Buried in the wreckage of a Compound meant to imprison her, Faine awakens a shell of her former self. With no memories and a growing taste for revenge, she is given the ultimate decision.
She must save the city, or herself.
Round One 》✅️ 2k 》✅️
R...
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He had to be here somewhere.
Faine chanted the thought again and again, nervous she might even start whispering it aloud and expose herself. With her back braced against the wall of the staircase, she kept her body tucked in tight, waiting to hear the first noise.
She'd hidden the Guard's body in a closet downstairs, but she couldn't be certain how long it would take for another to find him.
The gravity of the papers in her pocket nagged at her consciousness. No matter what happened, she would have them. Dead or alive, they would be on her body.
Faine caught herself praying that if she didn't succeed, someone would find them on her at the very least. Perhaps even Leighton, so he might know she wasn't insane. So he might remember her as a good person.
Those thoughts pooled like oily blotches in her stomach and made her eyes water.
No.
She wouldn't think about that.
Peeking out of the stairwell, Faine felt bitter relief at the sight of an older man standing toward the back of an open space. The floor on this level was stone, making the sparring match before her all the more brutal.
A stocky man with ink covering his arms growled at a younger girl who stood like a deer in the night. Her wide eyes and splayed hands looked completely unprepared for the man's advances.
She wouldn't go down without a fight. Faine watched, observing the way the girl gripped and shoved at him, kicking him so intensely in the shin that his leg buckled. She did her best not to wince when he took the girl down with him, grabbing her ankle.
Their scuffle was chaotic and short-lived. After all her bucking and yanking, the man threw her to the ground. Her head smacked on the stone, echoing softly.
Sickened, Faine pressed back into the doorway, attempting to control her breath. One wrong move and her cover would be blown.
The small moan that escaped the poor girl made Faine bristle, especially when the clapping began.
"Marvelous," Trace said, the approval in his voice disgustingly smug. "Well done."
Her skin crawled as she listened to the young girl whimpering on the floor. When Faine's eyes closed, visions of that taunting laugh still haunted her ears, plaguing her nightmares. A memory took shape, although murky.
"The point of this experiment, Ms. Reilica, is to unravel all that you know until there is nothing left... What makes a person? A series of memories and events. So what happens when you take them all away? Do you know?"
Faine's hands trembled, digging her nails into her palms in an attempt to snap out of it. She couldn't handle the sight of that glistening syringe or the taste of metal in the air. He'd been steadily pumping the room full of tiny particles of silver, slowly draining her for weeks.
