Chapter 1
Volume II
Autopsy of a Monster
At first, he didn't feel the chains.
He didn't feel the cold, nor the dampness that had already seeped through his clothes and skin, nor the sharp pain pulsing in his temples like repeated blows of metal. He only felt the weight of his own body, as if someone had poured lead into his veins and then abandoned him at the bottom of a black ocean, without air and without light.
His breathing grew heavy before his eyes fully opened.
Darkness.
A filthy darkness. Living. Suffocating.
For several seconds, he remained motionless, unable to understand where he was or why every muscle in his body felt numb. A heavy smell of stagnant water, rust, and damp concrete invaded his nostrils so violently that his stomach tightened immediately.
Instinctively, he tried to lift his hand.
CLANG.
The metallic sound exploded through the silence around him, and Cassian flinched so hard that the chain struck the floor once again.
His eyes snapped fully open, and his gaze dropped instantly to his wrists.
Handcuffs.
Thick.
Industrial.
A heavy chain was attached to them, disappearing into the darkness to his right.
For a moment, his mind refused to process the image.
He simply stared at the cold metal wrapped around his skin, as if his brain were desperately searching for a logical explanation for something that had none.
Then panic began to rise.
Slowly.
He immediately shifted his body and tried to stand, but another metallic clatter tore through the silence. His breathing accelerated violently as his gaze darted toward his right leg.
And froze.
Another thick cuff encircled his ankle, its chain stretching across the wet floor toward a massive pipe protruding directly from the concrete wall. The restraints were secured with a metal locking system so solid that merely looking at it made his stomach twist.
Cassian squeezed his eyes shut as a sharp pain exploded through his head. His temples throbbed violently, and his thoughts came in fragments—broken, scattered, unclear.
The apartment.
The kitchen.
Elian.
The knife.
Then nothing.
Only a dark void.
He rested his head against the cold wall behind him and breathed heavily, trying to control the pounding of his heart, which had become almost painful.
— What the hell...? he muttered hoarsely.
His voice came out so weak that it was nearly swallowed by the echo of water dripping somewhere nearby.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
That monotonous sound drilled straight into his brain.
And then he heard it.
— You're awake...
The voice.
God.
That voice sent an instant shiver through his entire body.
Cassian jerked his gaze toward the darkness in front of him.
— Elian?
His voice immediately became sharper.
More frightened.
He forced his eyes to pierce the darkness.
— Love... where are you? What happened?
Never in his life had he been so afraid of the unknown, because something in the silence of that room told him this wasn't just about being kidnapped or attacked.
It was something worse.
Much worse.
— Elian? he repeated, and panic began to crack his voice.
He tried to stand again, but his body failed him immediately. His arms trembled, and his legs refused to fully support him. Every limb felt heavy and numb, as if his blood were flowing too slowly through his veins.
Then Elian slowly stepped out of the shadows.
Cassian froze.
For one second, all the air seemed to vanish from the room.
The weak light from the bulb gradually illuminated his face, and what Cassian saw left a violent hollow in his stomach.
Elian was pale.
Terribly pale.
His eyes—those golden eyes Cassian had loved from the very first moment he had seen them—were now red and swollen from crying, and his expression looked so devastated that something inside Cassian began to break.
It wasn't anger that frightened him.
Not coldness.
But the fact that Elian looked completely shattered.
— Elian... Cassian whispered.
His voice trembled despite himself.
— What's happening? Why am I chained up?
Elian swallowed hard before answering, and that simple gesture made Cassian's heart beat even faster.
— I'm sorry...
His voice was so quiet that it almost blended with the sound of dripping water.
— It's for your own good.
Cassian stared at him, unable to understand.
Elian grabbed a rusty metal chair nearby and slowly dragged it through the water. The harsh sound of metal scraping against wet concrete echoed throughout the room and instinctively made Cassian clench his jaw.
Elian placed the chair in front of him, still keeping his distance.
Far too much distance.
Then he slowly sat down.
Cassian stared at him, and the panic was beginning to climb from his chest straight into his throat.
— What did you do to me...? he asked quietly.
Elian lowered his gaze for several seconds, as if even speaking the truth was difficult.
— You have painkillers in your system combined with a mild anesthetic. That's why your limbs feel numb.
Cassian looked at him in shock.
— What...?
His breathing began to tremble.
— Elian... what's going on?
Elian slowly lifted his gaze to meet his.
And in that exact moment, Cassian felt real fear.
Because the man in front of him seemed torn in two.
One part of him wanted to come closer and hold him in his arms.
The other looked ready to burn the entire world down for something only he could see.
— I told you that I love you... Elian whispered.
His eyes never left Cassian's.
— And that I would burn entire cities for you...
His voice became lower.
Darker.
— That's what I'm doing now.
Cassian felt his stomach tighten violently.
— Elian...
Tears instantly welled up in his eyes.
— Love... you're scaring me...
The first tears slowly slid down his cheeks, and the sight of them destroyed Elian in an almost physical way.
Because he loved him.
God...
How deeply he loved him.
Cassian Ward was the only person for whom Elian would have sacrificed his own life without hesitating for a single second, and that was exactly why what he was about to do was killing him from the inside out.
Cassian Ward was the only person for whom Elian would have sacrificed his own life without hesitating for a single second, and that was exactly why what he was about to do was killing him slowly from the inside.
Elian closed his eyes for a few moments and took a deep breath before opening them again.
— I know...
His voice trembled slightly.
— But I'm going to make you better.
Cassian frowned immediately.
— Better...?
Elian reached for the file beside him and threw it at Cassian's feet.
The papers, photographs, and maps scattered across the wet floor in a grotesque chaos.
Cassian remained motionless for several seconds.
Then he slowly began pulling the file toward himself with his handcuffed hands.
And as he looked through the images, his breathing started to falter.
Victims.
Corpses.
Reports.
Old photographs.
And then... pictures of himself.
From childhood.
From adolescence.
Medical records.
Psychiatric evaluations.
Entire pages detailing episodes of dissociation and memory loss.
Cassian slowly lifted his gaze toward Elian.
His eyes were completely lost now.
— What is this...? he asked, almost voicelessly.
Elian felt his throat tighten so violently that for a moment he thought he could no longer breathe.
He slowly rose from the chair and began walking through the cold water until he was close enough for Cassian to see the tears shining in the dirty light of the bulb.
Elian stopped.
His breath trembled.
Then he looked directly into Cassian's eyes.
— Aime... it's you... he whispered.
And Cassian stared at him in horror.
— No...
His voice broke instantly.
— No, no, no...
He shook his head violently, and the chains rattled brutally around him. His gaze darted frantically across the photographs scattered on the floor, across those reports stained with truth and blood, as if he were desperately trying to find even a single piece of evidence that all of it was a lie.
— No... he whispered again.
His breathing became ragged.
His eyes were wide open now, filled with such genuine terror that it literally tore Elian apart inside.
— No... it's not me...
His voice began to rise.
To break.
— NO!
His scream exploded through the damp room and slammed against the concrete walls like a wounded beast.
Cassian yanked violently at the chains, the metal cutting deep into his skin, but he didn't even seem to feel the pain.
— ELIAN, NO! he shouted desperately.
— It's not me! God... it's not me!
Tears streamed uncontrollably down his cheeks now, and his body trembled so violently that it looked as though it might tear itself apart under the weight of its own panic.
— Please... please... don't look at me like that...
Elian remained motionless.
He watched him.
He watched him and felt something slowly dying inside him with every passing second, because the man in front of him wasn't lying.
Cassian was sincere.
Terrified.
Lost.
And that made everything infinitely more horrifying.
— I wouldn't... I wouldn't do that... Cassian whispered through his sobs.
— Not to you... never to you...
He brought his handcuffed hands to his head and began to cry uncontrollably, like a man who could feel his own mind slipping through his fingers.
— I don't remember... I don't remember anything...
His breath broke between words.
— Elian... tell me it isn't true... tell me I didn't do this...
And then he stopped.
Because he heard Elian crying.
It wasn't quiet.
It wasn't restrained.
It was the kind of crying that comes when a person has endured too much for too long and, at last, something inside them finally breaks.
Cassian immediately lifted his gaze.
And the sight destroyed him.
Elian had brought a hand to his mouth, desperately trying to stifle his sobs, but tears flowed uncontrollably down his cheeks. His shoulders shook violently, and his eyes...
Those golden eyes...
Were completely shattered.
Cassian looked at him as though he were seeing him for the first time.
Because he had never seen him so broken before, and the realization struck him brutally.
Elian didn't want to believe it.
Elian was suffering.
Elian was terrified.
Because of him.
— Love... Cassian whispered in a broken voice.
Elian immediately shook his head and began crying even harder.
— Alexander died right in front of me... he said between sobs. And all I could think about was that maybe I could still save you...
Cassian felt all the blood freeze in his veins.
— What...?
Elian suddenly lifted his head and looked at him.
Tears continued to stream down his face.
— Don't you understand? he shouted, his voice breaking. Don't you understand that I still love you?!
Those words struck the room harder than any scream.
Cassian froze completely.
— After everything... after all the bodies... after all the blood... I still love you so much that it hurts to breathe!
Elian clenched his fists so tightly that his nails dug into his skin.
— And I hate that! God... how much I hate it...
His voice completely gave out on the last words.
Cassian stared at him without breathing.
Because there was no hatred in Elian's eyes.
Only love.
A love devastated.
Destroyed.
Driven to the edge of madness.
And that was exactly what made Cassian begin to shake even harder.
— If... if it's true... he whispered with difficulty, then kill me...
Elian froze instantly.
Cassian looked at him through his tears.
Completely broken.
— If I did all those things... if that monster is me... then kill me before I hurt you too...
A painful sound escaped Elian through his sobs, and he immediately turned his head away.
He couldn't.
He couldn't even conceive of the idea.
Because no matter what Aime was...
No matter how many people had died...
Cassian was still the man he loved with all his heart.
