A/N: Warning as the following can be mildly disturbing, graphic, or depressing.

When I finally come to, everything is quiet. The air is cold, and stale, with an eerie stillness that tells me I'm somewhere underground. I blink, my eyes adjusting to the dim light from the ceiling lights. It takes a second for the fog in my head to clear, for me to realize where I am.

A cell.

The walls are solid concrete, a single cot pressed against the far wall, and a metal door with no visible handle. There's no sign of Soren. My chest tightens at the thought of him, at the possibility that we've been separated. I try to move, but my body aches with the remnants of the tranquilizer, my wrists sore from the restraints they had on me.

A sense of isolation creeps in, but I shake it off, forcing myself to sit up. I need to focus. I need to think.

Where is Soren? What do they want with us? I feel the faint flicker of our bond, like a distant hum in the back of my mind, but it's weak, barely there.

Whatever they've done, they're trying to suppress our connection, trying to keep us from reaching each other.

I get to my feet, stumbling slightly as I approach the door. My hands press against the cold metal, searching for any weakness, any way to break through. But there's nothing. No lock, no keypad—nothing.

I back away, my heart pounding, frustration building. I try to call out through our link, 'Soren, can you hear me?'

But it's like shouting into a void. There's no answer. It feels empty. My heart sinks as I realize just how accustomed I've grown to accept Soren's presence. Even when we weren't in the same room, I could still sense him present with me.

Now, I feel disconnected. I can't even feel the warmth of the flame from within me. It's like cold water has been poured on me. I feel exposed and naked.

I take a deep breath, pushing down the rising panic. I assume I'd instantly know if he wasn't alive, but it's strange I cannot even feel his presence. I can't afford to lose it now. I have to stay calm and find a way out.

Suddenly, the door to my jail cell swings open. A man I have never seen before walks in silently. The temperature seems to drop as soon as he walks in and I find myself shrinking inwardly at his appearance. He stands and observes me. Behind him, another thin man hides behind his figure. He almost disappears when I glance at him as he hides behind his worn lab coat. He reminds me of a bookish scientist.

The imposing man before me appears to be in his early 40s, with an ageless, ethnically ambiguous face that's both striking and unnerving. His skin has a smooth, almost unnatural quality, the kind that makes you question whether he's ever seen the harshness of the sun or the strain of life. His sharp features—a straight nose, high cheekbones, and deep-set dark eyes—give him a calculated, cold appearance. But it's his gaze that sends chills down my spine: it's not hostile or cruel in an overt way, but detached, as if he's watching me more as an experiment than a human being.

He stands tall, with an unsettling stillness. Every movement he makes is deliberate, controlled. His clothes are simple but elegant, tailored to perfection—dark, clean lines that speak of someone who appreciates order and precision. His hair is jet black and slicked back with not a strand out of place. He wears gloves, a detail that only adds to the eerie sense that he's above the grime and mess of the experiments.

We seem to be in a staring match, neither of us breaking eye contact. For a moment, I wonder if his unmasked identity means I may not leave this place alive. Isn't that what movies show? Once the evil character is revealed, there is no way they are leaving their victim alone to tell officials their identity?

"What do you want?" I demand, my voice hoarse. My throat clenches tightly from dehydration.

He doesn't respond. Instead, he steps forward, and I brace myself, instinctively reaching for the Kindred flame inside me. But it's dim, too weak to summon any real power. I can feel it, just out of reach, like there's something blocking it.

"He's alive, for now," he says, his deep and loud voice seems to reverberate strongly in the cell. "But whether he stays that way depends on you."

A cold dread settles in my stomach. I am not sure if his threat is empty or not. He could be saying the same thing Soren.

My heart drops as I think about what Soren could be going through. They know he's an Enforcer and they are probably after all his knowledge. He has a lot more to lose.

The man steps closer, his presence suffocating, and I clench my fists, willing the flame to come. But it's no use. I'm too drained, too weakened by whatever they've done to us.

"I've been waiting for you," he murmurs as he grabs my chin forcefully. I try to break free as watches me carefully. However, his grip is so strong I can almost feel bruises starting to form.

My skin crawls as he says this.

He chuckles darkly to himself as he lets go. He turns on his heel and leaves, the door slamming shut behind him, leaving me alone with the other man. I take a shaky breath, trying to steady myself, but my mind is racing.

The Scientist looks at me silently as he scribbles into a small journal. He merely watches before heading out of the cell. I puzzle over his actions but decide to ignore it. I already prefer this meek man over the other creepy man.

___

Without any way to tell time, I find myself counting the days by their visits. The creepy man does not visit as often anymore. It is usually the Scientist. He calls him 'Specter' behind his back, and the name fits—he's like a ghost who looms in the background, unseen but always there. I also pick up the nickname and refers to him as 'Specter' in my mind, especially because I can't seem to sense him the way I should be able to. Though he's Kindred, something about him is different, as if he's cloaked his flame so deeply that it's hidden even from my sharp senses. It makes me uneasy. There's a distinct feeling that he's much more powerful than he lets on, and far more dangerous.

The Scientist, on the other hand, is a normal human. This fact was a little more surprising to me.

The days blend into each other, or maybe it's been weeks. I've lost track of time in this cold, sterile prison. My body feels sluggish, my mind foggy, as if there's a thick veil between me and my thoughts. They've been drugging me with my food—I can feel it.

In the beginning I was able to hold out on drinking or eating their food. When I started feeling the effects of dehydration and hunger, they upped their game and placed warm, gourmet meals at my door. I struggled to ignore the meals. This also showed me that they valued my life enough to keep me healthy.

Just as I was going to waste away, they hooked me up to a machine and force fed me. Whatever they're giving me, it's dulling everything inside, including my connection to Soren and my flame. I constantly feel weak and nauseous whenever they make me get up and move me to the other room.

Each time I refused to eat or drink, I would find myself waking up to the tubes running into my arms. One of them seemed like a clear IV bag for hydration. The other bag that was hooked up to my arm was a weird blue substance. I would usually try to rip it out of my veins, but my weak body betrays me.

Eventually, they moved me into a larger room, almost like a surgical room. The first time they brought me here, I tried to struggle but it was useless. They tied me onto the operating table.

The Scientist started coming in frequently to run tests. The Specter rarely spoke unless it was to give orders to the Scientist, his voice low and calm, never rising in pitch. His words carried an odd, oppressive weight. When he spoke, he gave concise instructions or asked unsettlingly specific questions about my progress. He was always focused on efficiency—results. He never smiled, never frowned, maintaining the same neutral expression no matter what experiment was being carried out on her.

It started with subtle things—small suggestions that wormed into my mind when I was too tired to fight. "Soren never told you the full truth," the creepy man would say, his voice oily, smooth, and insidious. "How do you know he hasn't betrayed you? How do you know he didn't hand you over to us?"

I'd push it out, refuse to believe it, but without my flame, without the bond, there's no way to know for sure. The doubt lingers, eating at the edges of my sanity.

The scientist pricked my arm for another blood sample today, as he always did. He barely spoke to me, just hummed as he works, making notes in his file.

"They're just using you, you know," he whispered, his breath hot against my ear. "Soren never cared about you. You were always just a tool, a means to an end."

I grit my teeth, ignoring the bile rising in my throat. "You don't know him," I say, my voice barely more than a rasp.

"Oh, but I do," he replied, a cruel laugh escaping his lips. "I know exactly who he is and what he's capable of. How do you think we caught you? He was supposed to protect you, and yet here you are—alone, abandoned."

His words stabbed into me, sharp and cruel. I try to block him out, but there's a part of me, the part that could no longer feel Soren, that wondered if he was right. If Soren had abandoned me, if he had... lied.

"He's hidden things from you, hasn't he? You always wondered why he held back. There's a reason for that, Rain. He never trusted you enough to tell you everything."

I would shake my head, but my resolve was cracking. The constant drugs, the isolation, the whispers—they're starting to take their toll. I couldn't tell what was real or not. Sometimes, I felt like I was hallucinating the words and their presence.

Whenever I wasn't on the operating table, I would reach for the flame inside me, but it was gone, smothered beneath the fog of whatever they're injecting into my veins. Without the flame, I truly felt alone and gone. I felt human and vulnerable. Once again, I didn't know how strong the flame and interconnected it was to my identity.

As they continued to pump liters of blood from me, I find myself letting go. I push myself into a safe box in my corner to disassociate from my surroundings. My mind and body became really good at separating, especially when they increase their drug trials.

They seemed to inject and wait for my reactions. Most of the time I felt a throbbing pain or a weird numbness. The Scientist would jot down his findings onto his tablet. They seemed to be driven by their obsession with unlocking the mysteries of the Kindred flame, trying to extract and manipulate it without killing me. That part was obvious.

I close my eyes, willing myself to remember Soren's face, his touch, his voice. I hold onto the memory of him, even if I can't feel him now. I think about my family and brothers, hoping they would know where I am and rescue me. But I knew nobody, except for Soren, knew where I was.

I was breaking.

He wouldn't abandon me. He wouldn't.

He couldn't. Right?

In my mind, he was invincible. There wasn't anyone like him and I felt like he could escape and survive everything. But there was a doubt. If he was so strong, then where was he?

I soon lost hope in any attempts of rescue. There was only myself and I could only rely on myself. The doubt remained, lurking in the corners of my mind, like a poison slowly spreading. I clung to the hope that I'll find a way out. That I'll make them pay for what they've done. Even if I had to do it on my own.

They've been experimenting on other Kindreds, but every one of their test subjects has died—until me. I only found that out by coincidence when the Scientist accidentally let it slip. He had started mumbling to himself, assuming I was too far in a haze to recall my surroundings.

When the numbness disappeared and the drugs were dispersed from my body, I finally felt whole. I finally sensed the flame returning to my body and giving me energy. I could literally see the color returning to my skin and veins. But the feeing was very short-lived. They intentionally waited for the flame to return before starting another trial. They started by trying to extract the flame from my body. They hooked me up to complex machines that drew the energy from my body, siphoning the power from my veins like blood.

   The pain was unbearable—a searing, burning sensation like I was being ripped apart from the inside. But, to their frustration, the flame didn't leave me. Instead, it fluctuated and warped, causing massive energy surges that nearly blow out their equipment. Each time they tried, it pushed my body to the limit, but I survived, my flame holding strong—much to their fascination.

Eventually, they were able to slowly siphon smaller vials of my flame. The Scientist's eyes would glow in fascination, the only time I see him perk up, when he would watch the flames dancing in the small test vials he extracted. I always wondered what they were doing with those. If they had been extracting the flame forcefully from other Kindreds, then they likely all perished. I wonder what they could do with the extracted material. My thoughts raced but I figure if they were perfecting their formulas, then it wouldn't be out of the question if they could artificially rekindle the flames in dead Kindreds using my blood. Why else would they use my blood?

I was just a shell and wanted the pain and exhaustion to stop. Every time I was at risk, they swiftly resuscitated and brought me back. And honestly, I missed the short, but quiet peace during those moments.

The Scientist would speak to himself and I would listen intently. I tried my best to remember his words as he would murmur his findings. I soon found out the ultimate goal of the scientists was to see if they could make me transfer the flame to another subject. They wanted to harness the flame and be able to control it. For if they could control the flame, then they could control the Kindreds. Our kind were stronger and given powers through the flame. Without the flame, they could be killed easily.

I also learned that they were the ones who manufactured the addictive drug that I saw at the club. The drug was created through the life flames of the experimented Kindred. It would eventually make them self-combust as they overdosed. The addiction was spreading as they continued to profit over them.

Then, they brought in other Kindreds, weakened or on the brink of death, and forced me into situations to try to save them. There were Kindred partners and singles. And it was horrifying. They would force me to transfer the flames to force pairings whether or not they were truly partners. If they were pairings, then they would force me to break their bond. I had only heard of the stories of forced pairings, but seeing them in real life, it tormented me. I was the one causing their pain. Their screams and smells haunted my dreams. I could feel their flames burned their mind and eventually snuffed out.

And I watched as most of them burned alive in front of me. They screamed to end their pain, but I couldn't. The smell and sight was something I could never forget. They would scream in pain as the Specter forced me to watch. This was the one time I saw the faintest of smiles on his face. It honestly chilled me. These weren't failures in his mind--these were success. He knew it was possible to transfer and manipulate their flames, even if they were dying.

Despite all the pain and torment, I was biding my time. There was still a small part within me waiting for a chance. I was waiting for a slip up. Maybe the staff forgot to tighten the restraints on me, or the Scientist left another surgical knife just within my sight. I was waiting for my body to lose the haze as they started manipulating the flames. I knew it was coming, for the flame was slowly growing in strength. I felt guilty and self-hatred but I was taking some of the experimental Kindred's flame into my own to slowly strengthen myself. Little by little, I could feel myself recover my sanity.