Adrian and the rest of the team swiftly returned to the safe house unnoticed. He’d been made to change back into a soldier’s uniform while boarding the ship so they could leave and was mercifully back in more comfortable clothes. He descended the ship’s ramp, entirely drained of energy. The only thing he wanted to do was curl up in Reya’s arms and spend time with her.

  He entered the house alongside Tassie and immediately made towards the living room, only to find it empty. As the rest of the team filed in from their long day guarding, he looked around the house for Reya. She wasn’t in the music room nor anywhere else on the first floor. Frowning, he went upstairs and heard the rhythmic sound of her breathing through their bedroom door. She was fast asleep.

  Not wanting to wake her, Adrian went back downstairs and joined the others. Kell and Rann were now present, and the team was going over the day’s events. “Rann,” Adrian asked as he approached the group, “is Reya alright? It’s not like her to be sleeping at this time of the day.”

  Rann shared a worried glance with Kell that did little to reassure Adrian. “She said she wasn’t feeling well and went to lie down,” she replied.

  “How long has she been asleep?” Adrian asked.

  “Almost five hours,” Rann said.

  “Is she sick?” Adrian asked. “She looked fine before we left for the main base and didn’t have any symptoms last I saw her.”

  “I’m sure it’s nothing,” Rann said. “We’ll see how she’s feeling when she wakes up.”

  Reya sat up in bed, groggy and feeling like utter shit. Her eyes were dry and burned something fierce. Thousands of tiny, ice-cold needles repeatedly stabbed the inside of her eyeballs, leaving no spot free from pain. She muffled a cry, tears welling in her eyes. The pain was so pervasive that she immediately removed the coloured contacts she normally wore.

  The moment they were removed, the itching she’d kept under control thanks to Kell came roaring back with a vengeance. No amount of rubbing seemed to help. She rummaged around in her belongings for the special drops Kell had given her and generously added some to her eyes.

  “What the fuck!” Reya swore. She blinked away her tears as the feelings only intensified. “The drops are supposed help, not make it worse!” She squeezed her eyes shut and waited for the agonizing moment to pass. It lasted far longer than she would have liked before finally lessening enough so that she could keep her eyes open.

  The burning and itching were still in the background, but at least they were tolerable. What irked her were her sore muscles. She’d gone to bed feeling weak-limbed and now they also hurt. Everything somehow hurt. She sighed and looked around the room, her earlier sleepiness entirely gone, only to frown.

  Everything was so bright.

  A quick glance towards the windows showed that she had indeed shut the curtains despite her earlier exhaustion. Clearly having forgotten to turn off the lights she didn’t remember being on when she went to bed, Reya hauled herself out from under the covers with heavy limbs and went to go shut them.

  Only to find the light switch already off.

  The oddity perplexed Reya, and she turned to look at the lamps only to find that they weren’t turned on either. She was utterly confused as to why it was bright as day in the room. A flash came to her that sent a shiver down her spine. Adrian’s words echoed loudly in her mind as Reya recalled the day he’d revealed to her the experiment that had turned his eyes silver.

  “To me, there is no darkness,” Adrian said. “Right now, it’s bright as day to me. I see everything.”

  Without any mirrors in the room to check her eyes, Reya decided to go to the bathroom to confirm her theory. She opened the door to her room and ran straight into Rann, whose eyes widened in surprise.

  “Reya, your eyes!” Rann gasped. “They’re silver.” They looked exactly like Adrian’s did, though the rings and furrows were different. It lent Reya an equally mesmerizing look.

  Reya froze. She hadn’t thought to check if there was anybody nearby. Somebody from the team finding out by accident sparked fear within her. They weren’t supposed to know about her transformation, and she had no idea how to explain it to anybody without them rightly freaking out. “They’re completely silver?” Reya squeaked.

  “It’s like I’m looking at Adrian,” Rann replied. “I know you love him, but where did you find silver contacts to look like him?” The thought concerned Rann deeply given the couple’s already high emotional dependence. Even though they weren’t the same species, there was no need for Reya to emulate Adrian enough to try to look like him.

  Without bothering to reply, Reya rushed past Rann towards the bathroom. Flinging the door open, she made straight for the mirror and froze.

  Her eyes looked just like Adrian’s.

  “Kell!” Reya yelled in a panic. She knew he was downstairs in the kitchen by the sound of his voice conversing with Adrian. She filed away the thought about why she could hear them both so well for later. She already had enough to worry about. One thing at a time.

  Kell came bounding up the steps, not bothering to avoid the one that creaked. Rann simply pointed towards the bathroom to save time explaining and he went straight there. “Reya, what’s wrong?” he asked. She turned to face him, and he paled. “How long?” he asked hurriedly.

  “I only noticed when I woke up,” Reya said. “They burn and itch something fierce right now. I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from, but I guess now I have my answer. The drops you gave me only made things worse.”

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  “We need to get you to the ship for tests right away,” Kell said. “Are there any other symptoms or changes?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Reya whispered fearfully. “I can see in the dark.”

  Kell furrowed his brows. “How well?” he asked.

  “To me, there is no darkness,” Reya said, mirroring the words Adrian once told her. She couldn’t shake her fear that her transformation was speeding up and that she would soon become like how Stanley ended up.

  A corpse.

  “To the ship,” Kell said simply. Reya nodded and they made haste, leaving Rann behind with little to no explanation. The flew down the steps and out the house, Kell pinging Tassie to meet them in the med bay as soon as possible.

  Rann descended to the main floor and spotted Adrian seated at the kitchen table looking worried. “Do you know what’s going on?” she asked him. It irked her that the others couldn’t even spare a few seconds to fill her in on the situation. Especially given their strong reactions. She took a seat in front of him and waited for him to speak.

  “I think so,” Adrian said fearfully, unable to mask the emotion and remain calm. “I should be there, but I know there’s nothing I can do without them running more tests.”

  “More tests for what?” Rann demanded.

  Adrian hesitated. “I don’t know if I should tell you yet,” he said.

  “For fuck’s sake!” Rann exploded. “Is getting a little bit of information so difficult with you? I get that you have your secrets, but this is Reya we’re talking about. Something’s clearly very wrong for her and Kell to act that way. Why does nobody ever tell me anything?” She finally understood Jyn’s frustration about Adrian’s refusal to speak about anything concerning the facility.

  Adrian studied Rann carefully. “I suppose there’s no hiding it anymore now that you’ve seen her eyes,” he said after a moment’s debate. “There’s really no good way to tell you this without you freaking out.”

  “Out with it already!” Rann said. There was always some excuse with Adrian. Some form of deflection or outright refusal to speak about important topics. She’d had enough. She’d pry those answers out of him even if it was the last thing she did. They’d all given Adrian his space apart from Jyn. The whole team had respected his refusal to speak about whatever had happened to him. They’d never once forced him.

  Adrian took in Rann’s frustration with a sigh. There would be no going back once she knew and while he felt it unfair for her to take out Reya’s refusal to speak about what was happening to her out on him, it was time. “I’m not human,” he said.

  Rann paused, her irritation only growing. “You mean to tell me that we just declared first contact with a species that’s not even your own?” she said in a low, dangerous tone. “All this time, you’ve been taking us for fools?”

  “I’m not human anymore,” Adrian clarified, choosing to ignore Rann’s outburst. “I used to be. Whatever the gru’ul did to me has changed me so much that Kell and Tassie had to declare me a new species after comparing my DNA with Stanley’s.”

  Rann blinked. “That’s not possible,” she refuted. “There’s no way you were changed into a different species. Enough with the lies. Would it kill you to tell us the truth?”

  “That is the truth, and Tassie and Kell can confirm it,” Adrian replied calmly. “I have no doubt your Tribunal also knows of this fact by now.”

  “Fine,” Rann scoffed. “Let’s say you’re being honest for once. What does that have to do with Reya?”

  “The experiments performed on Stanley back on Earth were lethal to him,” Adrian explained.

  “I know that,” Rann said. “Again, what does this have to do with Reya?”

  “Because you know that he died from them, but not why he died from them. Stanley died because his body rejected the experiments.”

  Rann’s brows furrowed. “Reya wasn’t experimented on. She was tortured horribly during her time in captivity.”

  “And that’s where you’re wrong,” Adrian explained. “Reya was experimented on at the same time. We just didn’t know it. Whatever was done to her is attempting to change her into whatever it is that I’ve become.”

  Rann sucked in a breath. “That’s why her eyes are silver? Not because she was wearing contacts?”

  “That’s right,” Adrian confirmed. “That’s her real eye colour now.”

  “By the gods,” Rann swore. “Is she going to die like Stanley?” Looking back on Stanley’s death, she remembered that Kell hadn’t been able to do anything to help the man other than provide palliative care once he’d reached a terminal stage. She feared that Reya would end up the same.

  “I don’t know,” Adrian said. “That’s why they ran to the ship so quickly. Whatever is happening to her must have accelerated. Her eyes only had flecks of silver in them before.”

  “Her eyes weren’t silver before,” Rann refuted.

  “She was wearing coloured contacts to hide it,” Adrian revealed. “Given the uncertainty of the situation, she didn’t want to alarm anybody while Kell was studying the phenomenon in the hopes of finding a way to reverse it.”

  The secrecy stung. Rann could hardly believe that her friends had managed to keep something so important from her, especially given its connection to the mission. That they had gone to such lengths to keep her in the dark. “Why didn’t they tell us?” she asked, unable to keep the hurt from her voice.

  “Kell and Tassie are under orders from the Tribunal not to talk about their research,” Adrian said. “Reya and I have more leeway, but we didn’t want to alarm anybody.”

  “My friend could be dying!” Rann shouted. “We should’ve known so we could help her. I should’ve known.”

  “Who’s dying?” came a new voice from the front entrance. Rann and Adrian glanced towards the opening door and saw Jyn enter. “I heard the shouting and came to see what was going on,” he explained.

  “Of course you just had to show up right now,” Adrian muttered under his breath. He was not looking forward to Jyn finally being right about something being his fault. Though the experiments performed on Reya were carried out by the gru’ul, Adrian knew that he was partly responsible for the situation. He didn’t know how, but that wouldn’t matter to Jyn.

  “What was that?” Jyn asked.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Adrian replied tersely.

  Jyn narrowed his eyes, but didn’t make a big deal out of it. He approached the kitchen table and joined Rann and Adrian. “What happened while I was out on patrol?” he asked, sensing that something was amiss.

  Rann filled him in on the situation, not bothering to ask Adrian whether she should or not. By the time she was done, Jyn was apoplectic. “This is your fault!” he accused, pointing a finger towards Adrian. “Everything that’s ever happened to her always points back to you!”

  “It’s the gru’uls’ fault,” Adrian said, his voice hard. “You know that neither Reya nor I are responsible for what they subjected us to. I had no control over my time in captivity, you know that.”

  “She’s turning into whatever freak you’ve become!” Jyn exploded. “Look me in the eyes and tell me you’re not somehow responsible for what she’s going through now.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” Adrian said quietly, holding back his tears. “The woman I love suffered unspeakable horrors.” Jyn was about to interrupt but Adrian cut him off and continued. “Don’t you dare act like you comprehend what we went through.” Adrian looked between Rann and Jyn. “Neither of you will ever understand. And I pray to your gods that you never truly do.”

  “That doesn’t absolve you from the part you clearly played into turning Reya into something that’s not a’vaare,” Jyn said hotly.

  “It might not,” Adrian conceded. “We’re better off waiting for Kell to finish his testing before jumping to any conclusions. For all we know, he’s found a way to reverse the effects of Reya’s experimentation.”

  The three of them fell into an uncomfortable silence that left Adrian praying he wouldn’t get shot out of spite by Jyn.