Page 116 of The Beast's Broken Angel

“Let them come,” I said, meaning it completely. “I've got something they don't expect.”

“Which is?”

“People who choose to stand with me without conditioning. Without programming. Without fear.” I felt Noah shift beside me, silent support that said more than words. “That's what you never understood, Harrison. Real loyalty can't be programmed. Real connection can't be engineered. It has to be chosen, freely, despite all the reasons not to.”

“Naive,” Harrison pronounced. “But I suppose you'll learn that truth in time. If you survive long enough.”

“I'll survive,” I assured him. “Out of spite if nothing else. To prove your programming wrong with every breath.”

“Then I suppose I've given you purpose after all,” Harrison said with bitter satisfaction. “You're welcome.”

I pulled the trigger.

The shot echoed in the small office, loud despite the suppressor. Harrison slumped forward, a neat hole in his forehead, dignity preserved even in death.

I stood there for a moment, waiting to feel something. Satisfaction, maybe. Or emptiness. Or rage that it was over too quickly. Instead, I felt... tired. Deeply, profoundly tired, like I'd been carrying immense weight and could finally set it down.

“It's done,” Noah said quietly.

“Yeah.” I safetied the weapon, tucking it away. “But he wasright about one thing. This isn't over. His handlers, whoever they are, they'll come.”

“Then we'll be ready,” Noah said with quiet confidence. “Together.”

“We should go,” I said, but I didn't move. Couldn't yet. “I thought this would feel different. Killing him. Thought it would... fix things.”

“Death doesn't fix anything,” Noah observed. “Just stops things from getting worse. The fixing comes after, slowly, with a lot of work and probably a fair amount of cursing.”

Despite everything, I found myself almost smiling. “Speaking from medical experience?”

“Life experience,” he corrected. “You're not the only one carrying damage, Adrian. Mine's just less visible.”

I turned to really look at him then, this man who'd walked into my life and disrupted every carefully programmed pattern. Who saw my monstrosity and chose to stay. Who saved my life even when it meant betraying my trust.

“Thank you,” I said, words inadequate but necessary. “For being here. For seeing me as more than his creation.”

“Always,” Noah replied simply. “Even when you're being a stubborn bastard. Especially then.”

We left Harrison's body for his government handlers to find, a message written in blood and silence. Viktor's team had cleared our exit, ghosts vanishing into London's darkness before anyone could respond.

In the car driving back to Ravenswood, I found myself reaching for Noah's hand. He let me take it, fingers intertwining with careful gentleness. The touch grounded me, reminded me that Harrison was wrong about the important things.

I wasn't just programmed responses and conditioned violence. I was also this: capable of connection, of choosingtrust despite betrayal, of building something real from the wreckage of systematic trauma.

“What now?” Noah asked as Ravenswood's gates came into view.

“Now we prepare for war,” I said. “Harrison's handlers, whoever they are, won't let this slide. But first...” I squeezed his hand. “First we figure out us. What we are when we're not running or fighting or drugging each other for their own good.”

“That sounds dangerously like a healthy relationship discussion,” Noah observed with mock horror.

“I know. Fucking terrifying.” But I was smiling as I said it. “Think we can manage it?”

“Probably not,” he admitted. “But I'm willing to try if you are.”

“Yeah,” I said, meaning it completely. “I'm willing to try.”

Harrison was right that the programming ran deep, that violence and control were carved into my bones by decades of conditioning. But he was wrong about it being unchangeable. Every choice to be better, to trust, to love despite the risk, was a small revolution against what he'd tried to make me.

And with Noah beside me, bearing witness to both monster and man, I thought maybe those small revolutions could add up to something like redemption.