Chapter Text
Drowning
The glass is cold against his skin.
“Hey handsome, did you see that? This is the one you picked.”
Artem blinks, words all caught up and dissolving like acid in his throat, and sees them. They’re alive again, Ava Kendricks and Jerry Jones. They’re alive again, and he’s back in here, trapped inside the archive room and everything around him is glass and—
Everything is so loud — so loud.
The other side of the cage is empty. Zella’s gone.
Water begins to pour into the cage, liters and liters of it, waterfalls crashing against the floor, and Artem allows himself one smile. One smile, because he’s proud of her, and he’s glad that she chose to save herself.
He can hold his breath. Not for long, but enough to buy her time.
As Ava cackles in the background, the water begins to come up to his ankles. Then his knees. The cage — or perhaps it’s more of a tank now — seems to shrink.
Jerry continues to pound at the glass, but it’s no use. There’s no way out.
The water reaches his waist, and Zella has not yet returned.
Where is she? he thinks, as Ava continues to gloat in his incoming death.
The roar of the water blots out Ava’s words, which is good in some way because he doesn’t want to listen to her. Let her exult over her triumph while she can. He’s still holding out for Zella, holding out for hope.
The water reaches his chest, his shoulders, his neck.
Did she find Darius?
“How long can you hold your breath?” Artem throws the question to a frightened Jerry.
There is no time to answer.
Because there is no more space, no more air, and the water completely submerges him from head to toe, and there’s no way out, and all is glass and water and darkness.
Is she hurt?
Artem pushes against the roof of the tank, but it’s no use. He’s floating, and Jerry’s floating — or so he thinks — and they are running out of time.
He can’t help it. Artem starts counting down the seconds in his head. He doesn’t have long.
Did she leave me?
No, no — he can’t have thoughts like that. He still has hope, and that hope is her, and she wouldn’t give up on him. Even if they had switched places, she wouldn’t give up on him.
Three minutes pass.
It hits him that perhaps he is Schrödinger's Artem. Not dead yet, and not entirely sure if he’s alive. Maybe he’s somewhere in between. Dead and alive.
He’d giggle if he wasn’t about to drown.
Where is she?
Thirty seconds.
Ten.
And then,
Zella?
She doesn’t come. Three minutes and forty-two seconds and then some, and he still can’t hold out for her.
He isn’t enough. She isn’t enough. They aren’t enough.
The lights haven’t dimmed, but it’s so dark down here. Silent. Empty. He can’t breathe.
He can’t breathe, he can’t breathe, he can’t breathe.
Involuntarily, he gasps, hoping against hope that somehow there’s air in here, but all that enters his lungs is water and there’s no air and he can’t breathe and he’s going to die and—
Something crashes against the glass.
Artem wakes up, in a tangle of cold sheets and discarded pillows and the deafening blast of the air conditioner.
Gasping.
Remembering.
[Before]
The distress signal sounds when they least expect it.
Marius is on his feet instantly. “Tha—That’s—”
“The distress signal,” Vyn finishes. “Luke, locate the—”
“North Stellis.” Luke rises from his seat — without any cramps interfering, Marius notes — and continues tapping through his phone.
Marius sucks in a breath through his teeth. “North Stellis?” And then once more for greater effect: “North Stellis? ” That was one of the city’s no-go zones; of course Artem and Zella would be there.
Why hadn’t they been told about this?
Vyn dials Zella’s number as Luke tries to figure out the quickest route.
“She is not picking up,” Vyn says, his voice edged with a thin trace of worry. “Marius, try Artem.”
Now is not the time for snappy comebacks. “On it.” Marius goes through his contacts and taps on Artem’s name. The phone rings, but just like Zella, he isn’t picking up.
“All routes to North Stellis have been compromised,” Luke says, still focused on his phone. “Traffic jams, road accidents… I have a bad feeling about this.”
Vyn hangs up. “It was Zella who had sent the call,” he says. “And now both of them have gone silent.”
Dead? The thought splashes over Marius like cold water. No, they couldn’t be dead. He doesn’t know what he’d do if they were—
Marius forces himself to take a deep breath. Steadies himself as he tries to think of something, to come up with a way to get them all to North Stellis as soon as possible. He hangs up on Artem and dials another number. “I’m calling Pax.”
“What?” Luke says.
“I’m gonna get a helicopter.”
---
“You have a pilot’s license?” Luke is still in disbelief even as the Pax private helicopter lands outside the NXX headquarters. The sleek helicopter, along with the front of the pristine Victorian mansion, creates a striking juxtaposition.
“Sure, but Air Traffic Control is so gonna come after me for this,” Marius grumbles.
“The risk is worth it,” Luke says, checking his equipment one last time.
“Oh, don’t worry,” Marius says, as the pilot disembarks from the helicopter. “Rich people get around most things.”
How convenient, Luke thinks, even though his own misdeeds get scrubbed from government records anyway.
“Besides, I’ll drop all the financial consequences onto Artem.” Marius stops awkwardly, and Luke realizes there is an unsaid statement there. There won’t be an Artem to drop consequences onto if he was dead.
“Let’s go,” Luke says, bringing everyone back to the present. They have to focus now. He doesn’t know what he’d do if he found Zella and she was—
He shakes his head, trying to snap out of it. “We don’t have time to lose.”
“Agreed.” Vyn comes up to the two of them, duffel bag in hand.
“What’s that?” Luke asks.
“First aid equipment.”
Luke nods. “Good thinking.”
Marius exchanges a few words with the pilot, then climbs inside the helicopter. He waves to Luke and Vyn. “Come on in!”
Luke snaps to attention and heads over, Vyn quickly following after him. There is enough room for at least six people. “You’re flying?” Luke asks as he picks a seat and straps on his seat belt.
“No use getting another pilot in trouble,” Marius says. “Besides, this is NXX business.”
“You have soundproofing,” Vyn notes, scanning the helicopter interior. “Expensive.”
“Yeah, I called in the expensive one just in case…” Marius trails off, then clears his throat. “Just in case. Now buckle up, Vyn. I may have money, but I can’t say the same about time.”
Scars
It is just another day at the law firm for most people, but Artem doesn’t fall into that category any longer. His bruises are fading and he’s able to work again, but there are deeper things that have yet to scab over.
As he takes the stairs and walks to his office, it washes over him that there is glass everywhere. It has never been a problem before.
But now he is seeing the glass windows in the offices, the glass doors, and tiny spaces all around, and suddenly he is there again, and, and—
No.
He’s not there.
He’s at work, at his law firm. He isn’t trapped in an enclosed space, oxygen seeping out as he prepares himself for the worst. He’s okay. He can leave whenever he wants.
Artem swallows.
The stairway doors swing open, and Zella walks up to him from behind. She’d also avoided taking the elevator. “Morning,” she says, punctuating the greeting with a yawn.
Artem relaxes slightly as he turns to her. “Good morning.”
“Coffee?” She holds out a paper cup.
Artem reaches out to take it, but hesitates, his gaze stopping on her hand. The cuts from when she had dug through porcelain shards for the hammer, and from when she’d smashed the glass cage to get to him — those have all turned into little white scars.
And even they would fade eventually.
“Is something wrong?” Zella begins to draw back, but Artem takes the coffee cup before she can move away.
Artem shifts uncomfortably. “Everything — it all feels like it’s gone back to normal.”
“Life goes on,” Zella says, but even as he looks at her, there is a tiredness in her eyes. Perhaps she, too, is still haunted by nightmares.
Artem tries to calm the anxieties stirring up within him. “But we made it.” They were still alive, the two of them. That was one thing to be thankful for.
“Yeah,” Zella says. “We did.”
They are grateful to be alive. They are grateful to be breathing — and they are grateful for all the little things they often take for granted.
But they both end up working outdoors that day. They sit in a nearby park, where there is decent wi-fi and quiet birdsong and clear skies. It is a temporary measure, they know, to be away from the memories of glass and closed spaces.
A temporary respite from the nightmares.
They’ll both think about healthier coping mechanisms another day.
[Before]
The first thing that hits Vyn, when he gets to the archive room, is the blood.
Blood on Zella’s hands. Blood on Artem, bruised and weak and yet still standing.
Blood on the floor, where Kendricks and Jones are lying side by side. One glance, and he knows there isn’t anything he can do for them. They don’t quite have matching wounds, but there are enough clues for him to guess what had happened.
Marius had landed the helicopter in a clear space outside the archive building. Vyn isn’t too certain about the legality of the landing location, but he figures that Marius has it covered. Right now, he has other things to think about.
“You’re here,” Zella gasps.
Luke surveys the room, his gaze passing over Kendricks and Jones as if they are merely part of the décor. “How are we doing with security?”
“No one else is in the building,” Zella answers. “And the police are on their way.”
Marius nods. “I saw them on our way here.”
“Good,” Artem says. “Do you think they will be able to intercept the thralls?”
“That is for Morgan to handle,” Vyn says, dropping the duffel bag. “For now, first aid.”
He watches as Artem and Zella exchange glances, then turn back to him.
“Treat Artem,” Zella says.
“Treat Zella,” Artem says.
Vyn gives the two of them a cursory glance. Zella’s cuts seem to be superficial, while Artem’s injuries… are harder to gauge from here. He makes his decision and moves to Artem, who doesn’t refuse him after that.
Marius carefully ducks into the shattered cage and pulls out the chair.
“Careful,” Zella says.
“Don’t worry,” Marius says. His gaze travels over the bat lying inside, and for a moment, his expression darkens. Then he places the chair next to Vyn and his medical supplies.
Vyn gives him a nod of acknowledgement and gestures for Artem to sit. Artem winces, but does as he’s told.
“What happened?” Vyn asks, although he is already piecing together a theory.
Artem opens his mouth to speak, but Vyn stops him. “Not you. Zella.”
And as Vyn begins to treat Artem’s cut lip — he thinks he’ll have to leave the more major injuries for the hospital — Zella summarizes what happened after they both blacked out.
---
The moment he’d stormed into the archive room, Luke had wanted to throw his arms around Zella. But then he saw the blood on her hands and the weariness in her stance, and he backed off, not wanting to risk hurting her further.
He had warned her about this when she said she wanted to join the NXX.
But it had been her choice, in the end. It had always been. She knew that she would be risking her life. Luke just… hadn’t thought it would happen so soon.
And now, as Zella recounts her side of the story, Luke has to push back flashes of memories — memories he tries so hard to keep under lock and key. Memories of old teammates, and a secret mission, and a time when everything had gone wrong. And they had come so close — too close — to everything going wrong again.
Artem and Zella had been put into this twisted game for Ava’s own enjoyment. Forced to choose between one or the other.
Ava’s dead now, but the wounds she’s inflicted, the pain she’s caused — all of that remains.
Luke imagines being in Artem’s position instead, trapped behind the glass and faced with a terrible dilemma.
He doesn’t have to wonder what he would have done.
Dreaming
Zella is dreaming again.
It isn’t always the same dream, but the feelings are the same. The details can be different, and the outcomes change.
Tonight, she is running.
Ah, a subconscious part of her thinks. This one again.
Some nights, she is back in the archive. But those are few and far between. Mostly, she dreams of museums at midnight and dark movie theaters and abandoned malls, places that aren’t connected in any way to drugs or the thralls or Naomi’s case.
There is usually a current of desperation in her more recent dreams. Sometimes it’s because there’s someone to save.
It’s not always Artem, though, although she has dreamed about him before. Sometimes it’s Luke, or Vyn, or Marius. Kiki or Celestine. Cedric Ross from college. Her parents. They don’t always make sense.
One time she dreamed that she had forgotten who she had to save, and she had peered through a familiar glass wall only to see a reflection of herself.
She has dreams where she fails to save the people she loves, where she runs out of time, or fails to find the one thing that can rescue them. Other times, she wakes up before she can save them.
Sometimes, Zella doesn’t dream of saving anyone at all. Sometimes, she’s trapped inside the glass cage again, and she pulls the lever to the right, and the oxygen gets sucked out from both sides anyway.
In her waking hours, when she closes her eyes for a second, she can still see Jerry slitting Ava’s throat, and see him smile before he plunges the knife into his own heart. She still remembers Ava’s laugh, and the way she relished in the suffering of others.
It won’t be forever, Zella tells herself, when she can. When she remembers. It won’t always be like this.
She’s still healing, but healing isn’t always linear, and she is still trying her best to hold onto all the hope in the world.
For now, she dreams.
Still waiting for the nightmares to recede.
[Before]
Captain Morgan and the rest of the police don’t take long to arrive at the archive building. After a very quick debriefing, Marius gets the rest of the NXX to pile into his helicopter.
“I should… call Celestine,” Artem says.
Marius gives Artem a look. “Maybe not now?” He’s familiar with the constant inflow of work Artem and Zella deal with, but between oxygen deprivation and being beaten with a stick, he’d prefer it if he can get Artem to a hospital as soon as possible.
“For now, your priority is to rest,” Vyn says. “The two of you have been through a lot. I will not have the people currently under my care work themselves to the bone.”
Zella smiles slightly.
“If it’ll make you feel better, I’ll call her when we land,” Luke says. “Promise.”
Artem hesitates, then nods.
Marius makes sure Artem and Zella are both settled before leaving the passenger area for the cockpit.
As he adjusts the helicopter for takeoff, flashes of the archive room pop up in his memory.
Marius isn’t used to seeing dead people, at least not in person. Death is different in real life than it is on a screen, or in a book, or in art. He is familiar enough with death in his life, and missing people, but the shock of walking into the archive room — and seeing the blood, and Ava’s glossy, lifeless eyes staring up at the ceiling — is going to stay with him for a while.
Ava had hurt so many people. She’d put so many of them into her little games, made their hands red with blood so they could match her own.
Could that have happened to Giann?
Could that have happened to him?
Perhaps he will never know. Ava’s dead now, and she’ll stay dead, and without her, Marius hopes that it’ll be easier to unravel her tangled web of schemes.
But for now, Marius has two friends to get to the hospital. Two friends who are still alive.
Two friends who had come out of an impossible game winning.
---
Zella doesn’t feel like she’s won.
Artem’s alive, and she’s alive, but… Jerry is dead. Naomi is dead. Ava is dead.
How many people will have to die until all of this is over?
In her mind’s eye, the archive room flashes again, but this time it isn’t Jerry and Ava on the ground, clouded gazes staring up at the ceiling. This time, it’s Vyn and Marius and Luke, bleeding their sands of time onto shattered pieces of the glass cage.
“Rosella, right?”
The nurse’s voice brings Zella back to the cold, white light. “Huh?”
“You’re Rosella?”
Zella relaxes. “Yeah.”
With just her and the nurse inside the hospital room, even the softest of whispers seems as loud as the bat colliding with Artem’s body. Zella tries not to wince as the nurse begins to clean her cuts.
Artem is being treated elsewhere now, of course, and Vyn is waiting somewhere outside. Luke is calling Celestine. The last time she saw Marius, he was trying to figure out the best location to park his helicopter.
They are all alive.
But this hadn’t been something they had won with spoken words in a spotless courtroom. This was a victory she had only grasped by picking up a hammer and smashing it into glass, over and over again, the growing cracks the only vision of progress she had.
She hadn’t even been thinking about Ava at the time.
All Zella remembers is the desperate need to save Artem, to let her choice be the right one, and to rescue Jerry in the process, too.
She hadn’t been able to save them all, but it looked like she had still won.
The nurse turns Zella’s hands over to examine the other side.
Zella shuts her eyes for a brief moment. Had she made the right choice? Or should she have pulled the lever that would have freed Artem? Would anything have turned out differently if she had done that — would more people have been saved?
She doesn’t know.
She had made her choice, and it’s all in the past now, and she’ll never be able to make that choice again.
All Zella can do now is look to the future. To hope that this doesn’t happen again, to work to make sure this can never happen again.
She…
She’s so tired.
Feeling
Sometimes, Vyn doesn’t like feeling things.
Emotions are a core part of human nature, he knows, but he is human, and thus he feels. Feelings can get in the way at times, and how he prefers to deal with them is by analysis and reflection. Like asking questions, such as: why is he feeling something? Is it good to be feeling these things? Should he be redirecting these emotions to something else?
But now… he isn’t feeling anything.
He had gotten home from the hospital after making sure Zella and Artem were all right — especially Zella, but Artem being well is better than Artem being dead. He had gone to bed, and he had risen at his usual time the next morning, and he had made tea.
And he is numb.
Should he be feeling something? Here he is, putting bread into a toaster and going about his day as always, and somehow he senses that perhaps he should not be treating today as normal. Not after what had happened the day before.
Not after what could have happened.
In the past, Vyn has had patients who have felt nothing after significant losses.
But he has not permanently lost anyone close to him, so logically, he should not be feeling like this.
Ha, feeling. Such a weighty word, and yet only seven letters long.
The toaster lever pops up, and Vyn heads to the fridge to find the homemade strawberry jam. The jar is only half empty, which means he won’t have to make another batch this week. He takes it out and sets it on the counter.
Then Vyn moves back to the toaster, only to find that one of the slices of bread he had put in was too small and had gotten stuck inside. It is a normal occurrence, even if it is inconvenient. Stupid toaster.
The safe thing to do would be to wait until the toaster cools, and then turn it upside down, or use rubber tongs to try and retrieve the toast. That would probably be the Artem thing to do — reckless running into an abandoned archive aside.
But unlike Artem, Vyn occasionally considers himself to be a bit of a daredevil, and by that he means unplugging the toaster and then sticking a fork into it. That usually works.
Except when it doesn’t.
Vyn misjudges the angle of the fork and the toast snaps in half. When he withdraws the fork, only a mangled piece of bread follows.
It looks…
It looks—
Pathetic.
Vyn stares at the fork for a moment as something hitches in his throat. What is this? Why is he…? He lets out a strangled sound that is half sob and half laugh, and he wishes it could have been one or the other.
What is he feeling?
“Ha,” Vyn mutters aloud, and he hates the way his voice sounds, all mangled as if it’s been tossed into a blender. “Feeling.”
So close. They had come so close to losing Zella and Artem. He had come so close to losing Zella and Artem.
He’s already lost Giann and Neil.
He doesn’t want to lose anyone else.
You can’t unburn toast, or unbreak it once broken. People, once dead, do not return.
They had come this close.
Stop it, Vyn thinks halfheartedly, as if thinking will solve anything at all. Stop feeling.
It doesn’t work, of course. It’s only another unsuccessful attempt at control, at filling in the cracks in an overflowing dam, at reeling himself back into someone he can be comfortable with.
Weakly, Vyn drops the scrap of toast onto his plate, then sticks his fork into the toaster again to salvage the other pieces.
Sometimes, feeling hurts more than not feeling anything at all.
[Before]
The door opens and shuts behind Vyn.
Artem’s head snaps in his visitor’s direction; he had only just been left alone in the hospital room. He doesn’t know if he had expected anyone to come in, but he knows that he had certainly not expected it to be Vyn.
“Vyn,” Artem says cautiously.
Vyn only nods as he walks up to the hospital bed. “How are you doing?”
Artem gives him a wry smile. “I’m alive.”
The white hospital lights cast hard reflections in Vyn’s glasses, making it difficult to meet his gaze. For a moment, Artem wonders if Vyn is going to say anything else at all.
But the words that do come are worse than he could have imagined.
“You did not inform us beforehand,” Vyn says quietly. “Why?”
There is an unmistakably accusatory edge to his tone, and Artem has to force himself to recalculate the situation. “I…” he begins, ready to launch into a stream of justified arguments.
But no words come.
Mistakes, mistakes, mistakes. He’s been making them left and right and up and down lately, and the guilt stings more than the bruises on his skin. He doesn’t know if he can even begin to rationalize what he’s done.
Artem studies Vyn’s face, but as always, it is so hard to read.
“Did you know it was Zella who sent the emergency signal?” Vyn asks.
“I—” Artem starts again, and again, no words follow.
He knows Zella deserves all his gratitude and more. She had held her ground against Ava, and called the NXX, and saved his life. And what had he done?
What had he done?
Maybe if Vyn had been the one who had been with Zella — perfect, perfect Vyn — none of this would have happened. Vyn wouldn’t have walked into a trap like he had. Vyn wouldn’t have let himself be captured and put into a glass cage and tortured by someone they were only trying to help.
If Vyn notices Artem’s growing anxieties, he does not show it, because he continues to speak. “You make it so easy.”
So easy? So easy for what?
The white lights are colder than ever. Distant. Impersonal, like stars eternally out of reach.
Artem doesn’t have to speak his thoughts aloud, because Vyn answers without any prompting at all. “So easy to remember that you are human.”
Artem flinches. The words hit harder than they should, echoing the very things unraveling in his mind, and yet — there is a small relief that comes with them. To remember that he isn’t someone with faulty programming, the robot that the public enjoys making him out to be.
But if it isn’t the programming that is faulty, it is him.
And where does he begin to fix himself?
Artem swallows. “What are you really here for, Vyn?” he asks wearily. Was Vyn here just to rub his perfect betterness into his face and say, ‘I told you so’? To tell him that he shouldn’t have taken Zella? Tell him that he shouldn’t have made a mess of everything?
It’s too late for that, anyway. He can wish for all the time-turning magic in the world, but he’s never going to be able to rewind the past and fix his mistakes. Artem waits for Vyn’s response, but all he hears in the next moments is silence.
Vyn releases a slow breath. “I only wish to understand.”
It is only then, with a sudden chill, that Artem realizes what he is reading on Vyn’s face.
It is nothing at all.
He sees a blank expression, devoid of any feeling.
---
Luke wants to be angry at someone. Wants a scapegoat he can direct everything he’s been feeling onto.
The best candidate for that would have been Ava, but she’s dead, and there are certain privileges that come with being dead.
Some of his instincts scream at him to blame Artem. Blame Artem for taking Zella to the abandoned archive without telling anyone, blame Artem for not having a plan in the first place, blame Artem for putting Zella’s life in danger.
But whether or not Artem is at fault, Luke can’t bring himself to be angry at him. He’s made stupid mistakes before, and he probably will in the future. Luke thinks about Artem, and for the briefest of moments, sees himself.
And what is he supposed to do with that?
The door to Artem’s room opens, and Vyn steps out.
“Hey,” Luke says.
Vyn only nods at him, then continues down the hallway, perhaps to see Zella.
The taciturn greeting is surprising, considering the events of the past few hours. What exactly had Vyn and Artem spoken about?
Luke pushes aside the question. It wasn’t his business to know, and if it was NXX-related, he’d find out sooner or later. For now…
Luke rises from his seat and steps into the hospital room. As soon as the door shuts behind him, Artem stirs. Their eyes meet.
“I thought you were Vyn,” Artem says.
Luke allows himself a smile. “No. It’s just me.” He pulls up a chair beside the hospital bed and sinks into it, studying Artem as he does. He seems to be doing better, at least compared to when Luke had first seen him in the archive room.
Luke clicks his tongue. “I called Celestine.”
Artem’s eyes widen slightly. “Right. Is she…?”
Luke drums his fingers on the edge of the bed. “She’s fine. Worried about you, but she understands you’re in no condition to go back to work.”
“But that isn’t true, there’s so much—”
Luke clears his throat, and Artem falls silent.
“Sorry,” Artem says.
Luke is used to Artem apologizing, but this time, it seems different. It feels… more weighty, somehow. He raises an eyebrow. “What for?”
Artem drops his gaze. “I don’t know. Everything.”
Luke senses that there is more to that, so he remains silent. For the second time, he wonders what exactly Vyn had said to Artem.
“You… you’re Zella’s best friend,” Artem says, his voice tight. “When you came into the archive room — when you saw us…” He swallows. “You must hate me.”
Hate? Luke blinks. “Hey, now. Hate is a strong word.” He exhales slowly, letting his mind run through a million things before he speaks. “No. No, I don’t hate you.”
“But I—”
“I’m guessing Vyn lectured you, huh?” Luke continues to watch Artem’s face carefully, fishing for truth between the patched-up cuts and unsaid words.
“Vyn?” Artem goes. “I… no. I don’t know if that was a lecture.” He furrows his brow. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
“Maybe don’t think too much about it,” Luke says, stopping Artem before he hurts himself from overthinking things. Vyn could be confusing like that.
“I…” Artem begins again, and this time he does look up, right into Luke’s eyes like he’s searching for something. Searching for what?
Artem releases a breath. “You must think me selfish.”
Luke feels the latter word slam into his chest and resists the instinct to wince.
Because how many times has he thought that about himself? How many times has he decided that he’s taken too much for himself, that he hasn’t left enough for everyone else? If Artem is selfish, what does that make him?
Luke meets Artem’s gaze and tries to measure his words. Tries to figure out what he’d say if he was Zella, or Marius, or someone who is a little more peppy when it comes to things like this. But nothing comforting comes to mind, and at last, Luke sighs. “I think we are all a little bit selfish sometimes.”
He wonders if Artem sees the violent history, or the bloody outline of corpses heaped between those words. If he does, he does not mention it.
“You don’t understand,” Artem says, and Luke glances up at him in disbelief. “I don’t mean just a bit selfish. I mean…”
Luke opens his mouth to tell him just how much he truly understands, but shuts it after a second thought. It wouldn’t do either of them much good to compare their mistakes, or the things they’ve gone through, or how faulty they really are. Not here. Not now.
“You know, I really wanted to be mad at you,” Luke says instead.
Artem inhales sharply, but once the surprise fades, his gaze is completely clear. “So why aren’t you?”
Luke shrugs. “Why doesn’t matter.” He stands up and pulls the chair to one side. “I just wanted to make that clear to you.”
“But—” Artem says, then breaks off abruptly. “You have every right to be. I… I just keep doing this. Back on Nosta, I…”
Luke only looks at him, and that is apparently enough to make Artem pause. Maybe something had happened at Nosta, but that was a long time ago. Maybe other things had happened in places he hadn’t even been aware of, but they were all in the past now. As long as Artem learned from his mistakes and got back up again — well. Luke couldn’t ask for anything more.
He’s still paying for his own mistakes, after all.
Luke sighs again. “Why do we bleed?”
Artem blinks, like he’d expected a different question. “Well. Um. When blood vessels are torn—”
“Not like that,” Luke stops him. He pauses, then rephrases the question. “Who do you bleed for?”
Understanding dawns on Artem, and there is almost zero hesitation in his answer. “Stellis,” he says. “For the people who need justice. For the people who can’t help themselves.”
Luke nods. “Yeah. We bleed for Stellis. We bleed for the world.” He raises a hand to indicate the wounds on Artem’s face. “Between you and me, we know it’s our job to bleed. But there are people who still need us.”
Artem presses his lips together, either because he’s clamping down on an answer or trying to decide on one. Another second ticks by before he speaks. “What’s your point?”
“It’s too early to run out of blood.”
Luke would know, of course. He’d learned it the hard way on a hospital bed, with a ruby digging into his palm as he fought nightmares only he could see.
Luke steps away from the hospital bed, pivots, and walks to the door.
Artem’s voice comes from behind, soft and uncertain. “Wait. What do you mean, ‘too early’?”
Luke hears the question, clear as crystal. His hand is lingering on the door handle; he still has the chance to turn around and explain.
But he doesn’t.
He’d said everything that he’d wanted to say, and he’s afraid that staying longer will draw out all the things he’s been trying to keep hidden in the shadows.
“Luke?” Artem says.
Luke shuts his eyes. “Good night, Artem.”
He leaves the room without looking back.