Page 171 of Bonds of Starfall

The doctors noticed. Of course they did.

So they took that from him, too.

Sabine was hereto visit him.

Kit didn’t look away from her cold eyes, hoping she’d look into his and see the monster they’d turned him into.

She sat across from him in the lounge, legs crossed as she folded her hands over her knees. She was dressed impeccably. "You’re looking so much better."

"Like you fucking care," Kit spat. His words hitched just barely this time.

His head had been pounding since two days ago, when he’d woken up to blood crusted around his nose and mouth.

He knew what that meant.

Experiments. It seemed they employed the same methods he and Rin had been forced to endure. Was Somnocept somewhere in those pills?

Sabine sighed, pulling a photo out of her pocket and sliding it across the low coffee table between them. Kit didn’t look at it—didn’t let himself touch it.

"Take it," Sabine said.

"No," Kit replied.

"You don’t want to see how your Soulbond is doing?"

The room tilted to the side. His breath caught in his tight chest. He reached for the photo, fingers trembling. He used his real hand, unable to stomach the thought of touching anything that had to do with Rin with this monstrous technology forced onto his body.

Kit’s throat tightened as he held the photo, his thumb stroking over the side. Rin.

Her white hair was tangled around her face, a soft smile on her lips. The edges were faint, like a painting unfinished—like she wasn’t sure if she wanted to smile or frown. Her small handwas tucked onto the chest of another man. Lucien, who held her tightly against his chest, where they sat on a couch together.

If Kit had any tears to cry, they would’ve fallen from his eyes then. But everything inside him was dried up and corrupted.

He looked up to find Sabine staring at him.

"Why did you show me this?" Kit asked.

Sabine steepled her hands. "She’s moved on. Does that upset you? Your Soulbond, touching another. Someone you both knew, no less." Her voice was precise and cool.

Right. Kit remembered that. They didn’t know Lucien was her Soulbond, too.

Kit forced anguish onto his face. It wasn’t difficult. "She never loved me anyway," he said. "We were doomed from the start."

He placed the photo on the coffee table, unable to see her face here, among these lifeless, cold walls.

Rin didn’t belong here.

Sabine regarded him with calculation. "I am sorry, you know, that it had to come to this. But your love for her will be your demise."

Kit didn’t speak after that, even as Sabine talked lowly about their next steps, remarking how far he’d come in his healing.

Rin’s face flashed behind his lids with every blink. If it weren’t for her, he would kill himself, he realized. The only thing keeping him from doing it was her, the thought of her out there, waiting for him—grieving him.

Sabine thought she was turning Kit against Rin with the photo, but it only brought Kit such an utter sense of peace to know his Soulbond was being cared for. Maybe Rin was better off without him.

That night, Kit bundled up the thin sheet on the bed, turning it into a rope in his fists. He tugged it between his two hands, and the prosthetic whirred faintly as he did so.

How easily could this be a noose...