ONLY THIS: SKIN, BREATH, HUNGER

She ran straight to Carl.

He didn’t ask questions. Didn’t smirk or tease. Just took one look at her face and said, “What happened?”

She showed him the sigil. The reflection. Everything.

For once, he didn’t try to make sense of it with logic.

He just said, “Then let’s burn the place down.”

She almost laughed. “You’re insane.”

“No, I’m in.”

“In what?”

“Whatever you’re doing. Whatever this is. I’m not leaving you alone in this.”

And that, somehow, terrified her more than any experiment or conspiracy.

Because Carl Maddox had just picked her.

And if he got hurt — it would be her fault.

Pact

They made a plan.

Meet in the North Tower during Solstice Trials.

Use the distraction of the public exhibition to slip into the central lab core.

Carl would handle disrupting the power grid. Ophelia would extract data from the system — find proof of Project Halo, and everything Velgrave had done to them.

But before they parted ways that night, she caught his hand.

“Carl.”

He looked back, eyes darker than usual.

“I need to know,” she said softly, “If this is real.”

He didn’t speak.

He just pulled her close, hand at the back of her neck, and kissed her like a promise.

“Does that feel fake to you?” he whispered.

No.

It felt like danger. And it felt like home.

The Winter Solstice Trials turned Velgrave into a theater of chaos and spectacle.

Fire-benders lit up the sky, illusionists warped the landscape into gold and ash, and spectators filled the arena to cheer for their legacy champions.

But Ophelia? She was in the shadows — dressed in black, cloak pulled low, heart hammering.

Carl’s voice crackled in her earpiece: “You’re clear. South hallway’s dead.”

She slipped past the iron gate and into the lab corridor beneath the east wing. The halls smelled sterile. Sharp. Too clean.

Project Halo had to be in there somewhere.

In one hand, she carried a memory scanner.

In the other, her fear.

But she didn’t hesitate.

Because this was no longer about answers.

It was about reclaiming control.

She found the mainframe beneath the biometric chamber. Silver wires stretched from the walls like veins, pulsing softly.

Ophelia plugged in the device and began scanning the database.

Names flew across the screen.

Carl Maddox. Subject 04. Immune to psychic abilities. Recruited at age 7 after maternal sacrifice.

Ophelia Wolfe. Subject 01.

Subject 01.

She swallowed hard.

She clicked the file.

Genetic enhancement, memory imprinting, emotional suppression protocol.

Her life… wasn’t natural.

Every trauma. Every memory. Even her mother’s death—

Was it programmed?

She clutched the desk.

Carl’s voice buzzed again: “Ten minutes. Security loop ends at 9:15.”

But Ophelia couldn’t move.

Because the final line on her profile stopped her breath.

Subject 01: Designed to terminate Subject 04 if containment fails.

Her job… was to kill him.

She didn’t wait until the Trials ended.

She stormed straight into Carl’s dorm room — system still warm, gloves still on, firelight flickering against his skin.

He knew something was wrong the moment she didn’t speak.

“Tell me,” he said.

She dropped the file on the floor between them.

“You were right. We weren’t coincidence.”

Carl picked up the file slowly, eyes scanning each page.

He didn’t speak. Didn’t react.

“Carl—”

“You were made to kill me.”

Ophelia flinched.

“I didn’t know—”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“It does!”

He looked at her then, eyes glassy but unreadable. “So what happens now? You going to finish the mission?”

She stepped toward him.

“No. I’m going to rewrite it.”

And then she kissed him.

Not because she wanted to forget the truth.

But because she wanted to feel something that wasn’t written into her skin.

They didn’t speak after that.

Words were pointless.

He pinned her against the wall, lips trailing fire down her neck.

Her jacket hit the floor.

She pulled his shirt over his head, hands tracing scars she hadn’t noticed before — marks from power trials, from Velgrave’s twisted “conditioning.”

His lips found her collarbone.

Her mind emptied.

There was no past. No code. No assignment.

Only this: skin, breath, hunger.

She pushed him down onto the bed and straddled him, every movement deliberate, every kiss a rebellion.

If she was built to destroy him… then loving him was the only way she could win.