His jaw works, as if he wants to argue and can’t find a clean argument that doesn’t sound like surrender.
I step around the edge of the projection table, closing the physical distance between us, and the officers at the door tense, but I ignore them, because if they drag me back into “appropriate distance” right now I might lose my mind.
Rhyx’s gaze drops briefly to the space between us, then lifts again, steady.
“You shouldn’t be near me,” he says, voice low, rough. “They’re watching.”
“Let them,” I reply.
His eyes narrow. “Selene?—”
“I said let them,” I repeat, and the words are a dare, not because I want attention, but because I’m tired of living like my body is a liability and my grief is a scandal and my evidence is a problem to be managed. “I’m done making myself small so everyone else can feel safe.”
Rhyx exhales slowly, and I watch the restraint in him shift, the way a man shifts when he realizes the old rules no longer apply.
“You’re shaking,” he says, softer.
“I’m not,” I lie.
He lifts his bound hands slightly, the blue shimmer of the binders reflecting on his scales. “You are.”
I swallow, and the movement makes the nausea flicker again, a small internal wave. I close my eyes for half a second, steadying myself, and when I open them he’s closer than he was, not touching, but near enough that I can feel his heat through the air.
“You offered me protection once,” I say, voice low. “In the chamber. When you requested I stay on the case. You said you wanted a complete record.”
“I still do,” he murmurs.
“Then act like it,” I whisper. “Don’t you dare trade yourself again to keep the system comfortable.”
Rhyx’s gaze holds mine, and in it I see exhaustion so deep it looks like old wounds, but beneath it there is something else too—something that isn’t resignation, isn’t martyrdom, something closer to anger with direction.
“Alright,” he says quietly. “Alright.”
The single syllable lands like a door opening.
I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding, and my shoulders drop slightly. The relief is sharp enough to hurt.
For a moment, we just stand there, close, with the projection table behind me casting pale light that makes his scars lookbrighter, more pronounced, as if the room is insisting on showing everything that was done to him and everything he did.
“You told me Vol offered protection,” Rhyx says, voice low. “What exactly did they offer.”
“Safety,” I say bitterly. “Access. A shield from media attacks. A promise that my ‘wellness’ would be supported. They didn’t say pregnancy, obviously, because they don’t know?—”
I stop, and my stomach clenches with sudden fear, because of course they might know; institutions have medical policies, and policies have data, and data gets bought and traded like anything else.
Rhyx’s eyes sharpen. “Do you think they know.”
“I don’t know,” I admit, and the honesty tastes like blood.
His jaw tightens. “Then we assume they will find out.”
I stare at him, and my voice comes out rough. “And what, you still want to die to keep them from using it?”
Rhyx looks at me for a long beat, then shakes his head once, slow, as if the motion costs him.
“No,” he says quietly. “I want to live long enough to stop them.”
The words hit me in the chest like impact, because they are so simple and so different from everything he’s been saying.
