Kai Langford - December 2120
The heavy, suffocating weight in my limbs is the first thing that registers. Every muscle feels like lead, drained of the strength I usually rely on. Even forcing my eyelids open feels like trying to lift a boulder.
What is going on?
Fragments of memory pierce through the mental fog. A tree. Leaning against it, gasping. Then Ethan's face hovering over mine, his hands framing my cheeks as tears track down his skin. Beside him, Noah, his expression twisted in sheer terror.
The realisation hits me like a physical blow.
My eyes snap open and I bolt upright, a ragged gasp tearing from my throat as my lungs starve for air. My heart hammers violently against my ribs, a panicked rhythm that echoes in my ears as I scramble to take in my surroundings.
Where am I?
This isn't my room. It is small, cold, and dimly lit, the stark silhouette of iron bars blocking the only doorway. A cell.
Before the panic can fully take root, a warm, familiar hand presses gently against my back. I flinch, spinning around, but the tension in my chest eases slightly when I see Ethan sitting right there beside me.
"Kai, it's okay," he murmurs, trying to offer a reassuring smile. But I know him too well. I can see the tight, strained lines of worry around his mouth, and his eyes are bloodshot and rimmed with red.
Even in my confused, disoriented state, the sheer depth of what I feel for him grounds me. Knowing he is safe and next to me calms my racing nerves, if only for a fraction of a second.
Ethan leans in, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me into a desperate, tight hug. My instinct, as always, is to wrap myself around him, to protect him from whatever has made him cry. But as I try to lift my arms, a sharp, metallic tug stops them short.
I look down. Heavy iron cuffs encircle each of my wrists.
"What-?" My voice is a raspy whisper.
"Shh," Ethan whispers softly, burying his face in my neck as his hand strokes through my hair. "You're fine. You're safe."
I let myself sink into his embrace, hating how frail my own body feels beneath his hold. Ethan holds on tightly, pressing a soft, lingering kiss against my temple.
"What happened?" I finally ask, the words heavy in my throat.
As soon as the question leaves my lips, I feel Ethan flinch against me.
"That doesn't matter right now," he replies, his voice thick with unspilt tears. "Just stay here with me. Like this."
At first, the deflection doesn't make sense. But then the fog truly clears, and the missing memories rush back in a terrifying flood. The deserted road. The biting cold of the snow. The darkness taking over.
I pull back slightly, forcing him to look at me, though the movement makes the chains rattle ominously.
"Did I-" I hesitate, the words catching in my throat, terrified of the answer. "Did I hurt you? Or the others?"
Ethan swallows hard, his throat bobbing. He reaches up, his thumb gently caressing my cheekbone. "Everyone is fine. You just..." He pauses, his gaze flickering as he searches for the right words. "You just disappeared on yourself."
The phrase cuts deep.
It has gone too far. I have tried to manage this, to keep the darkest parts of me locked away so I wouldn't burden them. I hate being the center of attention, hate being the problem that needs solving. But now, my secrecy has put the people I value above everything else in direct danger. I have become a liability.
"I don't know what's wrong with me" I admit, my voice cracking. The admission feels like a defeat, but the safety of Ethan and Noah matters more than my pride.
Ethan stares into my eyes, biting his lower lip as if he can physically force the worry off his face. It doesn't work.
"Noah and the others are already looking into it," he says, a stray curl falling across his forehead.
Instinctively, I reach up to brush it away,a simple, gentle gesture for the person I love. But the chains snap taut, jarring my wrists and stopping my hands inches short. I pull at them experimentally, testing their strength. They are incredibly solid.
That's when I notice the ambient shadows in the corners of the cell. Usually, they flicker and shift, responding to my emotions. Now, they are absolutely still. Dead. I try to call to them, just a brief mental tug, but nothing answers. The connection is completely severed.
Ethan quickly catches my hands, wrapping his fingers securely around mine to stop me from pulling against the iron.
"It's only temporary," he says quickly, his voice pleading. "Edmund wanted to make sure that when you wake up, you aren't still..." He cuts himself off, unable to finish the sentence.
"Aren't still trying to kill anyone?" I finish for him, the brutal truth landing heavily between us.
Ethan flinches as if I've struck him. He sharply pulls my captive hands against his chest, squeezing them tightly over the steady beat of his heart. "No! I know you wouldn't."
But a sudden, vivid flash of memory shatters his reassurance. Monica. She is pinned beneath me, a blade hovering just inches from her throat, driven by a dark, unthinking impulse. I would kill to protect my friends and family without hesitation, but this... this is a senseless, monstrous coldness directed at one of our own.
"I was about to kill Monica, wasn't I?" I whisper.
Ethan looks away, his silence confirming everything I fear.
"We just wanted to make sure," he murmurs softly, turning his face back to mine, his eyes swimming with a mixture of sorrow and devotion. "The handcuffs suppress your powers enough to help steady your mind. To keep you here with us."
"Ethan, that's not what I asked," I reply as he tries to dodge the question.
He looks down at our hands.
"Yes... you did" he whispers quietly.
My stomach drops, and I pull my hands away from him. A sudden wave of guilt hits me, as if even touching him, being near him, is a danger to the person I love most.
But before I can fully retreat, his hand shoots out, catching my wrists.
"But it wasn't you," he says firmly, his voice steadying. "You're just sick right now. Noah will fix it, like he always does."
The words hang in the damp, freezing air of the cell, heavy and suffocating. Noah will fix it...
I stare at Ethan, I doesn't pull away from his grip this time, not because I doesn't want to, but because the sheer weight of my own guilt has paralyzed me. The chains between my wrists clink softly, a pathetic, metallic whimpering that fills the silence.
"Sick?" my voice is barely a breath, rough and scraped raw. I let out a short, broken laugh that sounds more like a sob, though my eyes remain terrifyingly dry.
"Ethan... I didn't just lose control. I looked at her, and I didn't see a friend. I didn't see anything. If you hadn't been there, if Noah hadn't..."
I stops, the image of my brother's terrified face flashing behind my eyelids before my father face suddenly pop into my mind.
"I am a weapon that's misfiring" I whisper.
"Don't say that," Ethan begs. He lunges forward, closing the small distance I had tried to put between us.
He throws his arms around my neck again, burying his face so deeply into the crook of my shoulder that his words are muffled against his skin. "Don't you dare say that, Kai. You're the only reason any of us are still breathing. You've carried all of us on your back. Let us carry you for once."
The desperate warmth of Ethan's body is a stark contrast to the dead, frozen emptiness inside my chest. My instincts scream at me to lift his arms, to lock Ethan against me, to bury my hands in his hair and promise him that everything will be okay.
But the heavy cuffs snap taut against the floor chain with a harsh, jarring clank.
This wasn't the first time I'd woken up in restraints.
The difference was that back then my father had ordered it.
This time the people who loved me had.
The sound is a brutal reminder of reality. The shadows in the corner remain dead, unresponsive to my silent, desperate pleas.
"Ethan, look at me," I choke out, my throat burning.
Ethan slowly pulls back, his lower lip trembling, his beautiful eyes completely bloodshot and swimming with tears that finally spill over, tracking down his pale cheeks.
I raise my hands as far as the chains will allow, the metal biting cruelly into my skin. But I can't reach Ethan's face. I can't brush away the stray curl on his forehead, and I can't wipe away the tears. The realisation that I can't even comfort the person I love most shatters something deep inside me.
"Look at my hands," I whispers, his voice cracking completely, a rare, raw show of vulnerability that I usually fight so hard to hide. "They put me in chains, Ethan. And the worst part is... they were right to do it."
"No-"
"Yes," I cut him off, a single, heavy tear finally breaking through my guard and slipping down my cheek.
"If I lose my mind again, if the darkness takes over and I can't find my way back... I won't know who you are. I could hurt you. I could kill Noah." I look down at our joined hands, my grip tightening with a desperate, tragic strength.
"I don't need to be safe, Ethan. I never cared about being safe. I just need to know you are. And right now? The biggest threat to your safety is me."
Ethan lets out a fractured, heartbroken cry. He doesn't care about the chains. He forces his way closer, pressing his forehead directly against mine, forcing me to look into the absolute depth of his devotion.
"Then let me be in danger," Ethan sobs, his breath hot against my lips. "If staying by your side means I'm in danger, then I don't care. I'm not leaving this cell, Kai. You don't get to carry this alone anymore. You don't get to push me away to protect me from yourself."
Ethan reaches up, his hands trembling violently as he cups my face, his thumbs desperately wiping away the lone tear on my cheek.
"I know who you are," Ethan whispers fiercely, his voice vibrating with a terrifyingly beautiful certainty. "I know the man who holds me when I'm scared. I know the man who blushes when he's praised. I know you. The darkness might hide you for a little while, but I will sit in the dark with you until Noah finds a way to bring you back. I'm not going anywhere."
I close my eyes, leaning heavily into the touch of Ethan's hands.
I can't protect Ethan from the world as I am, but in the suffocating quiet of the cell, I lets myself do the hardest thing I've ever had to do... I let Ethan protect him.
Ethan's lips press against mine, a gentle, devastatingly soft touch. It's a quiet anchor in the middle of my storm. He pulls back just enough to look into my eyes, his voice a fragile but fierce whisper.
"I love you no matter what."
I swallow hard, the lump in my throat burning like acid. My chest tightens so fiercely it physically aches, my heart hammering a panicked, fractured rhythm against my ribs until it feels like it could shatter into pieces at any second. I don't deserve this devotion, not after what I almost did, but looking at him, I can't force myself to push him away anymore.
"I love you too," I whisper back.
The words are raw, scraped from the deepest part of my chest, and they carry every ounce of the terrifying, desperate truth of how much I need him to stay.