The cell was small enough that the moment Lili’s eyes snapped open, the world collapsed inward. A single breath—thin, sharp, stolen—tore through her, and the dimness around her swayed. She pushed herself upright on shaking elbows, but the cold beneath her palms became another memory, another echo, another blade.
At first it was only a gasp, a fractured flutter of air trembling out of her lungs.
Then came the tears—hot, uninvited, slipping down her temples like the past had reached through the present and reclaimed her.
Her mind plunged backward, dragged into the old dark without mercy: The smell of dust and blood. The metallic scrape of a lock turning. Her old boss’s venomous voice.
Her knees gave out, hitting the ground with a hollow sound. Her fingers curled against the floor. Her chest tightened, crushed by a panic. Breath fled her and the cell spun.
Her heartbeat thundered high in her throat—wild, choking, frantic—then splintered into a desperate staccato. She curled in on herself, arms hugging her ribs as if she could hold herself together by sheer will. But her body shook and shuddered and unraveled.
A strangled sound broke from her—half sob, half gasp—as she fought for air that refused to come. Her vision blurred, blackened at the edges.
It took time before the sound of footsteps filtered down the corridor. Lili didn’t register them as rescue or reason. They were simply approaching, and that alone was enough to rip another jagged tear through her panic.
She scrambled backward on hands, dragging herself toward the farthest corner of the cell until cold concrete pressed against her spine. Her trembling fingers curled against the wall as if she could disappear into it.
A soft electronic beep sliced through the air, followed by the smooth swipe of a keycard.
The lock released. The door slid open.
And in its frame stood Mike, behind him— Notori. Cova hovered at his shoulder—Cova.
Mike’s jaw clenched, anger flashing at the situation and the idiocy of locking her in a cell like she was some feral threat instead of a wounded ally. Notori’s hands curled into fists at his sides, his rage colder, quieter, deadly in its own way. Cova’s eyes shone with a shock that melted quickly into protective sorrow.
But Lili didn’t see their outrage on her behalf. All she saw were shadows cast by the doorway. Three silhouettes blocking the exit. Three figures standing over her while she shook on the floor.
Her breath hitched, stuttered, snapped in half. Because in her mind this looked like a scene she’d lived through.
Mike took in a sharp breath, as if the sight of her fear physically pierced him. Notori stepped forward, then stopped himself, realizing too much movement might shatter her further. Cova pressed a hand to her mouth, tears gathering, guilt and fury mingling like stormwater.
Mike’s gaze snapped toward Notori. “Bring Margherita,” he said.
Notori didn’t hesitate. A short nod and he spun on his heel, moving down the corridor. The moment he disappeared around the corner, silence tightened around the cell again.
Inside, Lili flinched at the sound of footsteps fading away, her body curling even tighter, as if expecting that the absence of one meant the approach of danger from another direction. Her breaths came in jagged, broken sobs, each one catching on the raw edges of memory. The suppressant still caged her Gift in suffocating silence, leaving her stripped bare, defenseless—and she could feel panic scraping against her bones because she knew what happened when she had no power, no escape, no shadows to slip into.
Mike remained by the open doorway but did not step inside, his hands flexing uselessly at his sides as if he were trying to decide whether to reach for her or hold himself back so he wouldn’t frighten her further.
Cova drifted a single step closer. “It’s alright,” Cova whispered softly, though her voice trembled with emotion. “Lili… No one’s going to hurt you here.”
But Lili didn’t look up. She only pressed harder against the wall, nails scraping concrete as though she could dig herself into the stone, disappear into it, escape a world that felt suddenly, violently familiar.
And Mike watched her with an expression that cracked at the edges—part fury, part helplessness, part the fierce promise that this would never happen to her again.
Notori’s sprint had barely faded when the tremor in the cell deepened, growing colder, sharper, more unbearable—because Mike, despite every careful intention, took a step closer. For Lili, that single movement felt like an old nightmare sliding its hands around her throat.
She scrambled backward so fast her heel slipped, her body twisting awkwardly as she pressed against the same wall, a raw, broken sound torn from her chest. Her hands flew up in front of her face.
“Don’t—” Her voice shattered mid-word. “Please—don’t—don’t come closer—please—”
The words tumbled out in jagged gasps, fragments she hated, fragments she thought she had buried. Shame and terror collided in her eyes until she couldn’t see the difference.
Mike froze.
All fury drained from him, leaving only the devastated stillness of a man who realized he had just stepped on something he never meant to touch.
“I won’t,” he said instantly, voice cracking at the edges, hands lifting in gentle retreat. “Lili, I won’t come closer. I swear. I’m stopping right here.”
He took one slow step back. Then another. And another.
Only when he was several paces away—near the threshold again, leaving the air wide and open and safe—did Lili’s sobs loosen enough for her to breathe.
Cova, eyes shimmering with horror and grief, whispered, “Oh Lili… gods…”
Notori returned with Margherita and stopped dead at the sound of Lili’s begging. Guilt carved itself into every line of his face. But Margherita didn’t startle. She had seen panic crack bodies before, heard this exact tone in the voices of those who believed the world had ended and were waiting for the next blow.
“Space,” Margherita murmured. “Give her space. All of you, step back.”
Mike obeyed first. Notori followed, jaw clenched so tight a faint tremor shook through him. Cova hesitated a beat longer—then stepped away too, brushing tears from her lashes.
Only when the cell was wide open with distance did Margherita move forward. She approached slowly, in no hurry to break whatever fragile thread held Lili together. Stopping two meters away, she lowered herself to the ground, knees touching the cold floor. “Lili,” she called gently. “I’m here to make you feel better.”
Lili’s breath hitched again, eyes flicking toward her with panic still flaring—but less sharp, less blinding.
Margherita slowly turned her palms upward, resting them on her knees.
“Nobody is going to touch you without your permission,” she said softly. “And nothing that happened before will ever happen in this place. Not while we are here with you.”
Lili blinked rapidly, tears spilling faster, her throat bobbing. “I… I can’t… I can’t breathe…”
“I know,” Margherita murmured. “Your body remembers fear even when you’re safe. But I can help, if you let me.”
She reached into her coat pocket in a pace clear enough for Lili to follow—and drew out a small syringe preloaded with a transparent calming serum. She set it very gently on the ground between them.
“This is just to quiet the panic,” she said. “You get to decide. If you say no, I won’t use it.”
Lili’s fingers closed tightly around her own elbows, her whole body trembling. “It’s… it’s safe?”
“Yes.” Margherita’s smile was warm. “And you’ll still be completely aware. It will only help your lungs loosen. Your heart steady.”
A long, fragile silence stretched between them. Then barely audible Lili whispered, “Okay.”
Margherita nodded once. She picked up the syringe, then paused again. “May I come closer?” she asked.
This time, Lili did not flinch. She pressed her back to the wall, nodded once.
Margherita closed the distance and injected the calming serum into her arm.
Within seconds, Lili’s breathing eased, shoulders loosened, her sobs softened into trembling exhales.
Margherita touched her forearm lightly. “Good,” she whispered. “Now, let’s get you out of this room.”
“Out…?” Lili rasped, eyes widening.
“Yes, sweetheart. You’re going with me. You’re not staying here another minute.”
Margherita helped her to her feet slowly, keeping her supported without binding or controlling. Lili leaned into her only when she wavered, and Margherita held her with a soft, steady anchor…
***
Rafael lifted his gaze from the glowing monitor the moment the door hissed open, brows tightening as Notori, Mike, and Cova stepped in with the heavy silence of people carrying bad news. His expression flickered with confusion first, then irritation.
“I told you to bring Lili with you,” he said, pushing back from the desk. “She was the one who engaged Goran first. I need her account. She kept him off the soldiers’ throats even while half-running on instinct.”
Mike let out a breath that sounded like it had been scraped from somewhere deep and weary. “Sir… that’ll have to wait. That—”
“Some scumbag noob shot a suppressor at her,” Notori cut in with barely contained fury, “because he thought she was losing control after she fought off a shapeshifter who had every intention of carving his way through half the base.” His jaw flexed hard. “You know damn well what a suppressor does to someone like her.”
Rafael’s expression froze, the irritation bleeding into something colder.
Cova stepped in, her voice softer but packed with the same trembling edge of worry. “She was struggling, yes—her powers were unstable after the fight. But me and Notori had her calming down. She was coming back, Rafael. She was listening. And now… now she’s broken all over again.”
Notori raked both hands through his hair, pacing once before slamming to a stop. “The only reason none of ours are dead,” he added, “is because she fought like hell even when her powers were slipping through her fingers. If someone earned the right to walk out of that courtyard with their head held high, it was her.”
Mike’s shoulders sagged, guilt and anger warring across his features. “And she woke up in a cell. Sedated by force. Alone. Her powers cut off…” He swallowed hard, looking away.
Rafael rose from his chair slowly. “Where is she now?”
“With Margherita,” Mike answered. “She managed to calm her enough to get her out of the cell. They are in the medical wing.”
Rafael exhaled once. “I want the soldier who fired that shot,” he said. “And I want every second of footage from the courtyard on my desk.”
Rafael crossed the office in three long strides, his hand clamping around the door handle just as Mike’s uncertain voice wavered behind him. “Sir?”
“I’m going to talk with her myself,” Rafael said.
Rafael was already out in the corridor, the door sliding shut with a soft sigh that only made the tension inside him coil tighter.
Soldiers who normally joked with him in passing straightened instinctively. Some stepped aside without thinking, as though pushed by the raw electricity rippling off him. His jaw was clenched so hard the muscles trembled at the edges, and his usually steady and calm eyes now burned with a colder, deeper fire.
When he reached the medical wing, he stopped the first nurse who passed. “Where is Margherita?”
“In her office, sir. She’s with the patient,” the nurse answered quickly.
He made his way to Margherita’s door. Before he could knock, he heard hushed voices from inside—Margherita’s steady, warm tone, and beneath it a smaller voice, frayed and trembling.
He knocked once.
“Come in,” Margherita called.
Rafael stepped inside.
Lili looked up. The moment her eyes met Rafael’s, she stiffened. Her hands trembled harder, fingers digging into the blanket draped around her shoulders. Her gaze darted away almost instantly.
“I know,” she blurted suddenly, voice cracking under the strain. “I know I shouldn’t have used my powers—I didn’t mean to—It’s my fault, all of it… Goran came after me because—because I—”
The words tangled, collided, fell apart, dissolving into a flood of broken explanations. She sounded lost, smaller than she ever should have been.
Margherita opened her mouth to intervene, but Rafael’s presence filled the room ready to break.
Rafael stepped deeper into the room, and the air seemed to thicken with every slow, deliberate pace he took. He didn’t shout. He didn’t slam his fist into the wall the way some part of him wanted to. Instead, he stopped a few feet from Lili’s bed, shoulders squared, breath steady.
Margherita watched him carefully from her place beside Lili, sensing the fragile line between what Lili needed and what Rafael felt.
“Lili,” Rafael said, her name coming out rougher than he intended.
Her shoulders curled inward even more, chin dipping, the blanket pulled tighter around her. She looked like she expected him to confirm every nightmare she’d ever had about losing control. Like she thought he’d tell her she was dangerous, irresponsible, a burden.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” he said weighting each word. “You were attacked. You defended yourself. No one was hurt because of you… Do you understand that?”
“I—” Her voice cracked. “But Goran was after me. And then the suppressant—he thought I was losing control—maybe I was—maybe I—”
She pressed clenched fists to her temples as if trying to hold the spiraling thoughts inside. The tremors in her fingers worsened.
“Lili?” he asked quietly.
It took a moment, but she lifted her eyes. They were glassy, filled with the kind of fear that didn’t come from Goran’s claws or teeth—but from dark memories.
Rafael’s expression softened around the edges, the fury bending, reshaping into something deeper, heavier, unbearably protective.
“That suppressant shouldn’t have been fired at you,” he said, voice lowering until it was almost a growl. “That was their mistake—not yours. You hear me?”
She swallowed, but said nothing.
Margherita placed a calming hand on her shoulder. “Lili, you held yourself together extraordinarily well during the fight. Even exhausted. Even injured. You did everything right.”
But Lili’s breathing was still shallow, still trembling, still caught in the vortex of guilt twisting inside her.
Rafael’s hands curled into fists at his sides. He forced himself to unclench them, to breathe through the anger boiling under his ribs.
“Lili…” His voice dropped again, softer this time. “Your parents would’ve been proud of you today. You hear me? Proud.”
Her breath hitched—sharply, painfully.
And Rafael saw it—the way naming her parents, cracked something open inside her.
“Let me worry about the people who hurt you,” Rafael said, his voice low but firm, carrying the weight of everything he hadn’t yet been able to say—anger, frustration, protection, and a fierce refusal to let her suffer again. “And I could tell you to just breathe, to sit still, to wait it out…but that’s not you, is it? Notori’s told me enough about you. You’re never the type to sit and watch while the world spins past.” Hands relaxed at his sides, gaze locked on hers, the intensity in his eyes tempered by a steady undercurrent of care. “So, if you feel up to it…if your body will allow it…tomorrow, training starts.”
Margherita’s lips parted immediately, a protest ready to tumble out, concern flashing in her eyes. “Sir—Lili just—she’s still—”
Rafael’s glance snapped sharply in her direction, cutting her off mid-sentence. She froze, swallowed, and fell silent. His attention swung back to Lili, softer this time. “It’s your choice,” he said, the edges of his voice carrying a rare gentleness. “No one else gets to decide it for you. Not me, not Margherita, not Notori, not Mike or anyone else. You say yes, we move forward. You say no, we wait.”
Lili’s breath hitched, her eyes flicking between the two of them, trembling, clouded with the remnants of panic, but underneath, a spark of determination began to ignite. Rafael saw it, acknowledged it, and let her find it at her own pace…
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