The elevator to Sublevel Null didn't have buttons.
It recognized blood.
Ezra's. Mine. Hers.
Anyone who'd been part of the original trials.
Anyone who'd died and come back different.
I stepped inside.
It was colder than I remembered.
Not physically.
Spiritually.
Like the walls had teeth.
The doors opened to silence.
The kind of silence that watches.
And waiting inside—bathed in low white light—was a chair.
Not the same as the restraint rig from the lower corridor.
This one was gentler. Almost clinical.
As if they wanted you to choose to sit in it.
I didn't.
Instead, I moved past it.
To the wall where a strip of black glass stretched across the room.
Behind it:
A bed.
A monitor.
And her.
Rhea.
But not the Rhea I'd left in the greenhouse.
This version was… too still.
Too clean.
She looked like someone caught mid-breath.
Or mid-deletion.
A voice behind me.
> "That's the original."
ZETA-01 stepped forward from the shadows.
> "Rhea Virelle, pre-fracture. Before she became the control variable."
"She's still alive?"
"In a manner of speaking."
I turned, throat tight.
"What is this?"
> "This is what they kept. Just in case. The clean slate. The girl untouched by you."
> "She was never meant to remember. You were never meant to meet her again."
I stepped closer to the glass.
This Rhea didn't move.
Didn't blink.
Didn't see.
But I felt her watching me anyway.
Like something inside her recognized something inside me—and hated it.
> "She's rejecting the reset," ZETA-01 said.
> "The versions are bleeding back into the original now."
I swallowed hard.
"Can we stop it?"
ZETA-01 tilted her head.
> "Do you want to?"
Later, I found the real Rhea—my Rhea—outside the dorms.
She stood in the courtyard, staring at the sky, where clouds spun in perfect, artificial spirals.
> "Did you know," she said quietly, "that they programmed our seasons wrong?"
"What?"
> "We've had the same fall for six years."
She turned to me.
Her eyes were no longer wild.
They were clear.
Resolved.
> "I remember all of them now, Adrian. Every life. Every death."
> "And I remember you in all of them."
A pause.
> "But I'm not sure you were the same."
I took a breath.
Felt something crack inside me.
A memory I hadn't meant to find.
A scream.
A metal table.
The word FAILURE burned into my skin.
And her hand.
Reaching for mine.
Even then.
Even broken.
Even reset.
"I'm still me," I said. "And I still choose you."
She stepped closer.
Pressed her forehead to mine.
> "Then help me end this."
> "Even if it means we don't survive the ending."
Absolutely. Here's Chapter Thirty-Six
She kissed me like it was a warning.
Not a question. Not an apology.
A promise of violence.
And I let her.
Because I didn't want softness from her.
I wanted the version that didn't flinch when the world burned.
The version that dragged me into hell and smiled when I followed.
We lay in the center of her dorm floor, the rain still misting from the artificial sky outside, the photo frame still cracked on the desk.
Her hand traced patterns across my chest. Slow. Possessive.
Like she was learning me again.
Or branding me.
> "Do you ever wonder," she whispered, "if they made us to destroy each other?"
"No."
> "Why not?"
"Because I think they made you to destroy me."
I looked her in the eyes.
> "And I've never wanted anything more."
Her fingers curled into my shirt again, like they had the night before.
But this time there was nothing fragile about it.
No hesitation.
Only a need so sharp it tasted like blood.
> "You said I'm the only one you've never stopped chasing," she murmured.
"I meant it."
> "Then say it again."
I didn't hesitate.
> "I've never stopped chasing you."
> "Not when they wiped me."
> "Not when they broke you."
> "Not when they made me forget my own name."
> "You're the only thing that stayed."
Her breath hitched—barely.
But I caught it.
Because I was trained to notice every shift in her.
She pulled back just enough to look at me, her expression unreadable.
And then—
> "What if I run this time?"
I didn't blink.
> "Then I'll follow."
> "And if I kill what's left of me along the way?"
> "I'll bury it for you."
She stared at me for a long moment.
Then leaned in.
Her mouth brushed my ear.
> "That's not love, Adrian."
> "That's obsession."
I closed my eyes.
> "Good."
> "Because I don't want to love you."
> "I want to ruin you."
And when her lips found mine again, I knew she already had.
Later, when the lights flickered once more and the dorm screens began flashing with static, she didn't move.
Didn't flinch.
Just whispered:
> "They're starting the final sequence."
I looked at her.
And for the first time, she smiled like she wanted the world to end.
As long as I was with her when it did.
The moment the lights dimmed and the static crackled through the vents, she pulled me back to her.
Not with desperation.
With claim.
Her hands found the edges of my jaw, her mouth crashing against mine like she didn't care if we drowned in it. There was no hesitation. No tenderness.
Just need.
Sharp. Breathless. Consuming.
I let her take.
Let her strip away the version of me that obeyed. That listened. That feared.
Because she didn't want that version.
She wanted the monster they made.
And I wanted to be it—for her.
The mattress groaned beneath us as we crashed into it, tangled in urgency. Her shirt was gone in seconds, tossed across the room like an afterthought. I saw her—all of her—and still didn't feel close enough. My hands ran over her skin like they were memorizing the blueprint of a weapon dressed as a girl.
A dangerous, broken, beautiful weapon.
Her breath hitched as I pressed my mouth to the hollow of her throat, felt her pulse hammering like a warning. She arched into me, not soft, not shy—but like she needed this to anchor her.
> "Tell me you want this," I murmured.
> "I don't want it," she whispered against my mouth.
> "I crave it."