The Chairman sat with his back to the wall, flanked by Kael, who stood at his side like a perfectly disciplined extension of the family's authority.
Next to them sat Sebastian, his sharp presence exuding a quiet, calculated precision.
Across from them, the Chief of Defense occupied the space with the heavy, unmoving mass of a man defined by war.
To his right, the Minister of Defense maintained a sharp, political poise, while the Minister of Science adjusted his spectacles, his eyes sweeping the room's perimeter.
Kael kept his expression masked in absolute obedience, hiding the silent revulsion for the entire project that churned beneath his calm exterior.
They were gathered in a ryotei—a secluded sanctuary where the silence was guarded like a state secret. Kaiseki dishes sat untouched on priceless antiques. A copper pot hummed in the corner, its steady murmur the only sound remaining in the room.
The Minister of Science broke the silence, offering a thin smile. "It's good to see you back in the field, Kael. With a brilliant mind like yours at the Chairman's side, our success is practically guaranteed."
Kael bowed his head slightly, keeping his voice smooth and respectful. "Thank you, Minister. I am simply here to fulfill my duty."
The Minister of Defense leaned forward slightly, shifting the tone. "Tell me, Kael, do you have a girlfriend?"
Kael didn't miss a beat. His expression remained flawlessly polite.
"No, Minister. I do not."
The Minister hummed, turning his gaze toward the Chairman.
"You know, Chairman, my eldest daughter, Elena, just returned from her diplomatic posting in Brussels. She's taken over our administrative logistics division—impeccable record, sharp analytical mind, and understands the pressures of our world. I've been thinking she and Kael might make an excellent match."
"I appreciate the offer, Minister," Kael spoke up, his tone direct, calm, and without hesitation.
"But you should know that my preferences lie exclusively with men."
A brief silence descended upon the table as the men recalibrated their positions. The Ministers exchanged short, calculating looks.
Across the table, the Chairman's gaze shifted to Kael, his eyes dark and unreadable, measuring his ward's public boundary before looking back at the Minister of Defense.
The Minister of Defense didn't skip a beat, pivoting seamlessly without losing his poise.
"Oh, I see." He paused, his eyes locking onto the Chairman.
"Mm.. In that case, Chairman... what about your youngest son?" He continued.
"Anastasia is currently fast-tracking her graduate studies in macroeconomics. She's brilliant, highly capable, and a match like that would tie our families' long-term interests together perfectly."
The Chairman swirled the remaining liquid in his cup, his voice dropping into a low, measured cadence.
"Is your daughter an Omega?"
The Minister of Defense held his gaze, his posture remaining steady. "Would it be a problem if she is a Beta?"
The room seemed to hold its breath for a fraction of a second.
Then, a slow satisfied smile spread across the Chairman's face. He set his cup down with a soft, definitive click.
"Actually, that is perfect," the Chairman said, his eyes gleaming with a cold, practical warmth.
"Let's arrange a dinner. I want them to meet."
With personal matters seamlessly integrated into the grand design, the room shifted instantly back to cold business.
The Chief poured the sake, his movements practiced and steady.
"Logistics are clear. The transport route is locked. What is the status of the harvest?"
The Chairman lifted his cup, watching the liquid catch the light. "Ten vials of Sovereign. Stable and ready."
The Chief's expression hardened into a predatory mask.
"Ten vials. A full squad of enhanced subjects. That gives us our first elite weapon."
"My team has tracked the biological feedback in real-time," the Chairman continued, shifting his attention to the Minister of Science.
"We have isolated the exact transition point where human physiology yields to the serum. We will calibrate the dosage to maximize their physical output while mitigating any mental breakdown."
The Minister of Science met his gaze evenly.
"The documentation is already being sanitized. My department is scrubbing all logs to ensure no record of the medical failures remains."
"Good," the Chairman said. "If a subject's mental stability fails, contain them immediately. We do not tolerate leaks."
The Minister of Defense leaned forward. "And if they rebel? An uncontrollable asset is a liability to the state."
Sebastian offered a cold smile and tapped a sleek corporate tablet, pulling up a clean, highly annotated medical schematic of a human spinal cord.
He turned the screen toward the Ministers to let them see the technical data, and then slid a heavy silver data drive across the table, nudging it past a bowl of seasonal sashimi.
Beside him, Kael watched the metal disk slide across the polished wood, his jaw tightening at what it represented.
"The microscopic tracker is already mixed directly into the Sovereign drug," Sebastian explained, gesturing casually to the diagram on his tablet.
"Once the drug is injected, this microscopic web grafts permanently to the subject's central nervous system, completely invisible to standard medical scanners."
Sebastian looked directly at the Chief of Defense.
"That drive contains the encrypted activation keys. Once you link it to Defense Command's secure transmitters, the operational control of the kill-switch belongs solely to you. If a subject decides to rebel, a single broadcast signal will trigger an immediate neurological seizure, shutting down their lungs instantly."
"An override," the Chief murmured, his thick fingers closing tightly over the silver drive.
"We control the evolution," the Chairman said, rising to his feet.
"You control the termination. Minister of Science, maintain absolute operational silence. Minister of Defense, prepare for deployment. Chief…"
His gaze swept across the room.
"History remembers whoever controls the outcome."
A low wave of laughter broke across the table, the dark, triumphant amusement of men who already held the world in their grasp.
Cups were raised in unison, the sharp, crystalline clink of porcelain and silver slicing through the quiet room as they toasted to their victory.
Beside them, Kael raised his cup in perfect, silent lockstep, the cold ceramic freezing against his fingertips.
——
It had been fifty-two days since Empire Onyx announced Elio's hiatus, marking nearly two months since he had vanished into thin air.
That entire stretch of time was a dark blur, but the two isolated rut cycles Vyn spent inside Elio's empty unit were the absolute bottom of it.
The first rut without Elio had been nothing but pure, chaotic violence.
Vyn had yanked at Elio's clothes, pulling the sheets loose until they bunched into something like a nest he didn't even realize he was building.
The small unit quickly filled with the dark, musky scent of an Alpha pushed beyond his limits, restless and ungrounded, his instincts chasing something that was slowly slipping away.
Elio's scent was fading.
There were still faint traces of it woven into the sheets and the discarded clothes, but each breath seemed lighter than the last, as if it were dissolving into the air before Vyn could hold on to it.
By the second rut, the panic had burned itself into a cold, exhausting despair.
The rut never ended the way it was supposed to. It simply dragged on until exhaustion forced his body to give in.
Then even the sheets stopped smelling like Elio.
He got up without thinking.
He searched the unit one room at a time, opening drawers, pulling apart closets, reaching for anything Elio had left behind—a shirt, a hoodie, a jacket forgotten over the back of a chair.
Whenever he found something, he pulled it close and breathed in the fading scent, chasing traces that disappeared a little more with every passing day.
Eventually, there was nothing left to find.
His trembling fingers found the silver four-leaf clover necklace Elio had given him for his birthday. He pressed the cool metal against his chest, his thumb tracing each leaf again and again.
Where are you, Elio?
Please… just come back to me.
The unit had long since lost the last traces of frozen mint and white lilies, yet Vyn's hormones kept surging in a useless, agonizing loop.
His body waited for a scent that never came, refusing to let the rut settle.
He closed his eyes.
There was nothing left to search for.
He lay there with the necklace clutched against his chest, tracing the silver until exhaustion finally won. His body slowly learned how to survive, even as something inside him remained hopelessly broken.
When the fever finally broke, Vyn dragged himself out of bed looking like a total ghost—quiet, completely exhausted, but operating entirely on pure survival mode.
He didn't waste a single second.
Driven by a desperate, lingering lead, he went straight down to ELYS' rehearsal studio and pushed right through the heavy glass door without bothering to knock.
The only sound was the dull, dragging scuff of his sneakers against the polished floorboards.
The rest of the guys were scattered around the room, but Vyn just gave them a quick, curt nod.
He walked right past them and headed straight for Yohan, knowing he was his closest shot at finding Elio.
Yohan was at the far end of the room, packing a fresh pair of knee pads into his duffel bag. Hearing the footsteps, he looked up. He didn't seem surprised to see Vyn, though his eyes automatically drifted to the dark, hollow smudges under Vyn's eyes and the tight, rigid line of his jaw.
"Vyn," Yohan said, his voice dropping into a grounded, quiet register as the rest of the ELYS members fell silent, sensing the heavy tension. Yohan set his bag down on the bench.
"You look like you haven't slept since the last time I saw you."
Vyn didn't answer the unspoken question. He stopped a few feet away, crossing his arms tightly over his chest, his fingers digging into the fabric of his shirt to keep his hands from shaking.
"Has Elio contacted you?" Vyn asked.
The words came out raw, scraped from the back of his throat.
Yohan let out a slow, heavy breath and shook his head. "No. Nothing. I've tried calling him, but I wasn't successful."
Vyn's gaze dropped to the floor, his chest tightening enough to steal his breath for a second.
The silence stretched between them, heavy and suffocating. "The last time anyone officially saw him was at the gala."
Vyn looked back up, his eyes sharp, desperate, and searching Yohan's face for a crack.
"What happened to him that night, Yohan?"
The question hung in the air.
In an instant, the memory flashed vividly behind Yohan's eyes.
He remembered the suffocating, frantic atmosphere of the gala's backstage corridor.
He remembered how Elio had looked—the unnatural color of his eyes, the absolute absence of his usual gentle grace, and the brutal, chilling efficiency with which Elio had overpowered the sasaeng who had cornered him.
It hadn't looked like defense; it had looked like something primal breaking through a fracturing shell.
Yohan looked at Vyn—at the absolute desperation bleeding through the cracks of the dominant Alpha's composure.
Forcing his hands to remain steady, Yohan reached for his water bottle, keeping the memory locked away and burying it deep.
"He was sick, Vyn," Yohan said quietly, his tone steady and deliberate.
"He had a severe, sudden heat cycle. It hit him out of nowhere, and he was completely out of it. He barely managed to tell me to contact Dr. Aris to come and pick him up. That's the last thing I saw."
Vyn's shoulders dropped slightly, a complicated wave of relief and sharp anxiety washing over him.
He turned his face away, his jaw clenching as he tried to piece the fragments together.
"Hey," Yohan said, his voice softer now as he stepped closer. "If he's with his doctor, he's safe."
Vyn gave Yohan a curt, tight nod, his emotions locked back down behind a wall of cold determination.
"Thanks, Yohan."
Without waiting for a reply, Vyn turned on his heel and walked out, leaving Yohan and the rest of ELYS behind in the quiet studio.
Now, back in the AXIOM studio, Vyn was nothing but a machine going through the motions.
The mirrors were thick with steam, blurring their sharp choreography into a mess of moving shadows.
The bass thudded heavily against Vyn's ribcage, but he couldn't really feel the rhythm.
He was just moving on instinct and muscle memory at this point—a functional autopilot. His body executed the steps perfectly, but inside, he felt entirely vacant, carrying the quiet, crushing weight of Elio's absence like a ghost trapped in a routine he couldn't break.
"Five, six, seven, hold," Axis called out, killing the music. His voice was steady, his movements still precise and effortless.
The sudden silence was deafening.
Vyn's sneakers screeched against the floor as he forced himself to a halt. He wiped the sweat from his brow, keeping his eyes glued to the floor, just trying to gather enough energy to look normal.
Axis stepped into his space.
"You're half a beat behind, Vyn. You've been off for weeks. Everyone sees it."
He flicked his gaze toward the back of the room. "And you're not the only one."
Dane was leaning against the ballet barre, dead silent. His chest heaved irregularly, his skin sallow under the harsh studio lights, his fingers twitching rhythmically against the wood.
By the sound system, Lee and Reon were watching them quietly.
"Look at Vyn," Reon murmured, his eyes fixed on the scuffs of his sneakers. "He's just... not there. It's like ever since Elio went missing, his soul left the room too."
Lee let out a low breath, capping his water bottle with a sharp twist.
"We all know there's something going on between them, Reon. Of course he's losing his mind. If the person you cared about most just vanished off the face of the earth, you wouldn't be yourself either."
Reon shifted his gaze over to the ballet barre, his brow furrowing.
"I know, I'm just not used to it... and look at Dane... Something is eating him alive. He looks like he's about to combust."
"The whole place is a powder keg right now," Lee said softly, his tone dropping as he checked the perimeter of the room.
"If it's not Vyn looking like a walking corpse, it's Dane losing his grip. Just drop it. There's nothing we can do right now anyway."
Reon swallowed hard, pulling his knees up tight against his chest as he leaned back against the wall. He stared out at the floor, his voice barely a breath.
"Yeah. Okay. It's just... I've never seen them like this. I'm terrified for them."
A suffocating silence settled over the studio, the air thick with everything they weren't allowed to ask. The tension held until the studio door clicked open.
Joey walked in, his phone pressed tight to his ear, his expression grim. He mumbled a final word into the receiver, hung up, and let his arm drop with a heavy sigh.
Vyn was across the room in two strides, forcing his numb mind to focus.
"Anything?"
Joey shook his head. "Nothing. Leia hasn't heard a word. Elio is completely off the grid."
Vyn's hand paused as he rubbed his temples, his breath hitching slightly.
The dull, constant ache in his chest flared into sharp panic before settling back into that familiar, heavy numbness.
His expression hardened, burying the panic once again.
Joey put a grounding hand on his shoulder.
"Take a minute, Vyn. We'll figure this out." He then walked over to the back of the room, his expression softening as he reached Dane.
"Dane, you look like hell, man. You're missing cues, you're shaking—when was the last time you slept?"
Dane turned, his pupils blown wide. He gripped the barre, his knuckles turning stark white.
"I'm fine, Joey. Just… tired. The schedule has been brutal lately, that's all."
Vyn watched from across the room. Even through the fog of his own exhaustion, the unnatural, gray pallor of Dane's skin looked alarming.
His gaze shifted to Axis, who was checking his watch with calm, detached efficiency.
Something felt wrong.
Vyn approached Joey, pulling him aside.
"Joey, look at him. He isn't just tired. We need to stop the rehearsals. He needs to rest."
Joey glanced back at Dane, a flicker of real concern crossing his face.
"You're right. I'll talk to management and get the upcoming appearances canceled for now."
Thirty minutes later, the studio had cleared out, leaving only Axis, Joey, Vyn, and Dane.
Dane remained on a bench, staring blankly at his hands, his fingers still twitching with that persistent, rhythmic tremor.
Axis watched him, his jaw tight. "It's not just fatigue, Dane. You've been fading. It's like you're disappearing."
Dane closed his eyes, his heart hammering against his ribs.
"I'm just exhausted, Axis," he said, his voice flat.
Vyn stepped forward, a sudden urge to cut through the corporate lies forcing him out of his internal fog. He needed to know.
"Dane," he said quietly. "Have you undergone the cycle management?"
Dane didn't look up, his fingers still twitching against his thighs.
"I've finished two phases," he said, his voice hollow. "The final one is next month."
Vyn's gaze snapped to Axis, who was leaning against the wall, composed and still.
"And you?"
"My second phase is scheduled for this month," Axis replied, his expression unreadable. "It's timed to coincide with my ruts."
Phases. Final phase.
The words sliced through Vyn's depression like a blade.
Cold dread coiled in his stomach, and a memory flashed violently in his mind—the echo of Kael's frantic voice shouting at their father in that closed room.
'One of the subjects didn't complete the final phase—he's in the ICU right now, fighting for his life. We can't keep treating them like lab rats!'
The Chairman's chilling response followed right behind it, sending a shiver straight down Vyn's spine.
'One failure does not constitute a systemic collapse. We will not be halting progress for a single defective unit.'
A sickening realization twisted in Vyn's gut, snapping him entirely out of his own head.
The nightmare Kael had been screaming about wasn't locked away in some distant lab—it was happening right here, masked behind Onyx's "cycle management" protocol.
Vyn looked from Dane's trembling form to Axis's calm, unaffected posture. The pieces fell into place with a terrifying click.
Dane wasn't just tired. His body was breaking down from the inside out, showing the exact same early warning signs as the test subject Kael had tried to save.
If they didn't halt everything right now, Dane was on track to become the next person fighting for his life in the ICU.
"Joey," Vyn said, turning to the manager, the sudden urgency bleeding into his tone. "We need to clear their schedules. Effective immediately."
Joey nodded, his face grim. "I'll handle management."
He looked at Dane with genuine worry. "Dane, listen to me. You're done for the day. Go home and just rest. Don't push it."
Dane nodded faintly, though he looked like he was barely tracking the conversation. He stood up, moving with that same jagged, wrong rhythm, and headed for the door.
Vyn moved closer to Axis, lowering his voice so only the other Alpha could hear him.
"Watch over him tonight. If he gets worse, or if you notice anything odd, call me immediately. I'm going to contact my brother. If there's an explanation for why it's destroying him like this, Kael will know."
Axis gave a curt, serious nod, his jaw tight. "I'll handle it. I'll keep you updated."
Without another word, Axis grabbed his gear, pushed through the studio doors, and fell into step down the corridor a few paces behind Dane's uneven stride.
Vyn watched the heavy doors swing shut behind them, a deep sense of unease settling into his chest. Whatever the protocol was doing to them, it was becoming clear that time was running out.
——
Just one step, Dane. The static stops when you fall.
The voice echoed inside his skull.
Dane had climbed onto the narrow concrete ledge at the very edge of the balcony, standing outside the railing with nothing between him and the hundred-foot drop below.
From this height, the city had become nothing more than scattered neon lights bleeding into one another, impossibly far beneath him. Up here, only the silence of his condo remained.
On the table inside, his phone pulsed. "AXIS" flashed on the display—a rhythmic, insistent light that had been calling out into the silence for over an hour.
Dane hadn't slept in three days.
Every time he closed his eyes, he didn't see darkness; he saw static.
The world felt thin, like a sketch on tracing paper, ready to be ripped.
He couldn't smell anything—not the rain, not the city, not even his own skin.
In the void where his scent should have been, a phantom noise lived. It was a high-pitched, clinical hum that sounded like a saw cutting through bone.
Go on.
The voice whispered again, vibrating against his temples.
Let the gravity take the weight off your head.
He leaned forward, his toes curling over the precipice, gravity already catching his weight.
He was actually doing it. He was tipping over.
The front door didn't just open—Axis slammed it back against the wall as he broke inside.
With the explosive, unnatural speed of a dominant Alpha, Axis blurred across the room.
He launched himself onto the balcony, his hand locking around Dane's wrist just as his feet left the concrete.
With a violent, desperate surge of pure strength, Axis hauled him backward, ripping him out of the air.
They slammed into the glass sliding door and went down hard onto the hardwood floor, shards of broken tension rattling around them.
"Let go," Dane rasped.
He tried to shove Axis away, but his limbs felt heavy, like they belonged to a stranger.
"Let me go."
Axis pinned his shoulders down, trapping Dane beneath his body. His hands were shaking, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against Dane's chest.
"Look at me. Look at me, damn it! Breathe."
Dane's pupils were blown wide—black pits that refused to focus. He stared straight through Axis, as if he couldn't quite see him.
"I don't know what the fuck is happening to me. The colors, the noise… it's all just static. I'm fucking gone, Axis."
Axis didn't argue.
His Alpha instincts took over, a raw, protective surge forcing his presence to violently break through the air.
He flooded the room with his pheromones, a scent as crisp and absolute as a winter night: black pine and the sharp, mineral tang of wet slate.
The fragrance tore through Dane's haze in an instant.
His frantic, depleted senses latched onto Axis like a drowning man catching a rope. The high-pitched whine in his brain faltered, silenced by the heavy, grounding reality of the other man.
Dane's hands, which had been pushing Axis away, suddenly tangled into the fabric of Axis's shirt.
He buried his face into the crook of Axis's neck, his nose seeking the scent with a desperate craving.
Axis stiffened, his breath hitching at the sudden, raw intimacy of the embrace.
For a split second, the rigid boundaries between them blurred.
He wrapped his arms around Dane, holding him firm, pressing his hand against the back of Dane's neck in a steady, protective weight.
"Can you smell me?" Axis asked, his voice low, vibrating right against Dane's temple.
He let his scent deepen, wrapping around Dane's shivering frame like a fortress.
"Just breathe."
Dane let out a ragged, shuddering breath against Axis's throat.
The space between them grew quiet, thick with unspoken dependency.
For a moment, the crushing isolation of Dane's decay retreated.
"Everything feels wrong," Dane whispered, his fingers tightening in Axis's shirt as if he'd dissolve if he let go.
"I'm losing my grip on everything. I'm disappearing."
"I'm right here," Axis murmured, his grip unbreakable, his chin resting against Dane's hair.
He looked down at the man who used to smell like summer and honey, now smelling of nothing at all.
"I've got you."
Dane didn't answer.
He only clung tighter, terrified of what would happen the second the scent of pine and stone faded away.
Axis held him against the floor, his own jaw tight as he reached blindly out with one hand, dragging his phone off the table.
He hit speed dial.
"Vyn," Axis said, his voice tight and breathless as he stared at the ceiling. "Get over here. Now. He almost jumped."
Moments later, the thick silence of the condo was broken by rushing footsteps.
Joey and Vyn hurried through the already open front door, their faces pale with panic.
Vyn took one look at the shattered patio glass, Axis still holding a trembling Dane on the floor, and the thick, suffocating wave of Axis's panicked Alpha pheromones heavy in the air.
The contrast was alarming—Axis's scent was practically screaming, while Dane was scentless beneath it.
Vyn strode forward, kneeling beside them. His face was a mask of cold, sharp determination.
"We're out of time," Vyn said, his voice cutting through the room. "We're taking him to my brother. Right now."
They pulled up to a secluded, modern house tucked away on the edge of the city. It was all sharp angles, dark concrete, and glass—a quiet, minimalist place that felt exactly like Kael.
But the real reason they were here was hidden underneath: a private lab built right into the basement.
Upstairs, Dane was finally asleep in one of the spare bedrooms, an IV hooked up to his arm.
Kael adjusted the drip, his movements calm and practiced. He paused, his gaze lingering on Dane's pale, still face.
For a second, a flicker of something deeply painful crossed Kael's eyes—a sharp ghost of a memory, a reminder of a loss he carried entirely alone.
His chest tightened, but he forced the sadness down, tossed a medical wipe into the bin, and turned back to the room.
"The medicine will keep him stable for now," Kael said, his voice quiet.
He looked straight at Axis. "You and Dane are staying here. Onyx is going to look everywhere for you two, but they won't check this place."
Kael then turned to Joey, who was leaning against the wall, looking completely drained.
"Joey, you need to act like you know nothing. When my Aunt asks you about the two missing members of AXIOM, play dumb. You haven't seen them, and you're just as worried as everyone else is."
Joey gave a tight, heavy nod. "I can do that."
Kael looked back at Axis.
"It's a good thing you only went through the first phase, Axis. If you'd done the second one during your rut, your system would be totally wiped out like Dane's."
He rubbed the back of his neck, looking tired.
As the VP of Onyx, he knew exactly how ruthless the operations were.
"I'm going to do whatever it takes to stop our father. I promise you. But I need time."
Vyn was standing near the bed, his arms crossed tight. He looked exhausted, the usual calm mask gone as he stared down at Dane's face.
He looked up at his brother.
"Kael," Vyn said, his voice cracking slightly. "Will his ability ever come back? His pheromones?"
Kael paused.
The intense, analytical expression he usually wore faded, replaced by that same deep, heavy sadness from before. He couldn't even bring himself to look at Vyn, choosing instead to stare blankly at the floor.
"I don't know, Vyn," Kael said softly.
"Onyx's protocol completely tears apart the body's natural biology. I'm studying the data and trying everything to find a way to reverse the harvesting... but right now, I don't have an answer."
Vyn closed his eyes, his jaw clenching hard.
Beside the bed, Axis didn't say a word, his hands tightening into fists as he kept his eyes glued to Dane's chest, watching it rise and fall.
——
The drive back from Kael's house felt endless, the silence inside the car heavy with the weight of what they had just done.
Leaving Dane and Axis there, tucked away from the constant threat of the harvest, felt like pulling a single thread from a sweater that was already unraveled.
Joey kept his hands loose on the steering wheel, navigating the dark, quiet city streets, but his usual easygoing energy was completely gone.
He glanced over at the passenger seat, taking in Vyn's exhausted, wired expression.
"Your father is some top-tier villain shit," Joey murmured, his voice dropping into a rare, serious quiet as he kept his eyes on the road.
"I knew Onyx was cutthroat, Vyn, but this is just fucking sick."
Vyn didn't look back at him. He didn't even look out the window. His eyes remained fixed straight ahead, cold and utterly vacant.
"He is the devil."
Joey let out a heavy sigh, his fingers tapping a restless rhythm against the wheel.
"Can't argue with that," he said.
"But do me a favor and go back to your own place tonight. Don't go to Elio's unit just to sit in the dark. You need real rest before the studio catches onto what we did."
"Yeah," Vyn murmured. "Thanks for driving, Joey."
"Anytime. Call me tomorrow."
Despite Joey's warning, Vyn didn't go home.
Instead, he took the elevator straight up to Elio's unit, following the exact same path he had every single night for the last fifty-two days.
It had long since devolved into a hollow, agonizing ritual: punch in the passcode, sit in the dark, and wait for a ghost.
Vyn reached out and pressed the familiar sequence of numbers on the digital keypad.
Click.
He pushed the door inward, letting it swing shut heavily behind him, and that was the exact moment the air changed.
A scent was drifting through the dark entryway.
It was faint—almost impossibly delicate—but unmistakable.
Clean frozen mint and white lilies.
Vyn's heart slammed violently against his ribs.
The sudden, overwhelming rush of hope was dizzying. It felt like a cruel trick his mind had played on him a thousand times in his sleep, except this time, the scent was actually filling his lungs.
He took a frantic step forward into the living room, the breath trapped tight and aching in his throat.
The space was dark, illuminated only by the warm, dim glow of a single lampshade in the corner and the sprawling lights of the city bleeding through the floor-to-ceiling windows.
There, standing still against the backdrop of the glowing skyline, was Elio.
*******