It had been a long time since Hayden Upchurch had felt this lonely. Sure, he'd been alone plenty of times, but being alone and being lonely are two very different things. The last time he had felt this way, he'd been sitting on the edge of a bridge, asking himself the no-longer-hypothetical question of whether it was better to die or be unwound.
Almost a year later, stuck in the cave as the captive of a psychopath, he still didn't know the answer.
He missed Connor. He missed Risa, even Lev, who he'd only met in passing but had heard so much about, and he would never stop missing his ComBom team, but god, he missed Connor Lassiter.
As far as he knew, he wasn't exactly in love with the other boy, not that that would've been so bad. Hayden wasn't entirely sure he had ever felt love, at least not the way people described it. It just didn't seem to be a part of him. But he couldn't deny that he needed Connor to keep him sane.
The first time he met Connor, he had him pegged as the kind of suicidal asshole who picked fights for the fun of it and would be dead within a week. Probably get the rest of them found out while he was at it. He had been so very wrong. Connor had a drive to live that was stronger than anything Hayden had ever seen. And somehow that will to keep going had infected Hayden, had filled an empty space inside of him that was far too used to being empty.
Hayden had let himself grow cold after his parents signed the unwind order. After all, if you couldn't trust the people who were supposed to love you most in the world, who could you trust? A permanent smirk and a snarky reply for every occasion kept everyone from noticing anything was wrong, but although it was fun as defense mechanisms go, there was no warmth to it. Behind that wall he was a shell, hollow all the way through. Once your parents had treated you like a piece of furniture, to be fought over and then disposed of when they couldn't agree, it was hard to care about much. Sometimes, he was surprised he had even cared enough to escape.
He cared now. He wanted to keep on living, and not only that but he wanted to keep everyone else alive and whole. He had met so many kids who needed so desperately to be saved, and he would do everything in his power to save them. Every time he failed, it broke his heart, but he wouldn't stop fighting.
Hayden Upchurch had turned himself to ice to keep from breaking. Then Connor came, and with his hatred and his hurt he brought fire. And through that fire had melted Hayden, it had also made him stronger.
He missed that fire.