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The energy in the rainbow room was wrong.

Something was weighing through every atom of the air, tight and alive, pressing into your neck.

It wasn't the children. It wasn't the spinning tops swirling on their pointed ends on their own. It wasn't the blocks levitating a foot off the ground, or the toy cars moving along the rainbow lines by themselves.

It was Henry.

He was too rigid. Standing at the wall like a mannequin painted white, pretending to be a man. The usual thrum of calm energy he carried was fraught. His gaze remained locked onto an invisible point in front of him, swimming, sinking somewhere the light couldn't reach.

You sank down at the chess table and plucked the black rook off the board, holding it between your thumb and finger, surveying the carved notches. You pushed your energy into it like pointed tendrils until it slipped from your grip, levitating obediently.

The further it went the heavier it became, and by the time you had it floating in front of Henry's face you were starting to sweat with effort. He stared at it, and for a moment he looked even more tortured. Slowly he took it in his long, pale fingers.

When he finally he glanced over you nodded towards the board, swiping the thick blood trail from your nose.

He paced over in low, careful steps. As if you were a strange, rabid thing he was trying to avoid noticing him.

“Why do you look like that?” You asked as he slid into his chair.

He didn’t look at you. His finger pushed a white pawn forward two squares. “Like what?”

“Tortured.”

“I don't look-”

“Yes, you do. What happened?”

“Nothing.” A lie. Perfectly clean and perfectly practiced.

A thread of anxiety wound through your ribs. You didn’t take your eyes off him as your fingers slid a black pawn forward.

“You’re going to start the game by lying to me?”

He didn’t answer, just stared at the board like he was trying to burn a hole through it. You reached across and brushed a finger over his knuckle.

“Hen-”

He flinched away, and your stomach sank into the floor.

“Tell me the truth.”

“I am.” Another lie, far less clean.

He pushed a single finger into another pawn, sliding it across the board, still not looking at you.

“No you're not.” You were irked now, your voice tight.

“Please, just play the game.” He muttered.

“Like you're doing to me right now?” You huffed.

His eyes flicked up finally, defensively. “I’m serious, Nineteen.”

“Okay, Peter.” You said irritably, your eyes narrowing.

He pushed another pawn forward, deliberately slowly.

“How’s your hand?” He nodded down at it, resting next to the board.

The bandages had been removed, but two of your fingers still sat rigidly in a hard splint and tape.

“Don’t change the subject.” You slid your hand into your lap.

He scraped another piece across the board, choosing silence. You surrendered with a sigh.

“Thoroughly stepped on.”

“That’s not funny.” His eyes deepened with a sea of grief he couldn’t contain, one that crashed waves into your own and made a sick guilt rise through your gut.

“Right, I’m sorry.” You said softly. “Bad joke.”

He kept his eyes low on the board, every inch of him strained, as if trying desperately to keep every piece of himself in place.

“It’s getting better. This will be off in a few days.”

He nodded vacantly, fingers sliding a knight across the board. You looked up at the camera, blinking ominously red in the corner, steel sentinel that it was.

“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong or not?” You asked on a breath, face tilted down towards the board as you advanced your piece to capture one of his pawns.

He hung on your words before his own voice drifted low and soft across the chequered veneer.

“Nothing is-”

“Bullshit.” You spat, voice furiously low. “You're lying to me.”

“Please, just drop it.” His eyes were low and frayed in an way that made your neck tighten with anxiety.

“If you won't tell me here, then meet me somewhere. Or I'll visit you, later-”

“No.” He said, too quickly. “Don’t. Don’t visit me.”

You felt a painful twist pull through you. “What?”

“I - I don’t want you to.”

His words hit like ice water, surging through each ventricle of your heart as you stared, stunned. You were wordless for long enough that his eyes drew up into your face to study your unusually silent reaction.

“Oh.” Was all you managed, your voice flat, your eyes gone and unfocused into the distance.

“It’s just - you shouldn’t-” He mumbled, avoiding your gaze again.

The agony turn into a hot pulse of irritation.

“No, I get it. You only want me when it suits you, right? You only want to be honest with me when it suits you.”

“It’s not like that, Nineteen-”

“Save it.” You spat. “I won’t visit you. Let me know if you decide I’m worth your time again.”

You smacked his white rook off the board and his eyes followed it as it tumbled to the floor. You stood up, chair legs scraping over tile, heart pounding with anger and sadness and a small, pathetic beat of embarrassment.

“Nineteen-”

“No more games. That's what you promised.” You hissed, turning on your heels and striding off out of the rainbow room.

You could feel Henry’s eyes on you as you went, boring blue into the back of your head.

You were so worked up you didn’t even touch your bedroom door. You forced it open from down the hall, the energy leaving your fingertips in a rush. It slammed open, whacking off the wall behind it, filling the corridor with a sudden burst of noise.

You didn’t know what you were. Angry, upset, embarrassed. You felt like a toy that had rusted and been thrown away. He lied to you. He didn’t want you to visit him. He barely spoke to you, he barely looked at you.

Did he not want you anymore?

But why ever would he? You were nothing but a dark trench of a person. Damp, rotten on the inside.

Could he feel the rot? Had he tasted it every time your mouth had been graced with his, turning his mouth rancid? Tears began to pool in the corners of your eyes, and it only made you angrier.

The anger crested a wave over your sadness, drowning it, making the lights above you whirr and hiss. Rejection was a familiar ache, sitting in your bones like you’d awakened it from a long slumber.

How dare he?

You paced around your room like a madwoman, feet slapping over the floor. Then, movement caught your eye in the sliver where your door hadn't fully closed on the rebound. A white rush that moved in perfect, ordinary paces.

You shut the door and sank onto the bed, pulling at the edges of your mind and slipping into the ether. Maybe you intended to, maybe you didn’t. It was too hard to separate your thoughts, the only thing you were sure of was the motion of your feet carrying you through the dark, waterlogged void as you followed him.

You were careful, leaving enough space so he didn’t feel you. Your steps were cautious even in here, even at a distance.

The staff wing doors materialized and he moved through them, the keypad beeping. You waited until they were almost closed before slipping through. An approaching chatter made you hang back behind the corner.

“Oh, hello Peter.” A bright yet nervous voice said. “I thought you were on charge today?”

His steps faltered.

“Good morning Sylvia.” He said, his voice polite but flat as it echoed in the blackness.

“How are you? You look a little tired Peter. I hope Doctor Brenner isn’t working you too hard.”

“No, of course not.”

“Well, good.” Her brightness broke for a moment, slipping into something damper. “I, well I thought I might have seen you again, after the other day-”

Your eyes narrowed, and you peeked your head around the corner. She was pretty. Dark haired, glasses, his age. A wire yanked tight in your chest.

“I’m sorry, Sylvia, I can't talk now. I have a meeting with Doctor Brenner.”

“A meeting? Oh, I didn’t see one in his books today.”

“Impromptu.” Henry smiled briefly.

“I see.” Sylvia said, her voice flat. The indifference was radiating off of him, so pointed even you could feel it. “Well, maybe I’ll see you later then?”

He offered nothing more than a polite smile and a curt nod before leaving Sylvia and her colleague in the middle of the hall.

“I thought you said he was nice.” The other woman scoffed as they watched him walk off.

“He is. He was. I don’t know, that was weird. The other day he seemed so into me I - whatever. Maybe he’s just having a bad day.”

The woman huffed. “I wouldn’t waste your time with Peter. He’s strange, seriously strange.”

“What do you mean?”

“The others call him Brenner’s angel. It’s weird, they’re like, always together. Haven’t you noticed?”

Brenner’s angel? Your heart was hammering up into your throat.

“Oh come on-”

“I’m serious! He barely speaks to anyone except Brenner. I mean, doesn’t he give you an odd feeling? It’s creepy, the way he just sits there in silence all the time watching people. Ugh.” She shivered.

“He didn’t seem creepy the other day.” Sylvia frowned.

The woman rolled her eyes. “Yeah, because he’s pretty, and he was flirting wasn’t he? I can’t even imagine him saying hello to me let alone making my knees weak. Are you sure you didn’t imagine it? You so love blondes.”

“Oh shut up,” Sylvia groaned, slapping the woman’s arm. “I did not imagine it.”

“Well whatever, you can have him. I know some of the other nurses have a thing for him but seriously? The man is so rigid it’s painful. I wouldn’t want him reporting my every move to Brenner, would you?”

“Come off it, he doesn’t do that.”

“And how do you know? He sure spends a lot of time in his shadow.”

Sylvia's gaze followed Henry's back as he disappeared further down the corridor.

“Maybe he just needs a friend.”

“Maybe he just needs to get laid.” The woman shrugged.

A sudden surge of anger washed through you, septic and unhinged.

“What the hell Darlene! Don’t be gross.”

“Not like you haven’t thought about it.”

Sylvia bit her lip and smiled.

“Knew it,” Darlene teased. “He seems so pent up... do you think he’s even done it before?” She whispered.

“Oh my god, stop.”

“I’m only saying! Maybe that would cheer him up. I’m sure you’d volunteer.” Darlene shrugged.

“I’m going back to work.” Sylvia huffed, striding off down the hall with clipboard in hand, her kitten heels clacking over the tiles.

Darlene strode right past you, chuckling in the blackness. Your heart hammered, expecting to be felt, to be seen.

But she almost walked through you, totally oblivious to your presence. You frowned, watching her go.

Her words churned in your ears like jagged rocks.

Brenner’s angel.

With a false identity. With a name that wasn’t his. Your mind reeled. What was he really? A spy? A puppet? Something to break you open?

You followed Henry's path through the ether until a door materialized in front of him. The black, glossy plaque imprinted with the name Dr Martin Brenner was almost as imposing as the man himself.

Henry clicked the door shut behind him. You sidled up to it, pressing your ear against the join.

It was silent for a thick moment.

“Tell me how you did it.” Henry’s voice was cold, chilling.

“I hardly have time for crypticism, H-”

“The blood. Nineteen.”

A shock went through your eardrums at the mention of you. Then, the sound of papers being placed down on a desk, followed by a sharp exhale.

“How do you-”

“Answer me.”

“Come now Henry. Did you imagine we didn't have samples?”

“I believed you when you told me the programme had ended with Eighteen.”

“I didn't lie.”

“This-”

“Is not the same.” Brenner said sharply. “This is... new. An advancement, if you will. Completely different.”

Henry scoffed, the sound tight and dry.

“So advanced that they all died?”

Your stomach lurched into your throat.

Brenner was silent again, the weight of it telling you he was studying Henry closely, measuring him.

“Sacrifices are always necessary for progress.”

You could hear Henry pacing slowly, deliberately near the door.

“Sacrifices? That's what you call them? They're victims.”

“Let us not compare victims, Henry.” Brenner shot coldly.

Victims? Your heart hammered relentlessly. The pointed silences seeping from behind the door were threateningly loud.

“But you didn't expect her to lose her memories, did you?”

“No. I must admit, that was... advantageous.”

“And you used that to manipulate her.”

“I told her what was necessary for progress.”

“Progress? She is barely contained. She is-”

“Remarkable.” Brenner said proudly.

“Manufactured.”

You heard the squeak of chair wheels as Brenner stood up, his own paces calculated as he moved closer to Henry.

“Tell me, what is the difference? Every single one of my children were made the same way. You know that.”

“This is not the same-”

“Isn't it?”

“No.” Henry hissed. “She had a life already.”

“I'm well aware of the life she had. Are you?”

“She could have been killed, like all the rest of them. All because you wanted an imitation you didn't have to raise.”

“And yet, she wasn't. Regardless, better dead in the name of progress than for the sake of a needle or a noose. Wouldn’t you agree?”

You could feel the sharpness wedging itself into the confines behind the door like a knife.

“That's not for you to decide.” Henry hissed.

“You do not tell me what is mine to decide, Henry. I am not beholden to you.”

When Henry spoke next, his voice was small.

No, worse. It was ashamed.

“She deserves to know what she really is.”

There was silence, and then a step. Followed by another.

Suddenly Henry's back thudded forcefully against the door. Brenner's harsh, whispered threats sank through the wood, hissing into your ears in the darkness.

“You will remember what you are, Henry.”

You could picture him looming ominous over Henry's frame, backed flat into the door.

“Have you already forgotten what happens to those who forget their place in my lab?”

Henry didn't speak.

“Get out, before I have you reminded.” Brenner commanded, soft and sinister. “You will not speak of this again. To me, to her, to anyone. Do I make myself clear?”

“I-”

Suddenly, there was another abrupt thud, higher up. Henry's head hitting back against the door.

“Papa-” his voice was choked, strained, as if he had a hand around his throat.

Papa.

“Do I make myself clear?”

It was quiet apart from the soft rustling sound of Henry's hair on the door as he nodded.

“Good. Now get out.”

Your heart lurched as you heard the door handle turn. You threw yourself from the void, pulling yourself back into your body, which was trembling violently on your bed.

Your head pounded with more than just psychic exertion. It was cold dread, like a disease, sapping you of every piece of yourself. You slid to the floor, dark blood splattered in droplets across your lap from the trail pooling from your nose.

It was too many cruel truths at once, too many for your mind to grasp.

Your senses were overloaded. The hum of the lights, the frigid tiles beneath you, the weight of your limbs laying limp against your slumped frame.

Manufactured.

There were others. Dead, all of them.

And Henry. How long had he known? Was he really the madman's angel, his accomplice?

Henry who had ignited a fire within you, now dragging you into the depths of the sea.

Henry who was still controlled, even when he held the sword. Threatened, overpowered. Backed into a wall with Brenner's calloused fingers around his beautiful neck.

A puppet, or a prisoner?

You didn't know whether to cry for him or press a knife to his throat.

All you could do was sob. With rage, with utter brokenness. But the worst thing, the most desperate thing, crawling spider-like over the dread.

You still wanted him.

***

No matter where you looked, he was there. A ghost in every corner of your mind.

You hadn’t spoken to him since the chess game. Since he’d caged the words behind his teeth and refused to free them. Since he’d confronted Brenner with a truth that belonged to you.

Now it was you who couldn’t look at him. Not because of the despair, but because no matter how much despair you felt, it was reformed into a sick yearning whenever you did.

You were being pulled between two horrible, obvious truths.

You didn’t trust him. And he was all you wanted.

The rainbow room spun as you sat staring at the floor. His voice was the curl of a fingernail, scraping down the back of your neck.

“Good morning, Nineteen.”

“Good morning, Papa.” You droned, still staring at the floor.

“I have something exciting for you today.”

The sound of him pressing Henry up against the door echoed through your mind, along with his sinister threats. Your veins pulsed with fury. For a moment, you saw yourself throw him across the room, break every warped bone in his body.

Your fingers twitched. Henry’s voice slipped like a silk ribbon through your mind.

Do whatever he says, be whatever he needs. Don't give him a reason to weaken you.

“Okay.” You nodded, standing.

Brenner’s rough hand steadied at your upper back as he led you from the room. You were silent, nothing but the padding of your slippers across the tile as he led you deeper into the maze. The lights seemed to hum louder the further you went, twisting and turning through the corridors, sweeping around corners and down elevators.

Brenner was watching you closely. Closer than usual, like he was looking for cracks, looking for something seeping out.

He led you through a heavy set of doors. The air was thick, the walls cement, the temperature cold in a way that was deeply earthy. In the center of the room was an immense metal tank with a window curving over it's side. Inside rippled water, softly teal, tiny bubbles rising. Several staff were in attendance, coated scientists surveying monitors, engineers atop a platform.

“What is this?”

“This is the tank,” Brenner smiled. “A sensory deprivation tank.”

“Sensory deprivation?”

“The effect is quite significant. It allows you to become fully immersed in your mind, in your abilities. It removes the outside world entirely. Removes distractions. Removes... chaos.” He said the last word too pointedly.

“So I go in there?”

“Yes, Nineteen. I am hoping that you will perform better when your mind is clear and free of all influence.”

You swallowed, eyeing the tank.

Be whatever he needs you to be.

“Alright,” you said, your eyes flicking from the tank to his aged face. “What will I be doing?”

“You will be locating people for us. Today, you will only be practicing. But eventually you will use this to find our enemies. To help us.”

Brenner gestured to a closet sized changing room. Cold, cement, like a prison cell. A white, sleeveless outfit made of a thick scuba material hung from the wall.

“Change, and then rejoin us.”

He shut you in the oppressive little rectangle and you hesitated for a moment before sliding out of your grey sweats and pulling on the suit. It was grippy, sticking to your skin in ways that felt grossly alien.

Back in the main chamber, the cement was cold on your bare feet. Brenner led you up the metal stairs to a platform above the tank. An assistant opened the heavy valve lid, and you stared apprehensively into the water.

“You will float in here.” Brenner said plainly. “There is an intercom system which feeds into the tank. I will ask you to locate specific people, and you will report what you see. Understood?”

“Yes Papa.”

The assistant laid a net of wires over your head while another helped you onto the lowering rung. You clung to the sides of it as it descended, your lungs beginning to tighten with a claustrophobic panic as the metal cylinder engulfed you, as the temperate water rose over your legs.

You took a deep breath as you waded off the rung and let it ascend. The lid sank shut above you with a heavy, pressurized hiss, the valve wheel turning with a clank that made your heart hammer.

“Alright Nineteen, how do you feel?”

“Um, okay. Fine.” You said, treading the water lightly.

“Now, lay on your back, let the water hold you at the surface. Don’t worry, you won’t sink.”

You laid back and pushed upwards. He was right, the water did hold you there, in a way. It made you feel floaty, weightless, like a wet cloud beneath you. You let your limbs splay out and stared at the metal roof, the lights.

“Good. Now, focus your mind to each person I name, and report what you see.”

“Yes Papa.”

It was far easier in here. You slipped into the ether of your mind quicker than ever before, your focus sharp, your psyche pulsing with less effort than it usually took. Brenner’s voice curled around you in the blackness, a hollow echo from a place you couldn’t pinpoint.

“I want you to find Eleven.”

You focused as you paced forward in the blackness. It was a disjointed feeling. Walking across the waterlogged floor while you could still feel yourself floating horizontally in the tank.

Slowly, the small girl materialized in the darkness. “I see her.”

His voice echoed out. “Tell me what she is doing.”

You pulled more focus. A sliver of the rainbow room appeared around her.

“She is in the rainbow room. Drawing,”

“What is she drawing?”

You stepped closer, looking at the page. “People. Stick figures. There’s a little yellow sun and… a purple flower.”

“Good.” Brenner praised. “Now leave her. I want you to find my assistant, Sylvia.”

A thread of irritation slid through you at her name. She came to you easily, her face still so raw in your mind. The staff room materialized around her.

“She's in the staff room. Sitting down… eating. I can hear the radio, playing music.”

“Good. Now, I want you to find nurse Harriett.”

She was a little tougher, as you’d only seen her briefly. Most notably when recovering from your violent electroshock punishment, when your mind had been absolutely scattered and blown. She’d had the honour of placing the collar around your neck. You felt your throat ache with the memory of its choking imprint.

“She is in the infirmary… at a desk, writing...” you stepped closer, looming over her shoulder. “A report, about Nine.”

“What about Nine?”

You followed her scrawled hand across the paper. “She fell. Twisted her ankle. The nurse gave her ice.”

“Wonderful.” Brenner said, his voice everywhere. “You're doing well.”

The next time he spoke, it landed like a test.

“Now you’re going to find Peter for me.”

Your heart lurched forward, and you felt your fingers twitch on the surface of the water. Had the monitor spiked? Had your readings betrayed your anxiety?

“Okay.”

Finding Henry was instinctive at this point, as easy as breathing. You saw him almost instantly.

Something was wrong.

He was sitting on the side of his bed, head in his hands, fingers threaded through his hair. His face was caught, anxious. He reached down and pulled a crimson red file onto his lap.

He rifled through it, his brow deeply creased as if he was willing the content to change. He was too distracted to notice you, but you could feel him. Frayed at the edges, washed with a pale fear.

Then, he did something odd.

He got up, and shoved the file underneath his mattress.

“I found him.” You murmured.

“What is he doing?”

He was pacing up and down his bed now, chewing on his thumbnail. Your eyes lingered on where he had slipped the file.

“Folding linens.” You lied, your eyes searching every inch of his angelic face and it's edges.

“Where?” Brenner’s voice echoed.

“The linen cupboard nearest the rainbow room.”

Henry stopped pacing and knelt beside his bed. His hand slipped under the frame, next to the side table. You frowned and stepped a pace closer. He pulled something out from under his bed.

Your heart stopped. It was utterly frozen, an invisible vice squeezing mercilessly around it.

He was holding a pair of shoes.

Black, worn Converse with grubby laces. He ran his finger tips over the frayed thread of them.

Your chest was heaving with panic, the shadowed tendrils of darkness curling over the edges of your mind. Something was flashing behind your eyes, the lights in the tank, flickering and buzzing dangerously in response to your psychic load.

“Now what is he doing?” Brenner’s tone had turned tight.

“He-” you choked out. “He’s sorting towels.”

The light behind your eyes was whirring dangerously, a static hum threatening to burst as you stared at the shoes, at Henry’s pale fingers moving over them.

You needed to get out, before you unravelled entirely. You lurched back into yourself, thrashing down in the tank water to find your footing. You spluttered, mouth tinged with blood and salt.

“What happened?” Brenner’s voice came tight over the intercom.

“Nothing I - my head -” it truly was pounding a force against your skull. “My head hurts.”

“Alright, get her out.” He sighed.

With a hiss and a clank the valve above you opened, and the rung lowered. Your limbs felt boneless as you clung to it, ascending out of the warm water. Your legs shook, threatening to collapse with every step on the way down the platform.

“You did well.” He said, surveying you with his sharp gaze.

You tried to compose your face, but every part of you felt the opposite.

“Perhaps that is enough for today. We will revisit this again soon. Change, and return with the nurse to your room for rest.”

You nodded and padded across the cold concrete to the changing room. Your head was pounding, your nose was still leaking a slow, scarlet trail. You smeared it away with your wrist.

You would return. But you wouldn’t rest.

Not until you knew what Henry did.

***

When the last subject had been secured for the night, when the orderlies had finished their rounds and disappeared into the staff wing for their midnight coffee, you went. Every step you took pulsed up through your shins as you moved through the corridors, blanking the cameras, abusing the blind spots.

You half expected to find him in his room, but when you forced the lock open with a psychic shove, the room was empty. Dark, clean, controlled. The scent of soap and fresh linen, the subtle faint lingering of mint toothpaste. Agonizingly him.

It made your heart kick with a feeling that you weren’t here for. You shoved it down and knelt beside his bed, reaching underneath it.

Your fingertips brushed over the canvas.

You stared at them carefully, as if looking away for even a moment would cause them to vanish. You flipped them over, eyeing every inch. The laces spun through your fingers, your nail pulled over the raised ridge of haphazard thread.

Your heart was hammering thunder as you instinctively slid them onto your feet. They pulled on perfectly, as if they’d been waiting. Waiting for another morning, another outing. You tied the laces slowly, letting your fingers pull through every loop, letting the feeling gather.

It didn't come to you in a violent lurch this time. It came in a slow, cold wash that sank into your bones as you sat there, staring at them.

The same images, but more this time. The edges were wider, the sounds hollower.

the pavement flurries under your feet, wet and grey... widening into a littered street... garbage bags and cars with dented bumpers... the air, a misted kind of damp that settles, sticks to your cheeks...

your eyes draw up from the pavement... the bus rambles to a stop...

your knee crosses your thigh in the seat... your foot bounces in it’s worn shoe... the town blurs past the windows, dripping rivers of water... your eyes linger on the rubber peeling from the canvas, a hole that lets the rain in...

a screen door squeaks on its hinges... a worn threshold... carpet dull and threadbare... your fingers draw the laces apart, place them at the door...

the dank house morphs behind your eyes... until your shoes slap over white linoleum... clinical, mopped linoleum... heels clip ahead, stride with purpose through long corridors...

“...put your clothes in the chute...”

your fingers slip around the metal handle... a steel trap in the wall... your shoes cascade down into the darkness...

Your ears were rushing, full of noise, full of the surge of white water.

The door opened.

Henry didn't see you at first as he curled into the room. You glared up at his back as you sat, sunken to the floor, your arms wrapped around your knees, tears rivered down your cheeks.

He closed the door behind him with a soft click and turned.

He froze.

His eyes widened, darting from your pained face to the Converse laced on your feet. His breath hitched with a small, broken sound that he didn’t manage to contain behind his teeth.

“What are you-”

“Where-” you croaked, drawing your wet gaze up to his, “-where did you find these?”

His face was drained of colour, his jaw clenched. “I-”

You didn't give him time to answer.

“How long were you keeping these from me?” Your voice shook as your thoughts battled each other, an endless duel of questions in your head.

Henry swallowed thickly.

“Not long.”

“How long?”

His eyes were soft, shamed. “Some days.”

“You had them… for days?” Your body flashed hot with irritation. “How... how could you keep this from me?”

“I was going to tell you.”

“When?”

“When I had confirmation.”

You looked up into his face fully, his perfect features were sinking underneath a wash of fear.

“Which you got from him. From Papa.”

“How do you-” He cut himself off, a knowing look dawning on his face.

Your voice cracked. “You lied to me. You told me nothing was wrong.”

His jaw tightened. Your eyes traced the faint bruise on his neck. Blotchy, ugly, shaped by Brenner’s fingers. Your jaw throbbed with it's own memory.

“You went to him. After everything he’s done to me... to you... you went to him. And he hurt you for it, didn't he?”

Henry's eyes were soft and shamed.

“I had to be sure.”

“Of what, exactly?” You were on your feet now, soles pressed hard into your shoes as you stood mere inches from him. “You better start explaining, Henry.”

He was silent.

“Everything. Now.” You demanded, eyes full of tears and fury. “I know what you said to Papa, so don’t try to lie to me again.”

The light in his room buzzed threateningly in the ceiling as the anger swept through you.

“You said... the blood. You said they all died. You said I… said I was manufactured.” A thick tear streamed past your eyelashes as your voice broke over the word.

Henry’s eyes lingered gravely in yours as his hand instinctively reached out for you. “Nineteen, you don't understand-”

You jerked away from him.

“Then make me!”

The light hissed and crackled aggressively above you. Henry didn't react, just studied your face with a forlorn expression before finally sweeping past you. He reached under his mattress and pulled out the ominous file, holding it out to you in silence.

Your eyes settled on the way his fingers trembled on the edge, as if it was weighted with every horrible truth he knew would wreck you.

“What's in there?”

He drew in a long breath.

“I think you should sit down.” His voice was grave in a way that made the room feel oppressive, crushing.

You took it tentatively, a surge of cold anxiety running through you. His face, his shaky demeanor, his trembling hands. The weight of the file in yours. You did what he said, sinking down onto his bed.

“Read it.”

Was it fear that gnawed at you, or the promise of truth? You couldn’t tell. It all seemed to tangle together inside you like a mess of ropes. Your fingers slid under the edge of the cover, and hovered it open mere centimeters.

You paused.

“Whatever is in here is going to unravel me, isn’t it?”

Henry shifted quietly. His expression was rigid, barely holding itself together.

“Maybe.”

“Can you sit with me?”

Your eyes lingered on his face, his blonde tufts, taking in every beautifully fraught detail you could before poisoning your eyes with the contents. He sank down onto the bed beside you, his thigh sitting against yours, his warmth emanating onto you.

You flipped the file open and frowned as you read the brief.

Nightingale. Transfusion. Psychokinesis. Subterfuge.

You kept reading it over and over again, your mind trying to wrap around the words.

“What is this?” Your voice was choked.

Part of you hoped desperately for him to tell you that this wasn’t about you at all, that it was all a huge, terrible mistake. He didn't.

“One of Brenner’s sick games.” He spat, his eyes trawling the page with an edge of darkness.

“I don’t... I don’t understand.”

“This is what brought you here. You weren't in an accident.” Henry said gravely. “You were an experiment.”

“Manufactured...” you said vacantly.

Henry nodded.

“Clearly he wasn’t content with only children.” His voice grew tighter. “He wanted fully grown weapons. Ones he didn't have to raise.”

“So he made me... made my powers with blood?”

Henry nodded solemnly.

You read the page again. Donor subject 001.

“From One? But… why them?”

“He was the first. His power was... pure. He was the most powerful, the one Brenner could not control.” He was staring so far ahead his eyes were burning an invisible hole through the door.

“So he sought to replicate him. All of the children were made with One’s blood.” Henry continued flatly. “It was sick. Inhuman. He took pregnant women. Drugged them, held them, pumped them full of One’s blood. Tried to recreate One through their children.”

A thick nausea crawled up your throat.

“What happened to them? The women?”

“Some of them died. Some of them disappeared after the children were born. They were of no use to him then. He had his playthings.” He said as he stared into nowhere. “I was… I spent years with One. Papa took his blood all the time. Eighteen was the last to be born.”

You chewed your lip, the dread settling strange against your spine with each word he said. “What happened to him? To One?”

Henry exhaled a long, shaky breath that unfolded into an even longer silence.

“Henry?”

“He's gone.” He said finally.

“Dead?”

“Papa took his powers away and he... he's been gone ever since.”

Your eyes returned to the page.

Acquisition.

Your mind pulsed painfully with the image of the black suited man under the bus stop, the paper in your hands.

“I remember,” you murmured. “A man giving me a flyer.”

“Yes. I assume they did the same for you all.” Henry said, nodding once towards the file. “But-”

“But they all died. That’s what you said.” You whispered.

You felt like you were being lurched down through the ground. “How many others were there?”

Henry’s hand reached across your lap to the edge of the folder, and flipped the page.

Your eyes trawled the man's details.

---

Recipient 1 - Male, 46 Outcome: Acute negative response. Subject incompatible. Status: DECEASED

---

“Who-”

Your mind answered for you, pulling an image into the dark space of itself.

A man with an unkempt beard, sitting slumped in a chair in a large, clinical foyer. He looked up at you briefly with dead, hopeless eyes...

You sucked in a sharp breath.

“I - I can see him.”

“There’s more.” Henry said gravely, flipping the next page.

One by one he flipped them, your mind unpicking itself faster and faster as each set of details pulled an image through your head.

Each one of their faces looked up at you from their seats, each one of them waiting like pigs in a pen. A frigid, sterile pen. Your steps, echoing off linoleum, the antiseptic burn through your nostrils, your hair sitting long over your shoulders…

You were shaking, the file vibrating in your hands, sticky with cold sweat. Henry reached for the last page.

“Stop,” you squeaked. “Please.”

His fingertips slid briefly across the page as he retreated.

“I can’t.” You breathed, shutting your eyes.

“Yes you can.”

Henry's fingers brushed over the back of your splinted hand. He settled his palm across it, his fingertips resting against your knuckles, still blotched purple and lightly bruised.

“You have to.” Henry said softly. “You can't hide from yourself anymore.”

The room felt sharp, pressed against your throat like a knife. After several long silent breaths, you flipped the page.

---

Recipient 11 - Female, 19 Outcome: Positive response. Subject compatible. Status: LIVING - INDUCTED.

Observations: - Acute tachycardia - Respiratory distress - Brief seizure activity - Eventual stabilization into comatose state.

DOB: 2 - Sept - 1959 Address: 15 Old Cherry Road, Hawkins Occupation: Student Acquisition date: 25 - May - 1979 Transfusion date: 26 - May - 1979 ID: Authenticated

---

The pavement staring back at you... a uniformed man... man in a box...

"...I’m here for the study..."

a gate groaning across asphalt... a building, looming, shrinking you, a fortress of concrete and metal...

your frame shrinks, and shrinks, and shrinks under the colossus...

beer and stale cigarettes... lurching downwards, stomach sinking... sinking into the ground...

water... water on your back... fingers on your lips... a wretched lurch, a spin of blood down the drain...

"...do you know your blood type..."

perfectly tailored suit, perfectly quaffed hair, the memory of a once handsome face, honeyed and sinister…

"...things here are bad... things here are bad... it's nothing... it's nothing..."

blinding lights... an oxygen mask... something staring back... consuming, inescapable... bearing down... fading into shades of black... a frozen shard straight through your middle...

You were silently screaming, every nerve on fire as your head felt split down the middle, carved into two worlds, one half with a fist around it, the other snaked in tendrils of fear.

Were you on the floor, were his hands on you? Were you falling through the earth, was he dragging you up by the elbows, face contorted, a beautiful, terrible angel?

“Shh, I've got you, it's alright... it's alright.”

Henry's arms were a cage around you, unrelenting, your body trembling violently against him and the cold tiles, your legs buckled underneath you like pathetic, broken stilts. You desperately drew in air, your throat choking over every breath.

“I-” A whimper, almost inaudible.

“I'm here.” He held you tighter, so tight you thought he was single-handedly keeping your skeleton in one piece.

“I saw... that day...” You choked out against his shoulder.

He brushed his palm across your back, still not easing his hold on you as your body shuddered, wracked with violent sobs that squeezed your lungs like a vice.

“It's alright, you're alright.” Henry repeated softly as you cried into his shirt, your first tight around the fabric.

He looked even more angelic from this angle, the sculpted lines of his jaw above you. Your wet eyes pulled to the file, laying on the floor, papers partially scattered, your page staring up at the ceiling.

“But why... why only me? Why did I survive?”

Henry stared at the page, and shook his head. “I don't know. I assume you're... compatible. The same as One. The same blood type perhaps.”

Your voice felt stuck behind a solid wall in your throat.

“They're all... dead.” You whispered.

“Their fate is not your fault. And neither is yours.”

“I chose to come here, Henry. I took the bus. I walked in the gates. I followed the nurse. I offered myself up to him, to Papa. Like a feast, like... like I was happy to. Because I was. I wanted to, I wanted to get out of Hawkins, get away from-”

Your voice broke with soft cries, tears prickling wet beads over your eyelashes and streaming down your cheeks.

“No.” He affirmed as he finally brought a hand to your face, swiping away a tear track with the pad of his thumb. “You were lured, promised things, promised better than what you had. He tricked you, he did this to you. He did.”

“I shouldn't have lived.”

Henry's head jerked back, his gaze sharp as it shot into yours. “Don't ever say that.”

Henry was silent as you broke from his embrace and reached for the file. Your fingers flipped through each page once more, dragged over every detail until you landed on yourself again.

“I'm not… real. I'm just a copy. An imitation. I'm just some sick, twisted, diluted thing of Papa's. I'm not whoever I was.”

Henry looked pensive, his blue eyes wading in deep hues.

Anger started pooling hot through your veins underneath the anguish, pushing through every blood cell, firing every nerve.

“He erased me.”

The file slipped from your hands and hit the floor with a slap, the pages fanning out like a deep wound opening. A wound of restraints, needles, screams, the smell of blood, the scorch of electricity.

A wound of collars and broken bones and cerulean and the shadows.

A wound of yourself.

You were still trembling. But it was fury that was running through you now, hot and untamed. Henry hands hovered near your shoulders but didn’t touch, as if he was afraid you’d shatter under his fingers.

“Nineteen,” he whispered, his voice raw. “Look at me. You’re safe. You’re-”

“Safe?” Your voice was strangled.

You lifted your head slowly, tears streaking your cheeks, breath hitching in broken gasps. Henry’s expression solidified as he realized the depth of the darkness lurking in your eyes.

A pressure that had nowhere to go but out.

“Nineteen-”

“He erased me. And you... you knew.” The words came out dangerously low.

Henry’s throat worked. “I-”

“You knew,” you repeated louder, the sound scraping out from behind your teeth. “You knew what he did. You sat at that chess table and knew what I was. Were you afraid of me? Is that it? Is that why you didn't want to talk to me, didn't want me to see you?”

Henry reached for you again, instinctively. “No, please-”

You slapped his hand away so hard his entire arm flinched back.

“Don’t touch me.” You hissed.

You were breathing hard, pacing like a caged animal. Henry backed up slowly a pace, his hands coming up a fraction in front of him as if doing so would hold your rage back, press it down under his palms into something manageable.

You were silent. The pieces were falling together, knitting, stitching themselves to one another with jagged lines of thread in the dark space of your mind.

It didn't make any sense. And yet, it did.

All of it.

You stopped pacing, turning to face him.

“You call him Papa, Henry.” You murmured finally.

His eyes widened. He opened his mouth, but no voice came out, only a strained breath.

“Your name, that never made sense to me.” You continued, voice rising. “Peter. That’s wasn't real. That was never your name. At first I thought maybe all the staff had false identities, but it was only you. It was only you, Henry.”

His strained breath hitched into silence.

“And that pretty, pretty Sylvia,” You scoffed, a harsh, ugly sound. “Her friend called you Brenner’s angel. She said you're always together, that you... that you live in his shadow.”

Henry’s face went pale.

“And you do, don't you? That's why you went to him. That's why you told him what you knew. That’s why you do what he says. You’re scared of him, you obey him. Even when he hurts you.”

You stepped closer.

“Just like me.”

“Nineteen, please-”

You took another step, closing the distance between you entirely.

“You see me,” you murmured. “You feel me, when I'm not really there. When I'm in my mind, in the void. No one else can see me in there, Henry. Only you.”

His face was hard, motionless marble.

“And Papa... Papa said you have victims. He told you to remember what you are. Because you're his, aren't you? Just like me.”

Henry’s hands trembled at his sides as he watched you stalk closer to him.

You were something unhinged, something feral. Something finally looking the truth in it's seraphine face. You stared into his eyes, and the purest midnight stared back, hidden in plain sight.

The truth was a knife. Held in two hands, pressed to two throats, and it had found you both out.

The blood rushing through you didn't belong to a stranger.

Before you could blink, your hands were around Henry’s throat. His back was against the wall, his eyes were wide, the blue deep with fear and something much worse.

Far worse, because it was a reflection of your own irises. It was a reflection of the furnace throwing flares through your veins.

His breath caught in his throat.

“Say it.” You demanded.

“Nine-”

Your hands gripped his beautiful neck tighter.

“Say it Henry.”

A sudden force surged from you and cascaded upwards, blowing out the fluorescent strip with a violent pop, shrouding the room in a dim, shadowed darkness.

“It’s - it’s mine.” He choked out, the usual silk of his voice hoarse. “It’s my blood inside you.”

Your heart stopped beating for several, crucial seconds. The walls of his room breathed out, refusing to hold your fury any longer, refusing to acknowledge it as anything other than what it really was.

Desperation.

He didn’t fight you. He let you hold him there by the throat, his eyes not straying from yours. Not defiant, or brave. Just bare, vulnerable.

It was a look that ruined you.

Your hands fell away from his throat, the pale column spun pink from your grip. Without breaking his gaze you grabbed his left forearm and pushed up the stiff white cuff. You held his wrist in your hand silently, unsure which one of you was trembling harder.

Too afraid to see it, too afraid not to.

When finally your eyes fell, it was almost violent. The shock of black ink carved into his pale skin.

001.

He just stared at you, sharp and intense.

“You. You’re One.” You exhaled.

It wasn’t a question, or an accusation. It was a raw, plain truth. An acknowledgment, an understanding. A recognition of his suffering, his stolen identity.

And it broke him.

Henry crushed his mouth into yours, messy and bruising, a desperate breath tumbling from his lips as his hand grasped the back of your neck. His kiss drew a feeble whimper from you and he collected it on his tongue, sliding it against your lips, sinking it past your teeth to taste you. He didn’t stop kissing you until he was breathless, almost choking in air between your mouths.

“Henry-”

His mouth slipped a trail across your jaw and into the soft vulnerable skin of your throat. His hand was still tight around the back of your neck, the other dragging over your ribs to settle on your waist.

“You ruin me.” He murmured, his warm breath cascading over your pulse point.

Every single moment roared wild within you. Every single glance, every stolen moment, every kiss, every move of the chess pieces. Every agony, every bitter truth. All of it, beating a fire inside you.

“Make it stop, Henry,” you pleaded, your voice a tiny, broken thing. “Please, please.”

A soft noise fell from him at your plea. He walked you back in careful steps, his mouth still buried in your neck, kissing over your skin. He lowered you down onto his bed as if laying something precious.

His lips fell in a line from your throat to the soft dip where your collarbones met. His hands were everywhere, wide shaky palms claiming every inch of you. They slid clumsily up your sweater, pushed up your tank. Your skin burned for him, every part of you aching for his touch.

You could feel his hands shaking as they trailed up to your breast. His breath quickened as he met the soft flesh and kneaded it, his hand cupping you while the pad of his thumb rolled over your nipple.

“You… you feel so good in my hands.” He breathed into your neck.

You slid your hands through his dirty blonde waves, letting them thread like silk through your fingers as he moved lower to take your breast into his mouth. His lips sucked over it, wet and hot, pulling your nipple into a hard peak. His mouth elicited a whine from you as his tongue swirled the taught, sensitive bud.

He stayed there for a while, taking his time, savouring you. His head lay against your sternum as he kissed meticulously over every inch of your breasts, worshipping them with his perfect mouth. Your fingers scraped through his scalp, raking his hair back over his ear.

He finally sunk lower, sliding his body down across yours to kiss over your stomach while his hands left a trembling caress over your hips. His fingers hooked the waistband of your pants and he looked up for permission, his face flushed and his eyes a deep hazy blue.

“Yes,” you breathed, arching your hips up for him. “Please…”

His eyes flared as they fell between your legs, studying every crease of your wet slit with a hunger that looked utterly beautiful on him. He slid further down the bed, resting his shoulders between your thighs, laying kisses up your inner thighs as his hands gently spread you.

“I… I haven’t stopped thinking about tasting you again… for weeks… can I? Please?” He basically begged, his face nuzzling into the crease where your mound met your thigh.

Your fingers pulled through his hair and you nodded, the furnace inside you already roaring for him, your cunt already throbbing with anticipation.

His mouth pressed tentative, affectionate kisses against your slit, the initial contact making you gasp.

It wasn’t long before he was utterly intoxicated by tasting you. His tongue parted you in long, savouring strokes, the tip pushing into your pussy to fuck it briefly before laying flat, broad laps up to your clit, finding a rhythm you liked.

Henry met every one of your mewls with his own quiet whines. Soft and contented were the noises he made as he lost himself in your cunt, eating you like a man starved.

He learned what you liked quickly, cataloguing every noise and writhe of response you made for him. His tongue delved deeper, his lips sucking and popping wetly, his mouth humming as his tongue pressed hard circles over your clit.

His hands were hungry, kneading into the flesh of your thighs, spreading you further to give his mouth better access. He was devoted, thoroughly exploring you with his tongue, growing more fervent with every arch and moan that he elicited from you.

“Henry-”

“Hmm?” He hummed against your cunt, the vibrations of his slick mouth only mounting the fire in your core.

“Have you - have you done this before?” Your voice was far closer to a gasp, pushing out over your broken breaths as he ate you, your back arching for him.

He shook his head, not straying from his mouth's eager work.

“No… I’ve only dreamed about it... about doing this to you… I’ve dreamed about it so often…”

His confession only embered the pleasure. You were unravelling under his devoted mouth, your hips rolling against his face, his nose bumping into your mound as your fingers tightened into his hair.

“Henry, I’m - going to-”

He whined with excitement, his hips rutting against the mattress, seeking his own friction as he felt your legs tremble against his head.

“Please… yes…” he begged, the sound of his mouth and tongue wet and messy as he worked you without pause, “please… let me taste it again…” he dug his long fingers hard into the flesh of your thighs.

A broken cry tore from you as you came on his mouth, your body shuddering with each wave of release that ran through you. Your thighs tightened around Henry’s head, trapping him as he groaned against your sodden cunt, his tongue lapping furiously to collect every drop of you pooling out from his devotion.

“Fuck, Henry,” you breathed as he continued drawing his tongue over your slit in languid strokes through your aftershocks.

His perfect lips, wet with your slick, stamped a trail up over your mound to your stomach as he moved himself back up your body.

The weight of him on top of you was a divine force, grounding you to the earth, keeping you from falling apart, the only real thing you could lay your hands on. You kissed him deep, every nerve in your lips flaring against his. He tasted of mint and salt and your own musk, all mingling together in his mouth like alchemy.

The long, hard line of his erection strained inside his pants, pressing against your soaked cunt as he lay between your legs, kissing you. Your hand trawled down the side of him, curling under his hip to palm his clothed cock.

He pushed himself against your hand, his brow knitting at the sensation.

“You’re really here this time…” he mumbled against your mouth, breaking from kissing you only to gaze into your eyes, his own cerulean hue a shade of disbelief. “I can really feel you.”

“Yes,” you smiled, “I’m really here this time. Really touching you… if you want me to.”

He answered with a single whimper and his hand grappling furiously with his belt. You pushed your palm over the rigid shape of him before shoving his trousers down over his hips.

You wrapped your hand around his cock, hot and swollen, drawing a broken needy sound from him that made your entire body bloom with heat. He was already half gone, the head of his cock leaking precum all over your thumb as you stroked him.

You craned your head up into his neck, nipping over his throat as you drew your hand over him in tight pulls, slowly at first. But he moaned into the pillow and you responded instinctively at the angelic sound, your hand deepening and quickening its movements.

“It’s... too much…” he gasped, his hips pushing down and thrusting to fuck your hand between your bodies.

“You can cum Henry,” you murmured, your lips finding his earlobe to cling to.

“No… no,” he breathed, but his hips kept moving, his body not obeying his mind. “I want to feel all of you, not just your hand.”

Your stomach twisted with a tight knot of desire and he found your mouth again, almost bruising the force of his kiss.

“I want all of you.” He repeated softy into your mouth.

“Have you ever?” You asked gently.

He shook his head.

“Not even with any of the nurses?” You frowned.

“No.” He said sharply.

He was the most ethereal being you’d ever seen, and you found it hard to believe that no one had ever tried. He looked at you like you were insane to think he’d have given his most primal human instincts to some random nurse.

“Have you?” He asked curiously.

Your mind went blank.

“I don’t…” you voice dropped into a whisper. “I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

He smiled, and you felt his heart thumping through his shirt.

“But I know I want all of you too, Henry.”

Your hand relinquished his cock and slid up the back of his neck into his hair, now gently mussed. He kept kissing you, tender but starved as his hand slid between your bodies and drew the head of his cock down your slit. He nudged against your entrance and you arched up for him, easing his access.

The stretch was almost painful as he breached you. He groaned into your ear as your cunt enveloped him, tight and heated. He pushed himself to the hilt, until your hips were embraced. The burn of taking him morphed into a deep thrum of pleasure as he started to move, withdrawing slowly and then driving back into you in long thrusts.

He was composed at first, his rhythm thoughtful and controlled, as if he didn’t trust himself to let go, to feel it, to not to get completely lost in you. But quickly the coaxing sound of your whines and the roll of your hips underneath him started unravelling his composure entirely. His movements became urgent, his hips rutting into yours, his cock driving harder into your cunt.

He felt like heaven in the dim light, stretching you so perfectly, filling you so completely. You felt alive again, more alive than you ever had.

His blood in your veins, his body in yours, his soft sounds like poetry spilling from his lips. All of it merging into religion inside of you.

“Henry…” it was a graceless beg as your hips writhed down to meet him.

“Feel how perfectly you fit me?” He groaned, his teeth scraping over your neck. “You’re going to take all of me… aren’t you? Please, take every drop of me…”

“Yes… Henry… give me everything… let me take all of you.” You begged as he fucked into you harder.

Your arms wrapped around his neck, pulling him down, holding him against you like a vice as his hands dug into your hips to anchor you.

“You have no idea… how long I’ve dreamed of this…” he breathed, his whole body beginning to tremble. “How long I’ve wanted to feel inside of you, feel every part of you… how long I’ve wanted to give you the truth… to give you all of me…”

“Then give yourself to me Henry,” you begged into his ear. “All of you... I want you to fill me, give me more than just your blood… please.”

His voice was a broken, warped string of grunts from the pit of his chest as he spilled into your cunt, burying his cock as deep as he could. You could feel his pelvis throbbing rhythmically against yours as every thick pulse of his cum surged into you.

He collapsed down onto you, soft sounds falling from his lips. For a while, neither of you moved. You let him lay his entire weight on you until his ragged breaths and shuddering had drawn down into a quiet, sated rhythm.

Your fingers scraped through his hair, over his scalp. His drew lazy patterns on your ribs. He stayed inside you, his cock still thickened but softening, your heartbeats hammering against one another.

“Here.” he said finally, sleepily against your chest as you toyed with his hair and ran your fingers under his ear.

“What?”

“Let me show you.”

He moved his hand up to yours and slid your fingers down over the side of his neck, stilling them near his jugular. He pressed your fingertips into his muscle.

A small, hard shape was seated there, sunken deeply into his flesh.

You exhaled.

“Soteria.”

He nodded into you as your fingers palpated the ridges of it. You brushed over the small, straight scar that has been paled by time, almost to the same shade of his skin.

The feeling ran through you, hot and alive.

“Henry?”

“Yes?”

It was a cascading truth, a promise as blinding as the beauty that lay breathing on your chest.

“We are going to destroy him.”

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