POV: Cyrus / LOCATION: [classified]

Laryngeal trauma.

A minor setback is what it is. I felt fine after our slight mishap, yet I was hauled away when I started coughing out blood.

At that dreary hospital ward where I have become a familiar face, the doctors immediately honed in on the bruising around my neck. They pushed onto me a barrage of questions to which I responded with stubborn silence. Ultimately, they gave up and sent me back to my cell with three things: a diagnosis, a bandage over the swelling, and extra guards to monitor me in case I finished what they assumed I had begun.

It was fine though. This abnormal grating in my ears would go away eventually. This wad of barbs will disintegrate if I paid it no heed, even if it felt like I was pulling an organ whenever I coughed.

But I am fine. I'm still alive, after all.

Presently, I sit on the floor of my cell, my head pressed against the cold cement wall as I hopelessly recomposed myself. If the detective is to return, I cannot have him see me in this miserable state. I can't stand the way he regarded me… as if I was a street urchin begging for any scrap of food.

There is no objective way to tell time in this place, yet my internal clock tells me that it's around evening when I have a visitor. Rather late for an interrogation, isn't it? I doubt the detective is back from his mission; and after her little temper tantrum, I don't think Cynthia will be needing me any time soon. I hope not.

Could it be Ju—No. No, I specifically requested that none of them can visit me. The last thing I want is them to see me like this… for them to remember this as who I am. They no longer need to be associated with a criminal.

Since I have not yet regained the strength to walk on my own, I have to rely on the guards for support. Shameful. If I was born in a better body, I wouldn't be so damn useless.

These days (or months?) the interrogation room has become my second home aside from my cell. Galactic HQ had been decimated by that sloppy Draco Meteor attack. And now with Charon in charge, my former home is stripped of any connotations of warm familiarity.

Why, if that bastard dares to show his face around me…

"Well well. If it isn't the madman who terrorized Sinnoh."

I digress. Violence was never my modus operandi. I will instead make this traitor suffer until he falls at my feet begging for mercy.

"You've earned quite a reputation for yourself," Charon purrs in his scraping, oily voice. "As I've recalled, you drew the schematics for the Galactic Bombs."

"Yes, I did," I reply coolly. "As I've recalled, you stole my blueprints."

"Speak up, boy, or would you rather be talking with the ghosts in your head in a padded room?"

"You sordid rat."

But Charon merely continues leering at me as if my words failed to reach his ears. Then I notice how heavy my breathing has become. Irregular. My voice crawls out as snippets of brittle whispers.

Charon then sees the bandage around my neck, prompting his unsavory grin to stretch to monstrous proportions.

"Hard to believe you're only 27, yet you've already mounted your bucket. What stopped you from kicking it?"

I mutter something so fiendish that if Jupiter heard me, she'd shove a bar of soap down my throat.

"Not that I blame you. Losing everything to some spoiled child who can't control her temper truly hurts one's pride. It's just a shame that I wasn't invited to pull the plug for you."

Blood frothing behind my teeth, I unleash a warped smirk with the proclamation: "I'll drag you down to hell with me."

Now he hears me, as his face contorts with repulsion. Good. You'd best do well to remember me as the last person you see before you die and the first to greet you when you awake in Hades.

"What a rotten brat," Charon hisses. "I pity the fools who raised you. All that time and effort gone to utter waste."

At that seemingly casual statement, I stiffen. Did Charon know—no. No, of course not. He's just talking out of his arse. Trying to unnerve me.

"You sold out your team," I growl. "You took credit for a victory that didn't belong to you. Did you come back to gloat?"

"As much as I'd like to rub it in your pathetic face, I actually came for more… professional matters. Matters that could only be resolved with you, unfortunately."

I scowl as Charon slides presents some papers. Important documents from a mere glance. Highlighted clauses… A bolded preamble—

Ah. So that's how it is.

"I knew you were motivated only by greed!" I bark. "How dare you waltz in here with the delusion I will simply sign away my fortune to the likes of you…"

Charon sighs as if I'd just tattled on the sky for being blue. "Oh yes, I've forgotten how you insist on signing everything with that stupid feather pen of yours. A childish attempt to be an adult. I brought another pen, and it'll serve you well if you learn to use it like a normal person."

As my hands are weighed down my chains, I accept his pen with my teeth and snap that cheap thing in half. My final answer to his ridiculous demand.

"You think you're invincible," he says, more amused than irritated. "But you're only an impressionable urchin with a lofty dream. Adults like me know how to remain firmly grounded in reality. After all, adults like me know just how fragile you really are."

Then he slaps his palm on the table. Crack. A crack like a bomb going off. A crack from when those meteors cleaved my femur in half—

Another bashing of the hand. The meteors bashing into my clavicle, pushing bone deep into the organs it once protected—

"No, he's fine," Charon is saying. "Just a little episode. I would suggest a dosage of benzodiazepine after this."

Finally, that horrible paralysis leaves my body, and I shakily raise my head to meet Charon's smile, one full of teeth and malice.

"You're trembling like the last fragments of your dignity," he murmurs. "And you're perspiring quite heavily in a room with air ventilation. It's not healthy living with the pretense that you left that day psychologically unscarred."

And he smashes his fist in front of me. That horrible, horrible sound. That cracking. When she crushed my throat, it cracked just like that—

"So young, yet already broken." Charon makes a tsk-tsk click with his tongue. "If Jane sees you now, she'll do unto Cynthia what she had done to you."

At the mention of her name, the paralysis vanishes for rage to rush into its place. Sweet, sustainable, fatal rage.

"I forbid you from speaking her name!" There is no more pain in my throat. "Leave Jupiter out of this! This is between you and me, Charon!"

Charon exaggerates his gasp. "Oooh, scary. If you keep on struggling, your arms will practically fall off. Be a good little boy and listen to your doctor, all right?"

"Do not patronize me!"

"Ah, I'm afraid your voice cut out for a second there."

Then his eyes glint behind his red-tinted glasses, as if a dreadful idea has struck him. "You seem quite attached to your unfitting caretaker. Am I right to say that she's… precious to you?"

What?

No… N-No, I…

NO!

"Love is a meaningless emotion!" I blurt. "What do I care about her?"

Deep in the rational depths of my mind, I know that Charon is provoking me. Stoking the flames of the fire he'd set in my wretched heart. I know this, but I'm too deep in my fury to shut up.

"Really?" he says, leaning closer. "So you don't need Mars and Saturn and your pathetic Grunts? They were just tools for you to throw way. I know you, boy. You're exactly the type of person who can never trust others."

"Will you shut up?" I screech. "I don't care about any of them! They were just mindless fools who foolishly followed my every order! My minions of Team Galactic are all uniformly useless and incomplete! I don't need baggage in my perfect world!"

While I'm wheezing for air, Charon pats my head endearingly and dangles something into my swimming vision. Is that… a wheel? Buttons? When he presses one, my voice grates against the stereo—

And my blood runs cold. All that anger evaporates immediately, leaving a numb, gaping void in its place.

"Thank you, Cyrus." Charon triumphantly collects his unsigned contract. "Remember, I couldn't have done this without your help."

"Charon! Destroy that, now!"

"You know what they say: you only appreciate the things you have after they've been taken away. That's a lesson you'll learn the hard way, you good-for-nothing brat."

"CHARON!" I howl, lunging for that voice recorder in his hands. The guards are there in an instant, yanking me back, pinning my head to the table.

"Heh heh heh… The next time I see you will be our last. Now please enjoy your stay in solitary confinement while you regret ever crossing your elders. And remember: there are no such things as accidents."

"Damn you… DAMN YOU!"

I keep screaming Charon's name well after he departs. When backup finally arrives, my throat is already clogged with blood. With one final curse at my incredible stupidity, I inadvertently choke myself into unconsciousness.