Gene didn’t knock. She didn’t need to. The Lennox estate, designed to absorb sound, is silent like a vault that protects secrets meant to remain hidden. Even the wind outside seemed to hush before brushing against the towering, impeccably manicured hedges and dark stone walls, as if acknowledging the power held within. The house itself was vast and watchful, its numerous windows like unblinking eyes staring into the soul of anyone foolish enough to seek answers within its shadowed chambers. Its architecture was a somber testament to a bygone era, grand and imposing, yet tinged with the melancholic air of decay.
She entered through the side servant’s entrance—an old habit, a relic from when sneaking into dangerous places was just part of her job. Years ago, she had been a ghost in the machine, a wrench thrown into the gears of corrupt power. Gene moved like a shadow through the cracks of a crumbling estate, her movements precise and calculated. Each step was deliberate and quiet, as she navigated her surroundings, neither as staff, nor as a guest, nor as a friend. It was a skill honed over years of clandestine operations, a dance between unseen observer and active participant.
She walked the dim corridors with silent precision, the soles of her worn boots barely whispering against the marble floor. She bypassed portraits of stern ancestors, their painted eyes following her every move, their powdered wigs and stiff postures mocking the life she'd chosen. She ignored rooms gilded in wealth and dust, rooms filled with forgotten treasures and the ghosts of extravagant parties long past. Everything in the mansion smelled of memory—wood polish used for generations, aged leather bound tightly around forgotten volumes, something faintly floral, a lingering trace of lavender and roses. But memory was dangerous here, a labyrinth of regrets and betrayals. She made her way past the grand hall, ignoring the low murmur of distant voices – Lennox business, no doubt, deals made in the darkness, fortunes built on the backs of others – heading toward the one place she was sure no one else would be bothering.
The greenhouse, which had once been Mara Lennox’s sanctuary, stood in sharp contrast to the rest of the house. It was humid and overgrown now, the glass panes grimy, the air thick with the scent of damp earth and decaying leaves, but still oddly reverent, as if nature herself held her breath within its fragile walls. It remained untouched, never stripped for parts or repurposed. It had simply waited. For her, perhaps? Or perhaps for the touch of a hand that could coax life back into its neglected corners.
Igor was inside, crouched near a bed of violets, his broad back a silhouette against the dappled light filtering through the glass. His expression was unreadable, hidden in the shadows. He wasn’t the Lennoxes’ attack dog or bodyguard—despite what the outside world may have assumed, despite his imposing physique and the rumors that clung to him like shadows. No, Igor had always been something else: someone shoved into a role too brutal for the quiet way he moved, the thoughtful way he handled things when no one was watching. His broad hands, calloused and scarred, hovered over the delicate blossoms, as if they could bruise under his touch, as if he was afraid to break something so fragile and innocent.
Gene stood just inside the doorway and watched him, her presence unnoticed at first. The light cast long shadows across her face, obscuring her expression. He looked… fragile. Not physically—his build was still intimidating, powerful, a testament to years of training and forced obedience—but mentally, emotionally. The air around him was tense, like something tightly wound was beginning to fray, the gears of his controlled existence grinding against each other. She sensed the turmoil within him, the ghosts of the past clawing at his mind.
“Don't stop on my account,” she said, softly but clearly, her voice cutting through the humid silence like a knife.
Igor turned slowly, his movement smooth enough to suggest he wasn't startled, yet hesitant enough to hint at uncertainty. He resembled a predator surprised in its lair, like a wolf interrupted in its den. His crimson eyes took a moment to locate her in the dim light. Recognition gradually crossed his face, flickering like a dying ember. "You shouldn’t be here." His voice was low and gravelly, a sound rarely used.
She stepped inside, shrugging off his concern. "Neither should you. You're glitching." The air hung heavy with implication, with unspoken understanding.
He blinked. Confused, but not combative. His hands held
“You’ve been… off,” she said, her tone low but steady, laced with a concern she rarely allowed herself to show. “Wandering, blanking out. Forgetting what day it is. Cracks are showing, Igor. Cracks in the facade they designed."
His gaze dropped to the floor, to the worn flagstones beneath his feet, shame crawling across his features like a stain spreading across a pristine cloth. He knew she saw it; he couldn't hide from her. "I’m fine." The words were a mumbled denial.
“No, you’re not.” She approached him carefully, as one might approach a wounded animal, her movements slow and deliberate, ensuring him that she posed no threat. “You’re remembering things. Maybe not, only in flashes, but they’re slipping through. I’ve seen it before. I know the signs.”
He didn’t deny it. He didn’t speak at all, his jaw clenched, his body rigid with suppressed emotion. The silence stretched between them, broken only by the gentle rustling of leaves and the hum of the estate.
Gene knelt beside him, her voice barely more than a breath. “I saw the video. I know what they made you do. I know what they made Tak do. You didn’t want to fight, Igor. I saw it in your eyes.”
The name struck like a blade, sharp and unforgiving. It elicited a noticeable flinch, a jolt that coursed through his body. The memory of that day was a nightmare, a constant torment that haunted his waking hours.
“They set you against each other like animals,” she continued, not harshly but truthfully, her words a painful balm on a festering wound. “You were both under control, puppets dancing on their strings, but there was still a part of you left in there. I saw it. The way you hesitated. The flicker of recognition in your eyes before… before it was too late.”
Igor’s hands clenched into fists, his knuckles white. “Shut up. I didn’t want to kill him,” he murmured, the words tasting like glass shards in his mouth, a confession he could no longer bear to hold inside. “But I did. I killed him.”
“I know.” All she could express was a simple acknowledgment of the burden he carried.
A long silence stretched between them, dense with shared guilt, a testament to the nightmare they had both witnessed, the lives they had both damaged. Finally, Gene stood, her knees cracking slightly.
“I was supposed to observe, confirm, and handle it,” she said, her gaze fixed on the delicate flowers, her voice tight with suppressed anger. “Dispose or recondition. Jack’s orders, signed off by Harry. You were a problem to be solved, a loose end to be tied.”
Igor said nothing, his silence a heavy burden. But she saw the tremor in his shoulders, the barely perceptible flinch that betrayed the depth of his pain.
"I wanted to believe I could remain neutral," Gene continued, her voice tightening, the words tinged with the bitterness of self-reproach. "But I can't. Not after Maisie. Not after witnessing what this place has done to you, what they’ve turned you into."
He looked at her, his expression unreadable, a mask of stoicism that hid the shattered pieces of his soul. He had been a weapon for so long, a tool in their arsenal, that he had forgotten what it meant to be human.
She locked onto his gaze, her eyes fierce and unyielding, radiating a resolve that burned like an unquenchable fire. "I’m going to help you, Igor. Because you’re not the weapon they tried to mold. You're not beyond saving. And because… I think I owe someone that much. To you, to Tak, to everyone."
A beat passed, stretching into an eternity. He did not respond; the silence felt like a deafening roar. Yet, he did not push away or reject the outstretched hand, the offer of salvation between them.
-
Igor’s POV
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The violet petals were softer than he recalled, their delicate texture standing in contrast to the rough, calloused skin on his fingertips. He shouldn’t remember anything at all. Not about Mara, not her quiet strength as she moved among the potted plants, not the way she hummed low in her throat while tending the soil, a sound like a sleepy bee. He shouldn’t remember the sting of sunlight refracted through the dusty glass panes overhead when she lifted a heavy clay pot to water its roots, the light catching dust in the humid air. And not violets. Their specific shade of muted purple, the way the light caught the fine hairs on the stems, the faint, sweet scent – all of it should be a blank slate.
And yet, he did. Not like a clean, clear memory, something pulled from a neat archive in his mind. More like a glitch in the system—an echo ringing where no sound should exist, persistent and out of place. A color too vivid against the muted palette of his reality. A smell too familiar, stirring something dormant. A touch, like this brush against the petals, that felt like it belonged to someone else’s hands entirely, but bloomed a sharp, foreign ache in his chest, a phantom pain for a life he didn't possess.
His fingers twitched, an involuntary spasm he tried to suppress, as he reached forward again, deliberately brushing the petals once more, testing the sensation. His knuckles cracked, a sharp, dry sound in the quiet stillness of the greenhouse, the joints protesting some unseen tension.
Something was off. More fundamentally off than the intrusive, fragmented sensations.
The air felt thicker today. Heavier. Not the typical, pleasant weight of the greenhouse humidity, dense with the scent of damp earth and growing things. Not even the seasonal burden of pollen hangs in the air like a golden haze. It was a different kind of pressure—a distinct presence. Someone else occupied this space with him.
He didn’t need to turn around, didn’t need to rely on his enhanced senses, to know who it was. The air thrummed with a specific, familiar frequency that settled cold and certain in his gut.
Gene.
He heard her enter like a knife slipping into warm fruit—not loud, not abrupt, but quiet, smooth, and utterly definite. The heavy door creaked almost imperceptibly, then settled back into its frame with a soft thud that shouldn't have registered, but did.
“Don’t stop on my account,” she said. Her voice cut through the quiet, clear but somehow distant.
Her voice felt like it came from behind glass, slightly distorted, muffled. Or perhaps it was him, muted by an unfamiliar, translucent barrier that separated his awareness from the outside world.
He turned. Slowly. Intentionally. Each movement is measured carefully. No sharp, sudden gestures that might betray the tension coiled beneath his skin. The panes of the greenhouse windows directly behind her reflected slivers of her form, fractured images layered like pieces of a woman trying not to be seen, or perhaps, a woman who didn't want to be seen whole. She stood silhouetted against the bright sky outside, a dark shape against the light, making it impossible to read her expression. His crimson eyes pierced through her warm brown ones, creating an intense connection that felt both electric and unsettling.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said. His voice scraped out low and flat, deliberately devoid of inflection, more ragged breath than actual sound.
“Neither should you,” she answered immediately, her voice level. “You’re glitching.”
That word again. The clinical term for the terrifying unraveling he was experiencing was. The word they used to describe instability, malfunction.
His jaw tightened instinctively, a knot forming in his muscles. And as it did, something shifted beneath his fingernails. A sudden, sharp ache bloomed there. A prickling sensation, not of pain, not exactly, but a definite warning. A signal from his flesh.
Don’t show it. The silent command echoed in his skull. But he couldn’t stop it, couldn't halt whatever biological process was underway.
He reached for the chipped ceramic watering can nearby, a familiar, grounding action, intending to use it to cover the tremor that had started in his hands. Only then did he see his hands properly.
His nails had grown.
Not dramatically. Not into monstrous claws that scraped against the pot. But longer than they had been moments before, thicker, the keratin somehow denser, harder. A faint, unnatural glint shimmered beneath the skin, a pale, bone-like hue emerging from below the surface, as if a concealed threat were rising from hidden depths. His body was reacting before he was conscious of why. His instincts were overriding his programming.
The watering can clanged lightly as his shaking hand knocked it against the rim of a nearby clay pot, the sound echoing too loudly in the sudden silence.
Gene noticed. Of course, she did. She missed nothing.
She stepped closer, her boots making no sound on the packed earth floor of the greenhouse, her movements silent but certain. He could feel her eyes on his hands, the hands he now tried awkwardly to hide behind the rim of the watering can, gripping it perhaps too tightly.
“You’ve been… off,” she said. “Wandering, blanking out. Forgetting what day it is. Cracks are showing, Igor. Cracks in the facade they designed."
A jolt, sharp and violent, rocked him through his core.
Not memory. Not yet. It wasn't a recalled image, a sequence of events he could piece together.
But the impression of it saturated his senses. Like a scream muffled under deep water, distorted and terrifying. A burning heat in his throat, as if he'd swallowed fire or acid. A scraping sensation in his mouth, raw and metallic. Images flashed – not of chains necessarily, but the feeling of being bound, restrained. Or teeth. Sharp, tearing teeth. His own? Someone else's? The fragmented sensations were nauseating.
"I’m fine." He murmured, the lie feeling thick and clumsy on his tongue. He struggled for control, for the blankness that should be his default state.
But his hands were shaking uncontrollably now. The watering can rattled against the pot again, louder this time. And his nails didn’t retract; they felt fixed, foreign. He clenched his fists—hard, desperate to make them normal, until his knuckles cracked again and the bloom of blood threatened beneath the unnatural pressure on his palms. His body felt wrong, loose in its skin, betraying him at every turn.
Gene's voice softened further, a dangerous calm entering her tone. She was inching closer to something deeply buried, something explosive, and they both knew it. She wasn't just making accusations; she was peeling back layers he didn't know were there, or layers he'd been forced to build.
“No, you’re not.” She walked closer to him. “You’re remembering things. Maybe not, only in flashes, but they’re slipping through. I’ve seen it before. I know the signs. I saw the video. I know what they made you do. I know what they made Tak do. You didn’t want to fight, Igor. I saw it in your eyes.” That name.
That goddamn name. It landed like a physical blow, shattering the fragile control he was clinging to.
Tak Jagger. The image formed unbidden, sharp and clear despite the surrounding fog. Short. Slouched shoulders. A shock of unruly hair. Broken wings, poorly concealed beneath a patched jacket. Annoying, chatty, relentlessly kind in a way that didn’t make sense in the world they inhabited.
Igor hadn’t known him. Not really. They had been on opposing sides, soldiers in different armies. But he’d... he’d liked him. That was the part that hurt the most. That made absolutely no sense according to his programming, according to the purpose he was built.
He remembered the van. The cramped space, the tension, the shared, grim purpose that wasn't shared at all. He remembered the way Tak had looked at him—not with hatred, not with fear, but like they were equals stuck in the same impossible situation. Like they were in it together, even when they weren’t, even when one was predator and the other prey.
Then—flashes. Rapid, brutal.
His hand. Moving with impossible speed and strength. The sword he carried, suddenly heavy, foreign. A sickening crunch. A body falling. Tak’s body.
No. No, no, no. The denial was a desperate scream in his mind, trying to override the horrific images.
Gene kept speaking, her voice a steady current pulling him towards the jagged rocks of truth he wanted to avoid.
“They set you against each other like animals,” she continued, not harshly but truthfully, her words a painful balm on a festering wound. “You were both under control, puppets dancing on their strings, but there was still a part of you left in there. I saw it. The way you hesitated. The flicker of recognition in your eyes before… before it was too late.”
“Shut up. I didn’t want to kill him,” Igor hissed, the words expelled too fast, too raw. “But I did. I killed him.”
His voice cracked mid-syllable, jagged and exposed, a sound of splintering. The nails were still painfully long, still thick and hard against his palm. His skin suddenly felt too tight, stretched taut over bone and muscle that felt alien. The world swam out of focus for half a second, the edges blurring, the sounds distorting. His senses heightened uncontrollably; he could smell the faint metallic scent of ozone on Gene's clothes, the clean scent of her skin, and then, horrifyingly, the rapid, steady beat of her heart, a vulnerable rhythm only inches away.
“I know.” Her gaze was steady. And she hadn’t moved. Not a flinch, not a step backward, not even a shallowing of her breath at the obvious physical signs of his instability, of the monstrousness surfacing.
And that scared him more than the memories, more than the glitches, more than the terrifying images of Tak’s broken body.
Because she wasn’t treating him like a monster. She was treating him like a person in pain.
Not yet, anyway. And the absence of fear in her eyes was a terrifying judgment.
