INT – CGO LABORATORY
The doctor rose and walked toward his desk. She followed.
The doctor sighed, his gaze heavy.
"I can't tell you the details, Miss Evah."
It sounded like a verdict, final and immovable. Her chest sank. A protest built on her tongue, but it was the doctor — someone she trusted, someone she couldn't bring herself to challenge.
"I'll tell you in the least harmful way," he continued, voice low, "because that's why Erion doesn't tell anyone."
He turned toward the glass wall of the laboratory, eyes fixed on the man outside. Evah followed his line of sight.
There he was.
Erion
Laughing with a group, every smile perfectly placed, the picture of charm.
They both stared at him.
"He's already carrying the weight," the doctor murmured. "If he told someone else, that person would have to carry it too. The trauma would pass from him to them. And sharing it doesn't lessen his burden — it only adds guilt, knowing someone else now suffers because of him."
His eyes shifted back to her, searching, as if asking if she truly wanted to know more.
Evah swallowed, her grip tightening on the tablet. And then… she nodded.
"That night," he said, voice barely above a whisper, "he told me just one thing."
'I know you can tell that's not my blood.'
"I nodded. Then I asked who it belonged to. He said…"
'It was him.'
Doctor Riko's voice was steady, but there was something hollow beneath it.
The name that followed barely made it into her mind — muted, like sound underwater. Still, the meaning was clear: someone he had known. Someone he had been close to.
And that someone had done something unforgivable.
The doctor's hand froze. The fidget ring stopped mid-spin, as if he could halt time itself… and avoid letting the rest of the truth escape.
"I'm sorry, Miss Evah." The doctor's weak smile was tinged with plea. "That's all I can say."
Evah bowed slightly, her voice caught in her throat, and slipped back to her station.
But she saw it — just for a moment.
The doctor's eyes, heavy with a sorrow so deep it felt like it had no bottom. A weight too dreadful for words to ever hold.
The sentence he'd spoken sounded simple enough, the kind of line you might hear in an action film. But his posture, the faint tremor in his hand, the way his gaze lingered somewhere far beyond the room, all of it spoke more than the words ever could.
It was the look of someone who had walked through the same nightmare.
I shouldn't ask, she told herself. But the thought was hollow; she already knew she wouldn't be able to stop.
The rest of the day passed quickly, yet the story clung to her like a shadow.
She pushed it aside again and again, holding onto the promise she'd made to the doctor. She couldn't let it seep into her work—not now.
Before she realized it, the clock struck five. Colleagues began packing up, voices fading as the lab emptied.
The ride home was silent.
Erion said nothing.
But she knew he had felt it—he always did. Always knew the right words to say… and the ones better left unspoken.
That night, she couldn't sleep.
The ceiling above her was familiar — Erion's bedroom.
The same dark walls.
The faint trace of his scent lingering in the air.
The doctor's story hadn't given her much detail… and maybe that was worse.
It left her mind free to piece together its own puzzle — one made of sadness, dread, and the unbearable weight of his expression.
It wasn't even the most horrifying tale she'd ever heard.
But it was enough.
The way the doctor's eyes had looked… it was enough to break someone.
Erion's face kept flickering in her mind — bloodied, smiling, fading — each image replacing the last at an impossible speed. Her thoughts refused to settle, as if they didn't want her to see just one truth.
Now, she was alone again.
Wrapped in the comfort of his room.
While somewhere out there, he was… who knew where?
Back on one of his usual runs.
No sleep.
And—
Stop.
She covered her face, as if pressing her palms into her skin could crush the thoughts before they grew.
Was he just another heartless weapon?
A machine for the Order?
She shouldn't care.
She shouldn't.
But… it felt sad.
Painful, even.
Does anyone deserve this?
Her eyes wandered over the room.
The perfectly arranged, luxurious apartment.
The kind of life she had always envied.
Back then, the world had been simple — unfair, but simple.
The wealthy and powerful lived comfortably.
And she had thought… if she could just be like them, she'd be happy.
But reality was far more complicated than the neat poor-and-rich division she had imagined.
You're not allowed to feel this way, she reminded herself.
You don't even know anything.
But the human part of her wouldn't listen.
The bitterness in her chest… it wasn't sharp anymore. Just heavy. Too heavy.
Turning into something else.
Pity.
Like a mother looking at a wounded child.
And in her mind, she saw it—
The little boy from the painting in the McQuaide mansion.
Crying.
Bleeding.
A boy no amount of wealth or power could heal.