Three weeks. That’s how long it took for Rowan’s last bit of hope to slip away. Three weeks of pleading with no results. Three weeks of ignored objections. Three weeks of everyone acting like the subject had disappeared, never existed, and Rowan was likely to follow him into exile if she wasn’t careful.

It was difficult, though. She was so distracted, her research and work performance were slipping, putting the project and her position on it at risk. She was constantly in her head, trying to think of a way out, consumed with the regret, worried it would be too late, that she waited too long, that even if it wasn’t, he still wouldn’t forgive her.

The forgiving part she dwelled on far too much. After all, why should he? It was partly her fault he was in such a situation. She couldn’t even imagine what it was like, to be trapped in a room, scared and alone, starving, and unsure when or if he’d ever get out.

An almost immortal, never having to worry about dying, facing the idea of death for the first time. Had he lost track of time yet? Was he in pain? If she did get to speak to him again, what state would he be in? Would he even be alive? And if he was, what would a few weeks of hunger do to him? Would he even be himself, or would she be speaking with the monster lingering in the blacks of his eyes?

Before the electrocution, Rowan wanted to know more about him for her own selfish reasons. She wanted to help him because it would be good for her, for her career, for the project. Now though, she didn’t care at all about the project, about Miller’s plans for the virus. She even would have left with Phelps, pushed all memories of what happened out of her mind and continued her career like nothing changed, if she didn’t know she was the only one that would help him.

To help she needed a plan, though. And the longer she spent trying to figure out what to do, the longer she waited for an opportunity that never came, the more she realized she would need to do it herself if she was ever going to see the subject again. All the help she was going to get was from a handed-off key card and the one person that was always ready to follow her into a fire.

So, when Rowan knew she couldn’t wait any longer, she swallowed her pride and shame from ignoring his calls, and paid Cameron an unannounced visit during his night shift.

“I brought you a midnight snack.”

Cameron could never say no to mint chocolate chip ice cream. He could, however, get suspicious of her intentions. His apprehension immediately showed on his face, as well as his mild annoyance.

“If you think you can bribe your way into my good favor again...” He didn’t finish his sentence because they both knew that it was entirely possible for her to do just that with how weak willed he was.

“It’s your favorite,” Rowan said, letting her voice take on a sing song tone as she teased him with the carton.

He rolled his eyes, trying to stay stoney. “What do you want?” He asked, snatching the ice cream and leading her along with him behind the security desk, where he pulled a spoon out of his “lunch” bag.

Rowan gave a wide, fake grin. “To apologize, of course.” Cameron snorted at her innocent attempt, so she skipped the pretenses and added, “And to ask for your help.”

“You’ve got some nerve, you know that?” he replied, his frustration still on his voice but his body language caving. He hadn’t said no, so Rowan moved forward, lifting her bag up onto the desk and pulling out it’s contents, all of which she had stolen over the last three weeks from the lower laboratory.

Cameron stared for a moment as she set out the tourniquet, blood bag, a needle, and gloves, along with various disinfectants. “Um, should I even ask?” he questioned, dumbfounded, but not nearly enough to keep him from shoveling a spoonful of ice cream into his mouth.

Rowan offered a forced smile. “It would probably be better for you if you didn’t. Hold this.” She handed off the empty blood bag, then sat in a chair next to him. Rowan was taught a long time ago how to take blood and used to practice on herself. It wasn’t a necessary skill in her particular field, but she was thankful for it now that she needed a peace offering for the blood-hungry boy locked up downstairs.

She tied her upper arm off and primed the needle before Cameron clued in and turned away. “What the hell, Row!”

“I didn’t know you were so squeamish,” she teased, hoping to avoid explaining herself.

He took the bait, giving an offended look as he refused to look back, responding sharply. “It’s not everyday I see my best friend stick herself with a needle, though.” Daring a peek and seeing the worst was over, he twisted around, his expression shifting a fraction away from sour and closer to concern. “You know… You don’t have to draw the blood yourself to donate to the blood bank, right? They do it for you. And you get cookies and juice after and everything.”

Rowan gave a breathy laugh. “This is… A different type of donation.”

“Cryptic. Anything to do with the alien?”

She shouldn’t, but if Cameron was going to help her, he deserved to know something. “Yes,” she said simply, all the answer she could bring herself to give.

Cameron lit up with curiosity, but he didn’t push for more, knowing she probably already said too much. Instead, they sat in a silence together that was far less awkward than Rowan expected it to be. In fact, she found herself wishing she could stay there all night, finish off the ice cream and laugh until her sides hurt, like they used to before all this.

Being happy and normal with Cameron would have to wait a little longer, though. Hopefully, he’d still be there when she was finished…

“Was that it? You just wanted me to hold a bag for you?” Cameron seemed rightfully suspicious.

Rowan gave a sheepish smile as she removed the needle and released the tourniquet, holding the bend of her arm to stop the blood. “Not exactly. There’s just one more thing.”

Cameron was trying to act difficult, but it was so clear to Rowan that he’d agree to whatever she asked, it almost made her reconsider. Asking this of him would get him in trouble along with her, and as much as she wanted to help the boy locked up in the basement, it also wasn’t her place to make that decision for Cameron.

When she waited too long to make her request, he gave her a pointed look, before reaching out to mess his hand in her hair. “You know I’d do anything for you, Row. You’re still my best friend, even if you’re being a terrible one right now.”

Rowan tried to laugh, but it came out heavy. “Thank you, Cam.” She could tell him how sorry she was, for everything, when time was more on her side. For now, she could at least show her appreciation with another secret. “I need you to turn the elevators on, so I can go downstairs.”

Cameron froze, his eyes immediately widening. “D-down?” When she nodded, he almost choked. “It— It exists?”

“It does. It’s amazing, Cam. And one day, I’ll tell you everything.” If she had it her way, she’d sit there and spend the rest of the night telling him each and every detail. In fact, she needed to so badly that the words swelled up in her chest, and it was painful keeping them down. Instead, she replaced them. “But right now, that’s already way more than you should know. Actually, you should probably know, if you do this for me, I can’t guarantee you won’t get in trouble. But… It’s important I get down there. Do you trust me?”

Cameron watched her as she went somber, his gaze softening with a subtle realization. “This isn’t about your career anymore, is it?”

She swallowed down the emotion that crawled up her throat at his question, positive it shined across her eyes despite herself, though. “No. It’s so much more than that now.”

He hummed thoughtfully, taking a moment to leave Rowan hanging, perhaps just to torture her, before nodding. “You know I always got your back, Row. No matter what. Just... Don’t take too long this time, yeah?”

Rowan arrived at the observation room with her bag of blood tucked in the bend of her arm, standing in front of the door that had remained off limits to her for three weeks now. She pulled Phelps’ key card from its safekeeping spot inside her lab coat, scanning it on the doors reader. It responded with a chime of confirmation, and the glass door slid open.

She hesitated before entering, as if second guessing her rash decision to come here without permission. It was already far too late for her to back out now, though. She’d already done more than enough to warrant her removal from the project, and the subject definitely would have heard her.

If he was even still alive.

Rowan entered slowly, letting her eyes adjust to the low light. Since the room had gone “unused” all these weeks, the computers and fluorescents were powered off, along with the lights within the containment room. The only bit of brightness was the white glow coming in from the hallway behind her, making the observation room and the objects inside it nothing but shadows.

It wasn’t hard to find the glass wall, though. She had grown to know the space quite well. Avoiding chairs and tables, she headed for the left wall, placing her hand on the cool glass when she found it. She put her bag down on the floor, then let her eyes wander, searching for a shape through the darkness.

If he was alive, he would already know she’s there, so why hadn’t she heard from him yet? With how she left him before, Rowan had been expecting a less than pleasant reunion. He was nowhere to be found in the lurking shadows of his stark white cell, though.

Standing there, her hand on the glass and her heart beginning to race, she found herself scared to call for him. What if he really was angry with her? What if he refused to speak? Or worse, what if he didn’t reply at all? What if something terrible happened? She could barely bring herself to consider it, the thought putting pressure on her lungs.

Despite her nerves, Rowan untangled the knot in her throat and searched with a whisper. “Lyall.”

It was the first time she used his name, and it felt strange and unfamiliar in her mouth, but at the same time it slipped out so naturally, like it had been right there, on the tip of her tongue all this time. She hoped that maybe using it would garner a reaction, but the stretched silence that followed left her disappointed.

“Please, I just want to know that you’re alright.”

Again, her pleads were left unanswered, the space engulfed in a deafening quiet. With no sign of life, Rowan pressed her forehead against the glass in defeat, a sigh escaping onto her lips.

On a breath, she offered one last attempt. “I’m sorry.”

Something shifted, the sound of a creature unwinding itself, and she opened her eyes to watch the blackness of the containment room once more, hunting for the noise. He slipped out slowly into the low light from the shadowed, far corners of his cell, following the wall with his hand as he moved towards her. Each step brought him further into detail, but he was still mostly just a dark figure.

She moved to meet him, and as she did, her adjusting eyes found the troubling details of his state. He was malnourished again, evident in his graying skin and the way it stretched across his bones, thin like rice paper. The hand he held against the wall was most likely the only thing keeping him upright, although he did a good job at pretending otherwise. Right next to him now, with nothing but the glass separating them, Rowan could see the dark circles under his eyes, the paling color of his irises, and most troubling, the scratch wounds up and down his forearms.

“What’s happened to you?”

He chuckled at her concern, but the laugh came out dry, like his lungs were arid and brittle. “I keep forgetting that when I’m not feeding I don’t heal as fast.” There was something bitter on his tone as he replied.

She felt her throat swell, seeing the wounds better as he neared. “Have you done this to yourself?”

“It helps me not think about the hunger. For a while, at least.” He moved to rest his shoulder against the glass. Then, as if his legs could no longer stand the weight, he slid down to sit. The bones of his back seemed to grind against themselves as he settled on the floor, his spine visible ridges down his back.

Rowan followed, her knees biting the floor. “I’m so sorry, Lyall. They wouldn’t let me near you. No one was feeding you?” He looked so much worse than before. He looked practically dead. “You were right, about us being monsters. It’s like suddenly they all have a second face.”

“I thought you left me for dead. Would have been the smartest thing you’ve done.”

“I guess I’m stupid.” She grabbed the blood bag, standing again. “Here, I have something for you.”

The outer security door was unlocked, so she opened it up and entered, gliding towards the second. Like the first time she ever fed him, she kneeled down to the food hatch at the door, but hesitated with the bag in her hand.

She knew she should just slide it in across the floor like always, that she shouldn’t get anywhere near the hatch with him in this state of hunger, and yet, she found herself lowering further, her hands beginning to shake as she opened the hatch.

She needed to prove that she trusted him. Prove that he could trust her. So, now nearly laying on the floor, Rowan reached her trembling hand holding the blood through the hatch, elbow deep, to hand the bag off to him.

She heard him move in a flash from the glass to the other side of the door, flinching with the movement and covering her mouth to silence a yelp. She expected him to snatch the bag from her grip, or something worse, so when she was still holding it after a long moment, it sent her heart beat into a wild pound in her ear as she tried to listen through it.

It took a moment before she heard movement again, like he was just as timid and unsure about reaching out as she had been putting her hand in there with him, but after a second, she heard him shift slowly closer. She flinched a second time, when her skin sensed his reaching hand, but she managed to keep from withdrawing the unsteady limb for just long enough to allow the weight of the blood to transfer to his palm, pulling quickly back to the safe side of the door. With her recoil, his fingertips grazed hers, and it left her with electricity under her skin, like the touch had shocked, even though she wasn’t wearing the protective cuff.

Once the blood was in his grasp, he reacted as she’d expected, tearing into the bag immediately to quench a deep thirst. Leaned with her back against the door to try and calm down, she could hear him drinking, taking deep heavy breaths through his nose as he did. Her curiosity getting the better of her, Rowan lowered her head to peek through the hatch, and one of his hands came down onto the floor to brace himself. Blood stained his fingers.

Shaken, she stood quickly and returned to the glass wall, waiting patiently for him to finish while trying not to think about the fact that it was once again her donation he drank. No matter how she spun it, the thought still left her uncomfortable in her skin, so she preferred to ignore it all together.

The wounds on his arms stitched themselves together now that he had a fresh meal rejuvenating his system, and even in the darkness, Rowan could see a bit of color come back to his face. With his dire state tended to, the air between them shifted to an uneasy contemptment, a silence stretching for far longer than Rowan would have liked. She didn’t break it though, not yet. It wasn’t her place. She’d let him speak first, if he even would.

He sighed, a breath filled with the anger, frustration, and hopelessness he had to have felt the last few days, then looked over his shoulder towards the glass. His gaze landed right where she sat, and Rowan wondered if those predator eyes could see her shape through the one-way glass now that all the lights were down.

“Why are you even here?”

It was obvious that he wanted to be more sour, but restrained himself in gratitude for the first decent meal in weeks. She appreciated the attempt at civility. Considering she had been expecting him to not even speak with her at all, this was going far better than she could have ever imagined.

Rowan neared the glass, her legs feeling weak with nerves and the remorse of seeing him so broken. She allowed herself to settle back down onto her knees as she considered her words.

“The first day I talked to you, I said I was your only way out of here. When I said that, it was just insurance, a way of hopefully convincing you I was of more value to you alive than dead. Now though, I realize by saying that I also made a promise. By saying I was your only way out, I promised the chance to get you out, and I don’t like the idea of going back on my word.”

He watched her for a long time, his shoulders rising and falling with labored breaths. When he turned away, he chuckled, although it wasn’t humorous at all. “You’re delusional if you think I’m ever going to leave this room.” His defeat was written all over him, from his sallow cheeks to the brittleness of his bones. They had broken him.

He wasn’t fighting her because his fight was already gone.

Frustration flared in Rowan. She wanted to get angry and tell him not to give up, and that she’d find a way, but she knew being upset wouldn’t help anything. The hostility between them had to stop. She offered a joke instead.

“I think we’ve kinda proven that I’m not very sane, considering I agreed to talk to you in there in the first place.”

She searched for his shadowy figure, curled up on the floor like a wounded, scared animal, and saw the small, bitter smile spread across his face. Had she won him over? She held as still as possible, scared that even moving would send him retreating back into his shell.

He reached out and used the wall to pick himself up again, shuffling closer to the glass separating them. Rowan wanted desperately to help, but she could only watch him struggle. He stopped in front of her, leaning his back against the glass and sliding down to the floor.

He sat there, his head resting on the wall between them, his expression softer than she had ever seen it. He looked weak and tired. Too tired to hold up pretenses, too tired to pretend to be anything other than trapped and dying and hopeless. He closed his eyes and took in a breath, and she wondered for a moment how she had seen anything other than the scared and wounded boy he was now. How had she ever been afraid of him?

She curled up her fingers, trying to resist the urge to reach out to him. He was a monster, a blood hungry animal who admitted to killing people for sport the last time they spoke. So when had she suddenly become so protective of the beast? When had her primal fear of him turned into something more? When had she become more scared of the people around her than of the blue-eyed demon she talked to?

When did he stop being a subject, and started being…

“Lyall.”

The corner of his mouth twitched up. “No one has called me that in a very long time. It’s strange hearing it on someone else’s voice.”

“I’m sorry.” Rowan feared she offended him, but as she said the words she realized the apology wasn’t just for her using his name without permission, but for absolutely everything.

He shook his head, brushing off her remorse. “I like how it sounds,” he replied, barely a whisper, like he physically wouldn’t dare say it louder.

After settling the flutter of her gut, she added, “I mean, for all this.”

He sighed in response. “I would have killed you if you stayed. You did what you had to.”

“You must have thought I abandoned you.”

“I’ve been abandoned before,” he added, like it proved some point, a point that his heart was steel and nothing pierced it. All Rowan heard was pain, though.

“Well, I’m not leaving. I’m going to help you get out of here. Whatever it takes. I promise.”

She couldn’t resist anymore. Without hesitation, she flattened her fingers onto the glass.

Rowan couldn’t be sure how he had known. Whether he could hear her racing pulse through her palm, or could see her ghostly shape through the glass. He knew though, and as he glanced out of the corner of his eye towards her, his expression shifted, and Rowan’s heart picked up a beat.

“I’ll disappoint you.” He spoke, and his eyes went cold again as he directed his gaze back to the darkness. A warning. “Whatever you think will happen, whatever you want me to be, you’ll be disappointed. You’d be better off letting me die in here.”

She pretended like his words didn’t bother her, but they crept passed her hard-headed determination and infected her with doubts. Rowan understood why he was saying it. It was the same reason he called her delusional and stupid for thinking there was any way he was leaving the cell he was trapped in. Because he had accepted that he was going to die here, a fact she was choosing to ignore.

Even though Rowan knew that the only way he would get out would be virus-free, and she knew that he would never willingly accept a cure, she didn’t want to think about it. It was too hopeless, and she wasn’t ready to stop fighting yet. She’d figure out a way, whatever it took.

She’d promised.

“I’m going to help you get out of here,” she repeated, giving her final word. Because even though she didn’t know what exactly she was committing to, she felt the vow in her bones.