Debris crunched underfoot as Reya walked along the path. She’d opted to take one of the longer trails around the house and had informed Rann of where she was going before she left. Most of her walk thus far had been spent in a daze as she processed the enormity of what she’d been told. A part of her didn’t believe that such a thing was possible but knew that if her friends were confident enough in their findings to tell her then it must be true.

  Her thoughts turned to Adrian, and she debated long and hard about whether to tell him about what she’d come to learn. He’d expressed that he didn’t want to know anything relating to his time in the facility.

  How could she bear to tell him that he’d lost his humanity completely?

  She didn’t want to be the one to drive that knife into his heart. Worse yet, he might believe that what was happening to her was somehow his fault. She paused at the thought. What if it is? she wondered, the thought snaking its way inside her head alongside the rest of them.

  It took her but an instant to shake it away, knowing full well that Adrian had had no control over what was done to him. Should he be responsible for it indirectly, how was she to act? It was ultimately the fault of the gru’ul who’d carried out the experiments in the hopes of accomplishing some nebulous goal. Adrian was just another unfortunate soul like her, caught in their web of cruelty.

  How could she bring herself to blame him for that?

  With the ones responsible all dead — something she was glad for — they would never have all the answers. What bothered her the most was why the gru’ul chose to experiment on her in addition to Adrian. For what purpose did they perform experiments on her? Had it been because she was a convenient test subject dropped in their laps?

  A sudden thought chilled her to her core.

  Were she and Adrian meant to be the progenitors of whatever new race the gru’ul had dreamed up? Were they meant to be together by design? She dearly hoped that they weren’t still furthering the gru’uls’ experiments by the sheer coincidence that they’d fallen in love.

  Does that mean we can have children together? she wondered. The thought gave her pause once more, a warm, fluttery feeling growing inside her. She had been given the opportunity to have a family with the person she loved the most, something she’d given up on ever having when she made her decision to be with him. Was that truly such a bad thing, even if its origins were?

  She broke through the tree line, the house now in sight. Shelving the complicated thoughts and emotions for another time, she steeled herself to face Adrian, still undecided on whether she should tell him. By the time she opened the door to enter, she’d decided that she would wait and see before telling him anything. There was still more she wanted to ask Tassie and Kell about her evolving condition first. She might tell Adrian once she had a better picture of the situation.

  The first thing she noticed when she spotted the duo at the kitchen table was their chastised, guilty expressions. The next thing she noticed was that Adrian wasn’t in the house. A sinking feeling crept up on her, settling in her gut as she forced herself to approach her friends.

  Tassie looked up and greeted her nervously, Reya’s feeling turning to dread. “How are you holding up?” Tassie asked as Reya took a seat at the table.

  “I’ve been better,” Reya replied mechanically. “It’s not every day you find out you’re no longer the species you thought you were.” Both Tassie and Kell winced. Reya eyed them warily. “It came as quite the shock, I’ll grant you that,” she continued. “I’m still not sure how I feel about it.”

  “It’s a lot to take in all at once,” Kell said. “We’re sorry for the distress it caused you, but this was something you need to know if we’re going to find a cure.” Already, he had a smattering of tests he wanted to run on her to learn more about her condition. Reya would be the first documented case of a living being actively changing into an entirely different species. What worried him was that they didn’t yet understand the mechanisms behind which the process worked. Until he did, he wouldn’t be able to reverse or halt the changes.

  Reya sighed. “I understand why you did it. That doesn’t make it any easier to digest, but I understand.” She looked around, still seeing no trace of Adrian. “Where’s Adrian?” she asked. “He was here when I left. Have I been gone that long?”

  Instantly, Tassie and Kell’s expressions worsened. “We’re not sure,” Tassie said carefully, dreading what was to come next. “He went off into the mountains again. Do you know where he might have gone? He was upset when he left.”

  “Why would he do that?” Reya frowned. “I was expecting him to be holed up in the music room waiting for me to come back. I have an idea as to where he went, but why was he so upset?” Their spot had become one of refuge, a place they could go to escape when things became too much. The scenic location had a calming effect on both of them.

  “We don’t want you to freak out,” Tassie started, “but after you left, he came to us asking for an explanation about what had happened.”

  Reya’s stomach sunk. “You didn’t tell him anything, did you?” She blanched, envisioning how he might have taken the news, her heart tearing at the thought. The confirmation that both of them were no longer their original species due to the experiments would have been too much for him to handle, especially coming from the people actively researching him.

  “We tried to deflect the topic, but he was adamant about learning,” Tassie said. “We’re sorry! We shouldn’t have told him, but we weren’t able to withhold the information from him.”

  “No,” Reya whispered. Adrian knew. This was a nightmare for both of them. She needed to find him. Needed to tell him that it wasn’t his fault. He needed her and she wasn’t there for him. “Why would you do that?” she asked, raising her voice. “He’s specifically asked not to learn anything. Why did he change his mind?”

  “Because of you,” Kell replied. “He was so worried about you that it overrode his desire to remain ignorant. He couldn’t bear the thought of anything happening to you, so he learned what we were keeping from him.”

  Reya paled. “I need to find him. Now,” she said. Pushing her chair back, she stood up and made towards the door. Her hand was on the handle when Tassie called out to her.

  “Take a comm!” Tassie said hurriedly. “Please, keep us posted as to where you are and whether you find him. Jyn’s right, we can’t have both of you wandering off anymore without knowing where you are or when you’ll be back. It’s dangerous. If something ever happens to you, we won’t be able to help.” She ran over to her friend and gave her her comm. “Take mine for now.”

  Reya accepted the proffered comm. “Fine,” she said. “I understand the need and I promise to keep you posted on the situation. If I can’t find him where I think he is, I’ll turn around and come right back.” As much as she didn’t want to admit it, Jyn’s concerns were valid. She didn’t mind appeasing him by doing something entirely sensible. “I’ll go grab a flare gun out of the shed. Don’t expect me back for a couple of hours, especially if I find him.”

  Her friends nodded and she was off. She met with Rann briefly to inform her of the situation and that she was going out once more, as well as to give her the general direction in which she would be going. Once done, she set of at a brisk pace, hoping to find Adrian as soon as she could. The trek would still take some time, but she knew the way.

  After what felt like an eternity later, she arrived at their special spot. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw Adrian’s form curled up against the rock the used to lean on. She quickly contacted the others to inform them that she’d found him, as well as not to interrupt them for the next little while.

  Cautiously, she approached his form. He hardly reacted to her presence, merely shifting to accommodate her when she sat down and joined him. For a long while, neither of the spoke, the air between them tense. “It’s not your fault,” Reya said, breaking the silence.

  “It’s hard not to think that,” Adrian replied softly. “I was their only success. It’s because of me that they were able to repeat their experiments on you while you were there.”

  “That’s not true,” Reya chided. “You know full well that you weren’t the first one they experimented on. There were others before you. They might have experimented on me regardless of their results with you.”

  Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

  Adrian shifted uncomfortably. “A part of me always knew I was no longer human,” he said. “Not after all that they did to me. There’s no way I could still be. The original died at some point without ever knowing it, transformed into whatever I’ve become — what we’re becoming.” His head hung low as he thought about the changes made to him. “This is simply confirmation for something I already knew.”

  Reya too his hand in hers and gave it a gentle squeeze. “I loved you already knowing you weren’t an a’vaare. This changes nothing.”

  “I can’t even pretend to be human anymore,” he whispered hoarsely. “What am I?”

  “An amazing person who’s endured more hardship than anybody could have ever deserved,” Reya said gently. “You see yourself through the lens of a species instead of the person you are. You changing species doesn’t affect that.”

  “I’m nothing more than a freak,” Adrian said, tears welling in his eyes. “Aren’t you afraid of what you’ll become?” The experiments that changed him so came rushing back to him. Try as he might to forget, he knew his memories of them would always be there, waiting to surface.

  “Of course I’m afraid,” Reya choked. “I don’t know what’s happening to me or what was done to me while I was cuffed to that table. How much of it was torture to extract information and how much of it was an experiment? Why did they pick me to experiment on? I see what’s happening to Stanley and I can’t help but wonder if that will be me soon.”

  Adrian took ahold of Reya’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “Maybe it’s not too late for Kell to find a way to undo what they did to you. You’re clearly not as far along in the transformation as I am.”

  “What if he can’t?” Reya asked quietly. “It’s been confirmed I’m no longer fully a’vaare. How do you revert that? We don’t even know anything about my condition!”

  After a long moment of silence, Adrian spoke up. “Maybe it’s time to let Kell study me.”

  Reya gasped. “You would let yourself be studied?” She could hardly believe what she was hearing. For as long as she’d known him, Adrian had been adamant about remaining in the dark about what was done to him. For him to propose such a thing truly shocked her. “But you don’t want to learn what happened to you! Already, I’m surprised you forced Kell and Tassie to tell you about what’s happening to me. I’m not sure I want the Tribunal to have access to research on you.”

  “If it’s to save you, yes,” Adrian said in a shaky tone. “I can’t bear to lose you. I don’t need to know whatever conclusions Kell finds from his research to help you.”

  “Adrian . . .” Reya trailed off, tears in her eyes. “You would do that for me?”

  Adrian went quiet as he spoke next. “I know enough about what was done to me that maybe it would be of some help,” he said.

  “You remember that much detail?” Reya asked.

  Adrian went stock still and stared distantly towards the lake. He felt as though he was floating when the first words finally spilled out of his mouth. “It all started with a show,” he began, reliving his memories while he spoke. Reya didn’t interrupt, unsure what he was trying to tell her. “What was supposed to be a happy moment turned into the beginning of a very long nightmare.” Her eyes widened when she realized what he was talking about.

  He recounted receiving the news about the car accident that killed his family. Tears welled in his eyes when he spoke of watching his niece die. “I was very depressed after that, and I wasn’t well. Apart from organizing the funerals, I barely left my apartment. I forced myself to go on a late-night walk one evening to get some fresh air. Figured it would do me some good. I should have paid more attention to my surroundings,” he lamented. “Maybe none of this would have happened.”

  He continued his tale, detailing his kidnapping and his arrival at Ava’s facility. Adrian paused. “I don’t know what I was expecting when I stepped off of that truck, but becoming a human experiment wasn’t it.” For the first time, he detailed the experiments done on him at the human facility. Reya grew sick imagining Adrian’s suffering but willed herself to listen to the horrible truth.

  It was time to know.

  Adrian walked her through the events leading to his failed escape attempt. Reya knew what happened next and paled when he went over the group’s punishment again, having a much clearer picture of the situation this time around. He continued right up until he got put in his pod even though he knew Reya knew that part.

  “It was so strange, being in stasis. An eternity compressed into a single moment where even my thoughts were frozen. That’s what it felt like. And then I woke up,” Adrian choked, a knot forming in his chest that twisted and churned. He took a deep breath, grappling with his fears of another knowing the truth. After several precarious moments, he came to a decision and spoke anew.

  And Reya learned what happened.

  All of it.

  No detail was spared as she got the raw, unfiltered version of the horrors Adrian lived through at the hands of the gru’ul. One by one, each and every atrocity was recounted. Adrian shook in her arms while he wept when it became too much.

  It was hard.

  Hearing what he had to say was the most difficult thing she’d ever done short of receiving her final injection when she was held captive herself. She went numb as she listened to the cruel tale of misery he wove. Hours passed as Adrian told his story. The moons rose high in the sky and shone their light down upon the pair. Neither one of them noticed.

  Adrian was an utter wreck when he finally finished, late into the night. Reya’s heart tore upon hearing of the pain and suffering he’d endured. It further broke as she beheld the state of the person most important to her as he wept in her arms. Even after their deaths, the gru’ul still hurt Adrian so. He wouldn’t be ready to go anywhere anytime soon, she reasoned. Not with the way he was.

  Reya always knew that whatever had happened to Adrian was bad if her experience was anything to go by, but what she’d been told was beyond belief. Processing it was difficult, and she remained silent while she held Adrian, absorbed in her own thoughts.

  Reya pondered the times when she heard Adrian refer to himself in an odd manner. The original, he’d said when referring to the past him. The phrasing had sounded odd to her when she’d heard it, but she’d paid it no mind then. She understood now. So much of him had been changed by the experiments that he had no way of knowing how much human was left.

  Some changes were obvious. Enhanced senses, pink blood, and silver eyes that could see in the dark were but the start. Knowing how much he’d truly changed terrified Adrian. He’d never asked to be experimented on. Never asked to be strapped to an operating table time and again against his will with nothing he could do to prevent it.

  Adrian went silent and sagged against Reya. Sharing his story had taken a lot out of him, she could tell. She searched for the right words to say but came up short. That he’d suffered so gnawed at her, an ache from deep within that she couldn’t chase away. Her reaction to his story would be a turning point in their relationship. Of this, she was certain.

  The silence between them grew as Adrian awaited her judgement. The more time passed, the more worried he became. Resignation at losing the best thing that had ever happened to him filled him. He didn’t expect her to love the freak he’d become, not now that she knew the truth. He readied himself to lose her forever. Her next words when she finally spoke took him by surprise.

  “Never again,” she said gently. Protectively. Fiercely. Adrian clutched her sweater weakly and looked towards her. She returned his stare. “I will never let anything happen to you again.”

  “You can’t promise that,” Adrian said quietly. “Once they learn what happened to me, the Tribunal’s going to want to run experiments.”

  “I’ll be there to make sure that doesn’t happen,” Reya said in a firm tone. “Whatever comes next, you won’t be alone. I stand by my promises.”

  “You mean you’ll stay with me?” Adrian asked.

  “Yes,” Reya said, holding him tighter. “It’s going to take some time to come to terms with what you’ve told me. A part of me died with every sentence you spoke. I never knew.” Reya ran her hand over her face. “What happened to you is far worse than anything I imagined.”

  “How could you love the thing I’ve become?” Adrian asked. “Now that you know what happened, how are you not bothered by it?”

  “I fell in love with who you are, not what you are,” Reya replied. “That hasn’t changed, nor will it ever. Truthfully speaking, I am bothered by what happened. You didn’t deserve such cruelty. Nobody does.” The look in Adrian’s eyes as she spoke threatened to make her melt, so full of emotion were they.

  Adrian held her tighter. “What did I ever do to deserve you?” he asked, struggling to hold back his tears.

  Reya smiled gently. “After what you went through, it was time the universe gave you something in return. I ask myself that question everyday that I’m with you. You complete me in ways I didn’t think were possible until now. Don’t worry, we’ll figure out what’s happening to me together. We’re not alone anymore.”

  Adrian could only nod, overcome with emotion and unable to speak. A new voice came from the comm upon her breast, startling both of them. “Reya, are you there?” Tassie asked full of worry. “We haven’t heard from you in ages. Did something happen?”

  Reya glanced up at the moons, surprised by how much they’d moved across the sky since she last looked. She tapped her comm. “We didn’t realize how much time passed. We’ll make our way back soon, don’t worry. Everything’s fine here.”

  “Please be careful, it’s dark out,” Tassie said, concerned. “I didn’t think you’d be gone so long when you left earlier. Everybody’s getting anxious for your return.”

  “Give us a little while longer and soon we’ll be back home,” Reya replied. She cast a glance towards Adrian. While she didn’t want to return quite yet, she couldn’t deny her friends’ reasonable worries.

  Together, the pair left their spot and began the trek back home. Adrian helped Reya find her way in the darkness. She trusted him to get them home safe and that’s exactly what he did. They never once went too fast to risk hurting themselves. It took slightly longer to get back than expected, but Reya kept Tassie informed regularly throughout the walk back, alleviating their worries.

  When they finally returned home, they were greeted by a very worried Tassie, who was visibly relieved that everything had turned out alright given the circumstances.

  Sensing how exhausted Adrian must be after telling her his story, Reya quickly excused them to go to bed. Any chastising or voiced concerns about their behaviour could wait until they woke up the next day.

  Lying in bed, she noticed Adrian’s breathing turn steady, his chest rising and falling rhythmically. He’d fallen asleep almost as soon as his head had hit the pillow, so exhausted he was. Her mind was awhirl with the revelations she’d had earlier that night.

  What Adrian had told her was beyond her wildest imagination. Her heart broke once more thinking of the suffering he’d undergone. Turning her head towards him, she once more admired his strength for having undergone such an ordeal and surviving. Thoughts of his time in captivity tumbled around her head. She tried to shake them off but failed. Her day eventually caught up with her and she had to admit to herself that there was nothing she could do at that moment for Adrian. Their problems would have to wait until the morning.

  Reya closed her eyes but sleep never came.