”

I was alone, alone, alone.

My ribcage tore into me as my spine split in two, teeth biting against screams that wanted to escape. My throat swelled and tightened as everything consumed me at once. The pulsating ache rose in my chest.

Say

“That’s why the superior changed her mind about you. The same couldn’t be said about your cousin, though. And what better way to dispose of him than by testing my new toys?”

My

The everlasting ache from my head now pounded against my skull and bones. My shoulders shrugged away as the fingers grew distant, and a force loomed within me.

“Isn’t that right, Katerina?”

Name.

An itch crawled against my skin.

“Don’t call me that.”

My blurred vision fell on Lace, his hands drawing the gun and aiming toward my direction.

“Then what do I call you? You’ve always been nothing without a label.”

This time, I plunged into the abyss by choice.

His face distorted as tears continued to slip down my cheeks.

We have always been everything.

My neck rolled and cracked.

You have never been nothing.

Our voices became one.

Katerina.