Emryn heard the chaos. It was impossible not to. The screams and gunfire brought up harsh memories and she wanted to rip her ears off. Because deep down she knew the screams he heard belonged to Seth. His voice. His pain. They had always mirrored her own. A constant link created by the laboratories and their sick torture.

She curled into herself. Not again. She couldn't do this again.

Seth hadn’t escaped. They were both stuck here under the thumb of people or disregarded lives for the sake of science and desperation. She looked at her arms, no longer caked in blood but full of scars. Marks made by the new implants in her skin barely peeking from the surface. Even though she could not see it, she knew there was a matching set of lines on her spine. A gold that shimmered in the light. One could almost mistake it as beautiful.

They were going to die here.

Armed soldiers approached her cell, their boots clicking shading the hard ground, guns swaying at their backs. They didn’t so much as cast a glance at her as they found their positions near the cell door. Emryn was thrown off by the oddness of it. There weren’t normally so many people guarding her up close.

Only mere seconds passed before she knew why. Adnan Amin appeared in front of her, mocking her with his presence on the other side of the steel bars. He looked bored and impassive, his hard face cold as fallen hail. “I assume you had no knowledge of it.”

She didn’t ask what, it was obvious he meant whatever Seth had just done beyond the walls separating them, instead she narrowed her eyes. He didn’t deserve her voice.

The Supreme Commander sighed, one hand falling down his face. “I suppose conversation is beyond an experiment’s capabilities.”

She gave no reaction. She was too tired for one.

“Sir,” a voice called from the hall. “There are no more places left to put him.” Emryn’s nerves stood on end, waiting for what would be said next, anticipating what those words meant.

Adnan scowled then looked at her. She doesn’t know what he saw or what expression she wore, but the man’s face soured even more. “Bring him here for now,” he ordered, chin held up in disgust, “We’ll find a proper place later.” With that he left, his guards following close behind him.

Emryn heard the hall doors slam shut. It was only then she felt she could breathe. They were bringing Seth to her. A thousand possibilities filtered through her mind, both good and bad. Seth had been known as an escape artist, someone impossible to tie down, and now he would be close to her again and the possibility of getting out no longer felt delusional. She merely needed him to work with her. If he wanted to. The last time they saw each other she smashed his skull, and before that she had caused his capture and endangered his comrades after she first captured Kiarra, one of his loyalists, not long before. It was likely he hated her now. That thought put strain on her hope but she had nothing else.

The heavy hall doors were pushed open and Emryn shot to her feet. She heard groans and the rush of boots before Seth was dragged to her cell. His head was hanging low, blood coating his naked torso and lead bullets protruding from multiple places across his skin as it tried and failed to sew itself back together. Her stomach dropped at the sight, like claws were squeezing her gut and pulling her down. The last time she saw Seth this injured he had been lying on the floor with an unbeating heart and empty eyes, gold salice leaking from his arm.

Seth was roughly thrown into her cell with little care from the men that brought him. One muttered foul curses under his breath but stopped when he caught Emryn’s eye. She wanted to gut him like a pig and watch him bleed.

The bars were quickly closed again and Emryn wasted no time rushing over. Her hand delicately brushed over his warm skin, blood coating her fingertips wherever she touched. His face was scrunched in pain, eyes closed, but he never cried out. Even now he had a strength greater than any man she knew. “Seth,” she cried in a low voice. Her lip trembled when he didn’t respond. He was all she had left.

Emryn tore the fabric from her shirt and began wiping down his back. Her hand moved roughly against the bumps of bullets and flakes of dried blood, never stopping even when new blood started to seep from his wounds. She wiped again and again but there was no change. More blood kept coming, a mix of red and gold against his tan skin. She moved desperately. “Why aren’t you healing?” she whispered, voice cracking.

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Seth had been invincible, practically untouchable because of his healing, but it was no longer working.

Finally, Emryn stopped scrubbing, her cloth now too soiled. She went to tear another piece when a hand slipped around her wrist to stop her. She glanced down into those deep blue eyes and saw the pain of a soul crying out to her for help. But his lips still turned up in a grin. “I found you.” He sounded far away, trapped in his own high of pain and confusion.

She gently pulled him closer so his head rested in her lap and he laid on his side, then leaned down to press her forehead against his. “You always do.”

Seth’s eyes fluttered close, his face more relaxed than before, and his breathing steadily slowed. Emryn watched his sleeping form, relaxing a little herself, and marveled at the man. Her hand combed through his soft brown hair, either to distract herself or him, she couldn’t tell. But she knew once he woke again things would not get easier. His back was in tatters. She had a device fused to her neck. There was no telling if they had what it takes to break out of the lab, let alone their cell.

To top it off, they may have reunited but the trust had been broken. For that she blamed herself. But maybe she still had time to get her old friend back. The boy she once knew from cell 13. She reminded herself Seth hadn’t died then. And he wasn’t about to die now.

Emryn hooked her arms under his shoulders and began to pull him to the back of the cell, away from any prying eyes and scornful guards. Trails of blood were left behind on the concrete floor, acting as a map to the source, and Seth’s low moans drifted throughout the cell. Emryn brought her head down to his and shushed his cries of pain the best she could, whispering soothing words into his hair. When her back touched the wall she finally stopped and fell to the floor. Then she situated Seth in her lap once more to examine his back. Rough patches of metal protruded from his skin and, to her horror, watched as the wounds tried to seal around them. His body was having trouble registering the foreign objects. It was a similar story for her implants. But Seth’s healing was more advanced than hers. At this rate his skin would grow over the bullets.

“You have to pull them out.” Seth’s gruff voice spooked her. She glanced down at his tired face pressed against her thigh and lower stomach. He was barely lucid, could hardly move, and yet he still knew what needed to be done.

“It will hurt,” she warned.

His back rose with a haggard breath. “I’ll get used to it.” His eyes slowly closed but she knew he was still awake. She also knew she needed to act fast. There was no time to dwell on his pain.

Her fingers caught on to the first bullet and pried it from his flesh, the wound closing not a second later. Emryn repeatedly pulled and clawed at the metal until she couldn’t see anymore breaking the surface. Seth was breathing heavily and clinging to her leg with ironclad grip as he muffled his moans against her. Sweat dripped from his face. Emryn had tried to work quickly to minimize the torment but some pieces had fused into his muscles. It caused her to dig with her nails and tear through his skin. The sharp metal pieces sliced her fingertips and palms as she tightly gripped them. By the time she finished her hands were stained with blood, a mix of hers and his, and Seth had passed out.

It was only then she could relax. She felt his hands heal and watched as Seth’s body slowly moved with each breath. The sound of his heart rate coming down soothed her as she rested against the hard wall. She gently touched his skin, still warm from healing, and closed her eyes. Even though she knew it wasn’t the best idea to fall asleep here with Seth vulnerable in her lap and her own exhaustion taking over, the anxiety and worry from earlier had dissipated now that she could see Seth. He was alive and this time she could make sure he stayed that way.

Emryn slipped in and out of sleep, her dreams would come and go with it, but around the fourth time she woke she saw a bit of yellow by the bars of the door. Her eyes blinked into focus then squinted. Something had been placed by her cell.

She carefully moved Seth beside her, who was thankfully still out cold, and slowly creped to the bars. Laying on the ground were two rings of braided straw, one more torn and frayed than the other. She peaked through the bars into the hall. No guards were currently stationed there meaning they were likely in the middle of a rotation.

Emryn plucked one bracelet from the floor and examined it closer. Her eyes widened. It was her bracelet. The exact one Seth made her years ago from a sleeping mat. She had lost track of it through all the chaos of the past few weeks and nearly forgotten it. She glanced at the other.

The second was not as familiar but it mirrored hers like a second half. Her mind went back to the labs nearly eight years ago. To the bright eyed face of the young boy who took her tattered and ugly gift and called it beautiful. Then to the man she saw months ago in a clearing, who pulled it from his pocket like something to treasure. I never go anywhere without it.

Emryn turned to that same man sleeping by the wall, oblivious to her heart crying and laying soundless where she left him. Her eyes teared up as she placed their past around her wrist and held her old friend close once more.