Page 26

"Stop calling her that." The words burst out before I can stop them. "She wasn't my mother. She was a scientist who used her own child as a genetic experiment."

Vex doesn't flinch at my outburst. "She was both. One doesn't negate the other."

"Easy for you to say. You weren't designed with a purpose in mind."

"Wasn't I?" Something flickers across his face—old pain, quickly masked. "My modifications weren't chosen for me, true. But they were forced on me. At least yours were integrated with your natural development."

I hadn't considered that perspective. "How did it happen for you?"

He's silent long enough that I think he won't answer.

"Unity raid on my settlement when I was nineteen.

They took prisoners for experimentation, testing reversal protocols on 'contaminated' subjects.

" His voice remains neutral, but I see the tension in his jaw.

"I was the only one who survived their procedures. "

Guilt twists in my gut. I was part of that system, the Sentinel who hunted people like him, who delivered them to processing facilities without questioning what happened after.

"I'm sorry," I say, knowing how inadequate it sounds.

"You weren't there." His eyes hold mine. "And now you're one of us. Funny how life works."

"Am I?" I look down at my hands, remembering the claws that briefly appeared earlier. "One of you? Or something else entirely? "

"Something else," he admits. "Your modifications are more sophisticated. Designed rather than adapted. The pinnacle of your mother's research."

"The prodigal daughter," I mutter. “Lucky fucking me.”

"Actually, yes." He leans forward, intensity radiating from him. "Do you have any idea what you're capable of? Most of us paid for our adaptations with suffering and instability. Yours were crafted for optimal integration, all the benefits of modification without the drawbacks."

"Except for the part where I had no say in any of it."

A smile ghosts across his face. "None of us have a say in how we're born, Zara Thorne. Only in what we do with it afterward."

Before I can respond, the door opens, spilling light into the room. Trent stands in the doorway, his silhouette rigid with tension.

"Visiting hours are over," he says, voice clipped.

Vex doesn't move. "She's not a patient, Sentinel. She's transitioning. There are no visiting hours."

I feel the familiar prickle of frustration. "Again, I'm right here. Stop talking about me like I'm not."

Trent's eyes shift to me, softening slightly. "Reid sent me to check on you. Your readings spiked again."

"I'm fine." I gesture at Vex. "He was just explaining some things about the adaptation process."

"I'm sure he was." Trent's tone could freeze water. "Regardless, you need rest. Dr. Reid's orders."

Vex stands, seeming more amused than annoyed by Trent's interference. "Your watchdog is right about one thing—rest helps stabilize the changes." He moves toward the door, pausing briefly beside Trent. "Though there are other methods of stabilization she might find more interesting than sleep."

The implication hangs in the air like a challenge. Trent's jaw tightens, but he says nothing as Vex slips past him and disappears down the corridor.

For a moment, Trent remains in the doorway, a rigid silhouette against the light. Then he steps inside, letting the door close behind him.

"He shouldn't be here," he says quietly. "His motives aren't as altruistic as he pretends."

"And yours are?" The words come out sharper than I intended, the hurt still too fresh.

Trent flinches as if I'd struck him. "You have every right to be angry?—"

"Don't tell me what I have a right to feel." I swing my legs over the side of the bed, surprised by how steady I am. "You don't get to decide that anymore."

"Zara—"

"Three years, Trent." I stand, facing him fully. "Three years of partnership. Of trust. Of me thinking you had my back while you were actually monitoring me for signs of genetic deviation."

"That's not?—"

"What it was? Then what was it?" I step closer, anger giving me courage. "Was anything real? Or was I just an assignment you were handling?"

Pain flashes across his face. "You were never just an assignment,” he says, his voice going low and rough.

"How would I know the difference? Everything I thought was real turned out to be a lie."

"Not everything." He steps forward, closing the distance between us. "Not what happened during synchronization. You felt what I felt, Zara. That wasn't fabricated. That wasn't duty. That was me .”

The memory of our last sync session flares—that moment of perfect transparency when I glimpsed his feelings for me, raw and powerful and real. It would be easier if I could dismiss that as manipulation too, but I know what I experienced.

"Then why didn't you tell me?" My voice drops, the anger giving way to something more painful. "When my symptoms started, when I was terrified of what was happening to me—why keep lying?"

"I was protecting you." His eyes hold mine, willing me to understand. "If Unity discovered what you were before you were ready?—"

"That wasn't your decision to make!" The words burst out of me. "My life. My body. My truth. You had no right to keep it from me."

"No." He doesn't try to justify it further. "I didn't."

His admission catches me off guard. I expected more excuses, more rationalizations. The simple acceptance of wrongdoing leaves me unbalanced.

"I can't trust you," I say finally. "How can I ever trust you again?"

He doesn't answer immediately. When he does, his voice is quiet but steady. "One day at a time. One truth at a time. I can't change what I did, Zara. But I'm here now, not because of any assignment, but because there's nowhere else I'd rather be."

The sincerity in his voice makes something ache in my chest. It would be easier if he'd been cold, calculating—just another Unity operative following orders. The Trent standing before me now, vulnerable and honest, is harder to keep at a distance.

"I need time," I tell him, stepping back. "Space to figure out what all this means. Who I am now."

He nods, accepting this without argument. "Whatever you need." He moves toward the door, then pauses. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry. Not for protecting you, but for hurting you. That was never my intention."

After he leaves, I sink back onto the bed, emotions churning.

The anger is still there, but alongside it now is confusion.

Trent lied to me for years—that's an undeniable fact.

But he also risked everything to help me escape, to stay by my side when he could have completed his mission and walked away.

People make sense as heroes or villains. It's the in-between that's fucking messy, complicated, and impossible to categorize.

I lie back, staring at the ceiling as my enhanced vision picks out details invisible to normal eyes—the subtle patterns in the wood, the microscopic life forms moving across surfaces. Everything is clearer now, sharper, more defined.

Except the one thing I need most to understand: my own heart, caught between anger and longing, between past and future.

Sleep eludes me for hours as my thoughts chase themselves in circles. When exhaustion finally claims me, I dream of running through endless corridors, searching for a door marked "truth" that remains forever just out of reach.