I didn't move until long after the instructor left.
He exited the room like it was just another day, tucking in his shirt, adjusting his collar, checking something on the tablet he carried like it was a performance review and not a record of abuse.
I stood in the shadows just beyond the corner of the observation hallway, silent, still, watching him disappear down the corridor without a second glance.
The second he was gone, I moved.
The lock was still warm when I pressed my thumb against it. The scanner blinked green. The door hissed open.
He hadn't moved.
Nine still lay where the man had left him, limbs tucked inward, back curved, skin bare and flushed. His hair was matted where it stuck to the floor, the white strands clinging to dampness that hadn't been there before.
He didn't look up when I entered.
Didn't flinch.
Didn't speak.
My chest burned.
"Hey," I said softly, kneeling beside him.
No answer.
I reached out slowly, brushing his hair back from his face. His eyes opened just slightly.
Recognition flickered.
Not surprise.
Not relief.
Just the barest acknowledgment that I was someone familiar.
"I'm here," I whispered. "I've got you now."
He blinked. Once. Then again.
Still no words.
But he didn't pull away.
I grabbed a cloth from the storage shelf on the wall and dampened it at the sink. The water ran too cold. Of course it did.
I returned to him and paused. "I'm going to clean you up, okay?"
Still silence.
But no resistance.
I worked gently, wiping the bruises, the sweat, the filth left behind by someone who had no right to touch him. He didn't react much, but his breathing slowed. Calmed.
Each wipe felt like erasing something that had been carved into him. Each pass over his skin made my hands burn—not from heat, but from helpless rage.
I tried not to think about how still he was. How practiced. How he never asked why, never once questioned whether he should be tended to like this. He just accepted it.
Like he thought he didn't deserve better.
When I was done, I helped him to his feet. He was light. Too light.
He leaned into me, barely standing on his own.
I guided him to the narrow cot in the corner. It hadn't been used much. Most of the time he knelt through the sessions, like a display.
Tonight, I made him lie down.
I pulled the blanket up over his bare shoulders, then sat beside him.
He turned his face toward me.
And for the first time since I entered, he spoke.
"Did I do good?"
My throat closed.
I couldn't lie.
I couldn't tell him he'd done well. That what had happened was acceptable.
So I reached out and touched his cheek.
And I said, very softly, "You didn't deserve that."
His eyes fluttered shut.
And this time, when he breathed, it sounded almost like sleep.
I stayed with him long after that.
Long enough for the room to dim, for the lights to shift into their soft, artificial twilight. The kind they used when the hybrids were meant to "rest." Though rest was a generous word.
He didn't move much.
He'd shifted once, just slightly, curling in tighter beneath the blanket. His hand had brushed mine as he did, the smallest touch. I hadn't pulled away.
He trusts you, Nyx whispered, quiet now. Her earlier fury had simmered into something lower, deeper, more dangerous.
He thinks you're safety.
I looked at him.
His lashes fanned pale against bruised skin. His hair fell soft across his forehead. There was something too still about him, too quiet—like even in sleep he was afraid to take up space.
I hated them.
Every last one of them who had laid a hand on him.
Every last one who had smiled while breaking him.
I had seen the footage. I had watched them train him to obey. To smile. To say please.
But this—this was not just programming. This was erasure masquerading as precision. A calculated, cruel stripping down of anything resembling identity.
He wasn't losing himself—he'd never been given the chance to have a self.
They hadn't trained him to serve.
They'd engineered him to submit.
Piece by piece, he was becoming exactly what they'd manufactured: a silent, beautiful thing meant to be used and discarded.
Not anymore, I thought. Not if I can help it.
I leaned forward slightly, brushing a strand of hair from his cheek.
His eyes didn't open. But he shifted just enough that his head moved closer to my hand.
That was all the permission I needed.
I stayed until the next shift change.
Until I knew no one would come in and drag him from the bed again.
When I finally stood, my knees cracked. My body ached.
But I didn't care.
I tucked the blanket tighter around him and moved silently to the door.
Before I left, I looked back one last time.
He was still there.
Breathing.
Whole.
Mine.
And one day, I'd make sure every scar they gave him was repaid in full.