CHAPTER 23
ARIA
I didn’t wait for permission.
I couldn’t.
I climbed out of the bed, not bothering to change. My hospital gown clung to me, cold and wrinkled, but I didn’t care.
My bare feet hit the polished floor hard as I ran, each step sending a jolt up my legs. The corridor stretched endlessly ahead, too bright, too clean, and I hated it—hated how everything looked the same while my world had just shattered.
My heart was thundering, like it wanted to break through my ribs and escape. I didn’t care about the cameras tracking my every move, or the distant voice crackling through the intercom.
None of it mattered.
All I could hear was the scream rising in my throat, raw and jagged, begging to be let out. But I kept it caged behind clenched teeth, because if I let it go—I wasn’t sure I’d ever stop.
I slammed open the lab door.
The scent hit me first.
Sharp.
Animalistic.
Familiar in a way that made my stomach twist.
Lian.
His body slumped against the restraints, skin damp with sweat, strands of dark hair clinging to his forehead.
His chest rose and fell in slow, heavy breaths. But it wasn’t just the exhaustion or the blood—no. There was something else.
The sticky sheen on his torso.
The faint, crescent-shaped bite marks on his collarbone.
My bite marks.
I froze, the world narrowing to the roaring in my ears. My throat closed.
My legs went numb.
No. No, no, no.
I stumbled backwards, knocking into the cold metal tray behind me. It clattered to the floor, echoing like a gunshot.
His eyes fluttered open at the sound, heavy-lidded and hazy—but then they found me, and they cleared.
He smiled.
Weakly.
Gently.
As if I were a comforting dream.
“Aria,” he murmured.
I shook my head violently.
“Don’t—don’t say my name like that.”
He frowned, confused.
“What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong?” My voice cracked.
“What isn’t wrong?!”
I stepped closer, trembling, my gaze scanning his body again.
The marks, the smell, the raw bruising on his hips—god, I knew those places. I’d felt them under my palms.
I thought I was dreaming.
The lab.
The anaesthesia.
The vivid, erotic hallucinations that haunted me every night like clockwork.
I thought they were side effects.
Cruel tricks of the mind.
But they weren’t.
They were real.
I felt bile rise in my throat.
I wanted to scream.
I wanted to peel off my skin, to scrape it raw until nothing remained of the phantom touches still lingering there—until I was someone else, someone untouched by all of this.
The taste of bile rose in my throat as I stared at him—at the one person I thought I could trust down here.
My voice came out as a whisper, brittle and cracked.
My voice came out hoarse, trembling.
“Did you know I wasn’t in my senses?”
He blinked.
Once.
Twice.
And then the quiet settled between us, so thick I could barely breathe.
I took a shaky breath and asked again, louder this time, sharper—an edge of accusation slicing through the air.
“Did you know?”
His expression shifted.
I saw it then—something flickering behind his eyes.
Not just confusion.
Not just sadness.
It was regret.
A glimmer of guilt.
He opened his mouth, then closed it again, as if unsure what truth might come out.
When he finally spoke, his voice was soft, almost hesitant.
“I... I wasn’t sure. You never said anything outright. But the way you touched me, the way you moved... I thought maybe—maybe a part of you already knew. That you wanted it.”
My breath caught in my chest, every word striking like a slap.
“No,” I said it so quietly it barely felt real.
Then louder—laced with disbelief, with fury—
“No! I thought I was dreaming, Lian! I didn’t know any of it was real. I didn’t consent to this! I thought it was just some twisted fantasy.”
The silence that followed was deafening.
He looked stricken, like the weight of my words had physically struck him.
“I didn’t know,” he said, but it sounded more like a plea than a defence.
“I didn’t know you didn’t understand. You responded to me... I thought—” He stopped himself.
“You thought what?” I spat.
“That just because I moaned your name in some drug-induced haze that it meant yes? Did that mean take whatever you want?”
His eyes met mine again—haunted now.
Wounded.
But not in the way that made me want to comfort him.
No.
It made me sick, because part of me still wanted his arms around me, and I hated myself for it.
He took a step forward, slow and unsure. His hand lifted, fingers trembling as they hovered inches from my cheek.
I recoiled before he could make contact. My body jerked away like his skin was on fire.
“Don’t,” I said through clenched teeth.
“Don’t you dare touch me.”
His hand froze mid-air, then curled into a fist and dropped back to his side, defeated.
“Aria—”
“Was this what they wanted?” I cut him off, my voice breaking.
“Was I just… part of their experiment? Did they use me as some kind of… breeding host? Am I just a vessel to them?!”
I covered my mouth, the sob bursting through before I could stop it. My knees gave out, and I sank to the floor, shaking.
He didn’t speak. The silence stretched.
“I don’t understand. Why? ” I whispered.
“I don’t know,” he said after a long pause.
His voice was thick, raw.
“I never wanted to hurt you.”
“But you didn’t stop it,” I said.
The truth settled like acid in my stomach.
This wasn’t just a violation of my body—it was a theft of my agency, my sanity.
They’d used him.
And they’d used me.
And I didn’t know what terrified me more—that they orchestrated it all… or that a part of me had once craved the illusion.
I curled my arms around myself, rocking slightly, trying to breathe through the crushing weight pressing down on my chest.
His eyes met mine—and in them, I saw it.
Confusion.
Not lust.
Not guilt.
Just raw, bewildered innocence.
He didn’t understand why I had recoiled.
Why my shoulders had stiffened, why my face had twisted into horror.
Why I looked at him now like he was something foreign and dangerous.
Because he didn’t know.
He hadn’t known any more than I had.
But that realisation didn’t soften the ache clawing at my chest. If anything, it made it worse.
Because those same innocent eyes-the ones searching mine for answers—had unknowingly crossed a line so deep, so intimate, I wasn’t sure I’d ever feel clean again.
His hands had touched parts of me that no one ever had. His mouth had whispered against my skin, claimed pieces of me in the dark. And while I had been unconscious.
Drugged.
Used.
The worst part was... my body hadn’t known any better.
It had responded.
Craved.
Welcomed him.
Shame burned through me like acid.
I tore my gaze away, fast and sharp, as if the very act of looking at him might shatter me.
I couldn’t stand the sight of him in that moment—not because I hated him, but because I didn’t.
And I wanted to.
I wanted to scream and spit and shove him away. I wanted to bury the heat, the betrayal, the aching violation under a blanket of fury.
But I couldn’t.
Because it wasn’t his fault.
He had been used too.
Manipulated.
Drugged.
Exploited like a puppet just as I had been.
And somehow, that made it all worse. Because there was no one to blame except the people behind the glass. The ones watching.
Controlling. Orchestrating.
He was looking at me like I was slipping away from him, and I think, in a way, I was.
Not because I didn’t trust him.
But because I didn’t trust myself anymore.
I wrapped my arms around my stomach and took another step back. I didn’t say a word. I couldn’t. My throat had closed up completely.
One more second under his gaze, and I would’ve collapsed.
His voice was a whisper behind me.
“Aria…?”
But I was already gone.
Inside myself. Running. Retreating into silence.
Because I didn’t know how to face him when my body remembered what my heart wanted to forget.