Rowan saw herself through the mirrored glass as the fear spread across her stained features, the blood swept over her mouth accentuating the terror in her eyes. She shut them tight and let her head fall, not wanting to see her trembling lips and his murderous expression.

Lyall refused to let her off so easily, though, moving the hand on her neck to cup her chin and direct her face back up. She opened her eyes, and he was watching her now through their reflection, but nothing about the way he looked at her was hostile. His arm around her stomach tightened just barely, and he tilted his head to speak in her ear, his gaze locked on hers.

“Don’t let them use you anymore. You’re better than that. Get angry with me.”

His words stirred something in her. Hot lava rolled in her stomach, burning up her throat, and her expression shifted from horror to frustration and anger. The emotions that curled inside her all weekend, festering on her helplessness and despair, desperate and dangerous, roared for release.

He added one last whisper on a breath, securing the fire in her glossy eyes. “You promised to help me, remember? Let the monster come out and play, Rowan.”

With his words, her gut purred. Yes, she promised to help him, and she would.

They would escape this white cell together, as monsters.

Rowan knew only one person held the power to let them out of this room, though, and appealing to Miller’s sensibilities would be difficult since she seemed to have less and less recently. She had to try something, though.

And then, amongst the tangle of frustration and hopelessness, Rowan had an idea.

“Are you really going to let me die in here, doctor?” Her call was timid, not knowing what she was supposed to say, the plan forming in bits and pieces. Knowing Miller was listening even though she couldn’t see her face helped to fuel Rowan’s nervous words. “After everything I’ve done for this project? This project wouldn’t exist without me. I figured out that he drank blood, I came to talk to him over and over again, and I put my life on the line for this project.”

Anger bloomed in her chest, because as she said it, she knew Miller was debating with herself. What should be done with Phelps’ problematic assistant, who just couldn’t play by the rules? Tears of betrayal and frustration welled in Rowan’s eyes, so she used her own emotions to her advantage, shutting them tight and letting the salty drops slide down her face.

“After what happened to William, you promised no one else would get hurt.”

She hoped this would do it. She prayed this would be enough to convince Miller, because she wanted to trust the woman, and she wanted her to be the mentor Rowan had been searching for. She wanted to believe Miller was still reasonable.

The woman said so herself though, she had responsibilities as a leader that could not be compromised, and Rowan had broken all of her rules. Even ones that Miller didn’t know about yet.

Trapped in the arms of her accomplice as he stared at their reflections with fury in his wide pupils, she offered a last plea. “Open the door, please. Don’t let him just kill me.”

All she could do was wait, and Miller made her wait forever. Her body ached all over from the electrocution. Her neck throbbed with pain where Lyall held her, even though he was trying to be gentle. She could barely hold herself on her own two feet, grasping at his wrists to keep standing. With every second her anger and frustration grew thick and suffocating, turning the hopelessness on her face hard.

Miller wouldn’t open the doors. She decided it was too risky. It was easier to just let them both disappear in this room, something else Miller had already implied. After all, no matter how much control Lyall had, once he starved enough, he would eventually tear her apart, if Rowan didn’t die of starvation first, and then he would starve as well. They’d both be forgotten. An admirable, but futile attempt on Rowan's part.

She wasn’t finished fighting, though.

“Phelps is not going to let you do this.” Rowan added after the long lack of response, her weak voice finding a new fervour. “He knows I’m still working on this project with you. Do you think he’s just going to keep his mouth shut if I disappear?”

Finally, this garnered a reaction, and Rowan heard the telecom click on, Miller’s voice ringing through the room. “It would be his words against mine.” The response was cold, not in a way that suggested tightly trained emotions, but rather no emotions at all.

Against her stomach, Rowan felt Lyall’s hand curl into an angry fist around the fabric of her lab coat, but she allowed a sharp smirk to lift the corner of her lips instead as response. “Not just his word.”

Because Phelps wasn’t the only one who knew anymore. Rowan broke the last of Miller’s rules that weekend and told someone everything. Cameron, who now knew about Lyall and the project and the virus, knew what Rowan was being forced to do, and what would happen if she failed. Cameron, who now waited upstairs for Rowan’s safe return and who she’d warned what to think if she didn’t.

A long, steady silence followed, and Rowan knew it was the sound of Miller piecing together her words. And then, beyond the deafening slam of her heart in her skull, she heard the familiar sound of the automated latch as it slid open.

On the back of her neck, she felt Lyall exhale sharp, as if he had given up somewhere along the way, but unlike Rowan, who stood gaping in shock that her plan worked, he dealt with his surprise far quicker. Forcing her out of her motionlessness, he let go of her neck and took her elbow in his grip instead, ushering her along as he went for the door.

Finally moving, everything hit her all at once, and her already pounding heart went into overdrive with a rush of adrenaline. They were doing this. They were getting out of there, together, with his virus intact.

All this time, she ignored and stifled the itching desire to just free him and run, knowing it was selfish and stupid and impossible, but now that it was happening, she couldn’t keep the dark part of her from blooming. It was scary, but it was also powerful and thrilling and addictive. She let her thoughts run wild with it.

Cameron was waiting for her. It would be easy. They could just get in his truck and take off, together. A grand escape fit for such a long and weary fight.

She was ripped from her fantasy when Lyall walked her closer to the unlocked door between them and the observation room. Rowan paused to look at him, and she was sure he understood because he must have saw the wicked in her gaze and smelled the adrenaline in her blood.

As if daring her to embrace the excitement she was considering, he nodded towards their escape and said, “Are you going to let me out, Rowan?”

The corner of her mouth going up, and she pulled open the door. So what if he killed everyone? They were all monsters anyway. As long as he didn’t kill her. And he wouldn’t. Because she was special. She was his monster. As if confirming that delicious thought, Lyall grabbed her upper arm gently and nudged her forward, following close behind as the two of them exited the containment room.

Her colleagues all stood still as statues, the pure horror written on each and every face, except for Miller. She found the other woman across the room, and their eyes locked. The look she gave covered something else, as if she was congratulating Rowan on her momentary win but had a trick up her sleeve.

Lyall paused for a moment next to her, and his dark eyes scanned the room, stopping briefly on every face as he wrote them into his mind. Finally he reached Miller, who he smirked at. “It’s a pleasure to finally see all your faces. Hope you all sleep well tonight.” Leaving the room in a perpetual state of terror with his threat, Lyall’s hand trailed down Rowan’s arm to her wrist, yanking her after him into the hall.

Upon leaving the observation room, the emergency alarm went off, signalling a floor lockdown, and Rowan swore out loud. She was so lost in the thrill, she hadn’t thought things through clearly and didn’t consider the fact that the entire laboratory had the back-up security feature.

“The elevator will be disabled. There’s no other way to get out of these labs. It’s designed that way for this exact reason.”

Lyall slowed for only a brief moment to glance at her and smirk, like he took her words as a challenge, then picked up his pace into an almost jog. Her limb still tight in his grasp, Rowan practically ran to keep up with him. Her heart raced, thrashing in her chest like a caged animal, the loud sirens blaring around them only making her anxiety more overwhelming. And yet, a grin lingered on the corner of her mouth, tugging at her cheeks until they ached.

As they took the corner to the elevators, she remembered the security guard they were approaching. She opened her mouth to say something, but it was already far too late. She pulled her wrist from Lyall’s grasp and retreated back around the corner, covering her ears as the sound of assault rifle fire broke through the screaming emergency sirens.

The shots lasted forever it seemed, and when they finally stopped, Rowan opened her eyes to see the wall across from her littered with countless bullet holes. She stared in horror as she realized: Lyall was superhuman, but certainly not bulletproof.

She turned quickly to peek around the corner where Lyall had been, where she failed to warn him of the danger, expecting to see him dead, or at least bleeding profusely on the floor, but to her shock, he was standing.

His shoulders rose and fell with labored breaths, but otherwise he seemed completely untouched. At the other end of the hall, the security guard stood frozen, his eyes wide with horror, his gun still aimed and pulling the trigger even though he already emptied it.

Rowan moved to reach out to Lyall, but he acted, using his speed to appear in front of the guard before she could reach him. He took hold of the gun by its barrel with one hand and forced it back so the butt hit hard against the guard’s shoulder. Then, in a swift motion, he jerked the gun to the side so its stock slammed square across the guard’s face, flooring him.

She approached as Lyall used the gun for support to lower himself over the guard. He grabbed the man by the front of his hair and lifted him up to inspect the bloody, broken nose he created. With the sight of the blood, Rowan watched Lyall’s face slide into a familiar, dark expression. He discarded the gun and grabbed the guard by the collar, his heavy head falling back to expose his neck.

Instantly, she felt like she was hit in the gut, her regret resurfacing and killing the excited high from before. All those thoughts about not caring who he killed, the monster inside her could growl the idea all she wanted, but the fact was, she did care. It was why she kept that dark part of herself stifled, because that wasn’t who she was. She didn’t want anyone to die. No one deserved to die.

“Lyall, no!” She cried out her objection when he opened his mouth, staring with nervous horror as he stopped and turned his wild eyes to look at her.

“He tried to kill me,” Lyall argued, his grip around the man’s collar tightening.

Rowan swallowed hard, her voice breaking as she begged. “Please…”

Lyall stared at her for a moment longer before closing his eyes and sighing heavily. He rolled his shoulders, and when he opened his eyes again, it was as if he eased the animal back, his expression settled. He shoved the guard back down to the floor, then got up and stepped over him towards the elevators.

Rowan didn’t follow this time, unsure if he wanted her to, now that she had shown him that she couldn’t be the monster he wanted her to be. She could never accept this darkness that he lived by. It wasn’t her.

He got five steps before he stopped to glance back at her. “Are you coming?”