He had to be here somewhere.

Faine chanted the thought again and again, nervous she might even start whispering it aloud and expose herself. With her back braced against the wall of the staircase, she kept her body tucked in tight, waiting to hear the first noise.

She'd hidden the Guard's body in a closet downstairs, but she couldn't be certain how long it would take for another to find him.

The gravity of the papers in her pocket nagged at her consciousness. No matter what happened, she would have them. Dead or alive, they would be on her body.

Faine caught herself praying that if she didn't succeed, someone would find them on her at the very least. Perhaps even Leighton, so he might know she wasn't insane. So he might remember her as a good person.

Those thoughts pooled like oily blotches in her stomach and made her eyes water.

No.

She wouldn't think about that.

Peeking out of the stairwell, Faine felt bitter relief at the sight of an older man standing toward the back of an open space. The floor on this level was stone, making the sparring match before her all the more brutal.

A stocky man with ink covering his arms growled at a younger girl who stood like a deer in the night. Her wide eyes and splayed hands looked completely unprepared for the man's advances.

She wouldn't go down without a fight. Faine watched, observing the way the girl gripped and shoved at him, kicking him so intensely in the shin that his leg buckled. She did her best not to wince when he took the girl down with him, grabbing her ankle.

Their scuffle was chaotic and short-lived. After all her bucking and yanking, the man threw her to the ground. Her head smacked on the stone, echoing softly.

Sickened, Faine pressed back into the doorway, attempting to control her breath. One wrong move and her cover would be blown.

The small moan that escaped the poor girl made Faine bristle, especially when the clapping began.

"Marvelous," Trace said, the approval in his voice disgustingly smug. "Well done."

Her skin crawled as she listened to the young girl whimpering on the floor. When Faine's eyes closed, visions of that taunting laugh still haunted her ears, plaguing her nightmares. A memory took shape, although murky.

"The point of this experiment, Ms. Reilica, is to unravel all that you know until there is nothing left... What makes a person? A series of memories and events. So what happens when you take them all away? Do you know?"

Faine's hands trembled, digging her nails into her palms in an attempt to snap out of it. She couldn't handle the sight of that glistening syringe or the taste of metal in the air. He'd been steadily pumping the room full of tiny particles of silver, slowly draining her for weeks.

She never had the stomach to ask Leighton what he'd endured.

"You're not a slave if you don't know who you are..."

Those words were vicious and cruel.

Her mouth went dry as she heard Trace begin walking towards the match. He was tsking to himself and when she peered again, the scientist was squatting down beside the poor thing. Blood and sweat covered her face, accenting her dull green eyes. They were vacant.

He sighed through his nose.

"It would be so much easier if you would just let go," he murmured, a disturbing lover's laugh slipping out. "Such bravery can be so foolish."

Dissolving into the shadows, Faine swirled through the shade in the room before settling behind a tapestry. She'd never been more disgusted when seeing the Mithlis emblem embroidered into fabric, flaunting the absolute mockery.

Trace stood to his full height again, glancing nonchalantly at the victor. "Would you discard her in the cell block? I'll be instructing my men to leave those within behind when we vacate Mt. Signet."

For the first time, Faine could see the man's glazed over eyes and shallow breath. As if he were no longer conscious despite his body. He grunted in response, grabbing the girl by her shirt and hoisting her into the air.

Silent tears dripped down the girl's face.

Broken.

Finally broken.

As this man wanted to do to all his prisoners. To destroy their minds until they were malleable, worthy of manipulation. He'd spent tireless hours in her cell at the compound, willing Faine to forget every beautiful and wretched thing until there was nothing left.

Broken.

Trace wanted her to succumb to the very emptiness those subjects had.

Defiance had kept her alive. Regardless of every wicked, demented act Trace performed, Faine managed to focus on what remained.

Clinging to each shattered piece until she could only remember one fragment.

Karras.

Leighton Karras collected those pieces from the wreckage.

In spite of his own trauma.

In spite of his own injuries.

He'd broken free and saved the few fragile shards of her remains.

Unbroken.

Faine knew these precious moments were meant to lead her here. Surviving the explosion, escaping with Leighton, and healing her mangled body. With minutes, perhaps seconds alone in this tainted room.

Her eyes narrowed in on the back of Trace's head, the salt and pepper graying. He was lost in his own world, scribbling on a pad of paper and muttering to himself as Faine slipped out from behind the tapestry, a deep growl loosely tied to her throat.

Step by step, she approached, rolling each foot from heel to ball in an attempt to mask her presence. She only needed a few more steps to have access to his head.

Faine counted two arms lengths, pausing when Trace moved to lift the page up. He didn't move though, only continued scrawling into his notes.

Another step followed.

Then another.

Faine could almost breathe down Trace's neck when the door swung open and the man she'd knocked unconscious stormed through.

"You!" he yelled, growling. "Intruder!"

Operating on instinct and adrenaline alone, she unleashed herself.

Trace whirled to face her just as Faine evaporated into smoke, launching herself at the guard. Red enveloped her vision as she appeared behind the guard and slammed her foot into his spine with every bit of dripped rage she felt. Before he could push up onto his feet, Faine tackled him, jamming her knee between his shoulder blades and gripping his hair hard enough to elicit a hiss.

She punched his head into the stones twice until she saw blood, releasing him only to find Trace backing away toward a wooden cabinet.

Only a few seconds had passed, so Faine used two of them to throw the doors shut and manifest in front of Trace again.

"You..." he stammered. "How did you get in here?"

Faine's teeth ground together, aching with fury. "You knew I survived, how long did you think it would take?"

She lunged for him and Trace dodged, rolling to the side and gripping the door to his cabinet. Even with superior speed, she was too slow to stop him from grabbing out one of the lengthy syringes she'd seen so many times.

Ice coated her veins, her knees betraying her.

"No..." she hissed. "Not again."

He smirked at her, ever so slightly.

"What did I tell you about the mind, Ms. Reilica?" he asked, taking a stance as if he intended to fight her. Trace held his arms with disarming casualty. "It is weak, it is sensitive, and it can always be broken."

No.

No, she would not endure this.

She would never know what those wretched chemicals did to her ever again.

"You're wrong," she said, her eyes narrowing.

Trace smirked. "Am I?"

Faine steeled herself in the face of her trauma, staring at the syringe. The burning sensation ached in her skin, coating her bones, and burned her from the inside out as she stood. Never again.

She would not be broken by this man.

She would never believe that the true essence of someone could be stolen. Erased. Even as the few memories she had ebbed and flowed.

"You thought you would be the death of me," Faine spat, her lips curling with disdain. The laugh escaping her was bitter with fury. "So you will know loss as I do."