CHAPTER 5 - THE CRIPPLING WEIGHT OF MORALITY
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SUMMARY:
Ari's cold shower sucks. His life sucks. He's exhausted. He just wants to sleep. But he's been given a tempting opportunity that he can't ignore.
TRIGGER WARNINGS: Intended Sexual Assault; Harassment; Roofies.
HELPFUL SPOILER: Nothing extremely bad happens, but I think this could still be triggering for many readers. The attempted sexual assault/ harassment only takes up a small portion of the chapter, so I blocked that section in with horizontal lines. You can read the rest of the chapter and skip over that part if you'd prefer!
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Feeling mildly grateful that he was already nude, Ari hauled himself into the shower and incoherently swiped his wrist to start the flow of water, his vision unfocused. He remembered his newly updated code restrictions just a moment too late, however, and sucked in a surprised, shaky breath as the ice-cold liquid connected with his head and shoulders and trickled quickly across his body. "Son of a—" he growled, yanking on the handle as anger flared in his chest. But the handle remained locked to the far right, very decidedly in the section of "cold," so Ari slumped forward into the jetstream in resignation. He was so, so tired that he barely had the energy to sustain his fury. Slouching towards submission and numbness, he only managed to keep himself upright by pressing his hands against the dark tiled wall of the shower stall. His head drooped down in exhaustion, chin nearly touching chest, eyes closing.
In an attempt to fight back against his mental and physical drain, Ari made a genuine effort to see the bright side in that moment: the water—which was almost as cold as the frozen lake had been—actually hit the spot when it came to recovering from the sensation of being flash-fried. It was slowly cooling his electrically overheated body down from the outside in, and the frigidity felt great on his burned bits. But, as usual, his silver linings were wiped out by dark clouds: the rhythmic tapping of the water jets on his patchy, freshly flayed flesh felt horrific. Ari never thought he'd be upset that his shower had such superb water pressure, but here he was, mentally cursing that high PSI. Additionally, the cold H2O that soothed parts of him also made his bones and muscles ache even more than before. His whole body felt somehow simultaneously taut and formless, strained yet gelatinous. Every muscle felt like it was being squeezed by the hand of an uncaring, distracted toddler on steroids.
At least I'm not twitching anymore, Ari noted hazily. That was something, right?
It took a conscious effort to lower and roll his stiff shoulders back, but Ari did so and allowed his wings to unfold loosely in the wide expanse of the dark stall. Every muscle in his back screamed along his spine. He tilted his head to the side, trying to crack his neck but instead exposing more of the raw ring around his throat to the direct hits of the showerhead. It burned, but it was better than feeling numb. Gritting his teeth, Ari ignored the pain and stubbornly concentrated on the benefits of that awful shower. All of the damage of the day was being cleansed. He visualized any evidence of his wounds being spirited down the drain, leaving him behind intact and improved. Dried blood? Flaked away. Burned skin? Soothed and rehydrated. Leftover flecks of vomit, drool, and tear stains? Erased. The embarrassment of messing up a simple mission, misinterpreting a throttling, and crying on camera…?
Just another day, he thought once more, sighing through clenched teeth. He wanted to be mad that this was his life. He wanted to unleash the anger that so frequently boiled within—that had boiled over hours ago. But the energy just wasn't there. Frustration and hate remained, but they were thinly veiled by apathy, emptiness, and exhaustion.
Ari's arms were shaking and on the verge of collapse, so he pushed off from the wall, rocked back on his heels, and faced up into the rain—and immediately recoiled with a sharp hiss as the water drummed violently on the blisters at the front of his throat and the raw skin of his cheek. He contemplated ending the shower then and there but reminded himself that the pain was only temporary. All of those trashed bits of his body would heal, and heal even faster if he kept them clean, so Ari sluggishly picked up a washcloth, wetted it, swiped a bland bar of glycerin soap across it, and started to rub it in tight, jerky circles over his marred face.
It hurt like a bitch, and was made worse because Ari couldn't help but channel his residual frustration into his scrubbing. He wasn't gentle—he was irked. Tired and irked. On top of that, he was stubbornly committed to this course of action now and didn't know how to stop things once he'd started. He knew that aspect of his personality had screwed him over in the past and would undoubtedly do so again in the future, but he couldn't change it. So, he just focused on being efficient with his pent up fury, ignored the pained tears that started to build up in the eye above the shredded cheek, and tried to force his mind to wander to happier thoughts. Thoughts like…the ecstasy he anticipated from some imminent one-on-one time with Ivy. Thinking of that future made the present pain much better—made it feel almost like foreplay. Made him feel something.
Ari scrubbed harder.
He reached up to wash the helix of his blackened ear around the two little gold hoops, but he couldn't feel it. His fingers knew what they were touching, but that patch of ear was completely numb. Number than he was. Ignoring a new wave of irritation, Ari scrubbed it thoroughly anyway before moving on to the rest of his body. He scowled as the boring, unscented bar of soap lifted away bits of visible lake water grime. Sure wish I'd had time to go through decontamination, Ari thought sarcastically, hating all of the doctors who'd played a part in his day. Itex put such emphasis on reducing the risk of a contaminated facility, but no one seemed to care about protocol when it was torture time.
He moved on to his hair. Today, the standard shampoo made his scalp tingle in an abnormal and slightly worrisome way. He mused briefly about the extended effects of electrocution and wondered if he'd ever feel entirely normal again. Who cares? Get over it, he snapped at himself, moving on.
For the sake of personal presentation, Ari took the extra time to wash his wings with the same bland-ass soap. He hadn't cleaned them in a while, but he knew that the wings were much more impressive when the feathers were shiny and immaculate, even if it was a painstakingly slow process, required a surprising amount of dexterity, and always felt awful in the moment. Ari barely had the energy or coherence to take on the task, and he knew he did a crappy job as a result, but anything was better than nothing in this case. He anticipated an impending need to look like he had his shit together. This was a good little start. The feathers would take forever to dry properly, though. Ari found himself scowling again as he thought about the gigantic, carwash quality blow dryers in the main decontamination chamber. Sure would've been handy!
Although he tried to move quickly—partly in anticipation and partly to keep his mind from replaying that day's mistakes like a highlight reel—Ari still lost a little over an hour in the shower. Every action took him twice as long as it normally would have. Cleaning his wings alone took thirty minutes or so, and he couldn't even reach a good portion of the feathers near where the appendages connected to his back. Plus, every twist of his body pulled at some other part of him. He hadn't even realized that Ivy's attacks in the alley earlier had landed quite so hard, but he could feel bruising on his ribs from one of her well-placed kicks and some additional small aches elsewhere, like his nose and jaw. They were a joke in comparison to the rest of his pain, but knowing that she could actually hit hard enough to leave a mark kind of turned him on. It was a twisted mentality, and he knew it, but it pushed away some of the numbness. He started daydreaming about the delicious prospect of the immediate future once more, rinsed himself off, and swiped his wrist to end the freezing shower.
Toweling off sloppily, Ari dragged his body back to the sink and stared into the large mirror at his naked, disheveled, damp reflection. He looked like a goddamn mess—so many conspicuous injuries. Many of the noticeable ones had already begun to heal, but every inch was inflamed from his frustrated cleansing. He sighed. His cheek would likely mend overnight if he slept well enough, and all of the blisters and various small puncture wounds would vanish in a day or so. He'd overlooked the accidentally self-inflicted gouge at his throat before because it blended in with the sores and raw red skin, but it would close up soon too, along with the claw marks on his thigh. Assuming, of course, that nothing got infected.
His ear…he didn't know about that. The cartilage looked dead. Ari might have to cut the top third of it off—just like an ear-tipped, neutered, feral cat. He didn't love that idea for several valid and obvious reasons. Sighing again, he decided to just ignore the problem and try to hide the damage.
So, reluctantly, he combed his hair. Ari thought he looked his most daunting when he did nothing for his appearance, and he usually left his hair alone to take on its naturally untamed, wild form. It tended to twist and curl and stick up in all directions, and it made him look a little manic. Truly, the ideal. Today, however, had been an exception—he'd had his hair styled to make sense with the suit. The exceptions of the day would continue, he decided, because combing his hair straight made it just long enough on the sides to cover the burned chunk of his ear. In fact, the blackened skin appeared to be no more than a shadow under the ends of his smooth, damp locks. Counterintuitively, however, he left the little gold rings in place. Getting the piercings had been a brash and public act of rebellion, and if he took the earrings out now, their absence would be noticed.
"Idiot," he grumbled at himself, regretting that choice.
His mind wandered into dangerously pessimistic territory as he looked at himself and considered just how aggressively he'd stomped on his own reputation that day. He'd have to earn it back. He'd need to hide the physical reminders of his failings—from the others and from Ivy. Ari could dig out a turtleneck or something to cover up the seared rings around his throat and wrists, and all of the other injuries in between. Any pair of pants would cover his ankles and thigh scratches. Unfortunately, nothing could be done to hide his rug burn of a face, and as the inflammation faded and his skin cooled, it only served to highlight the thin white scar that cut across his eye socket. But the rest would have to be enough for now. He could get his shit together better in the morning.
As he pondered how best to hide himself, Ari made the tragically human mistake of really seeing his reflection in the mirror for just a bit too long. A familiar sense of distress and anxiety started to creep up from his stomach to his throat, temporarily squelching the apathy while visibly tinging his expression and darkening his eyes. Ari knew he was attractive by human standards, but something about him just looked off. Lesser. His muscles weren't bulky enough. He was too tall. His eye color was disconcerting, unnatural, and that scar—why didn't it heal? Ari just didn't look…universal, like the others. He didn't look seamless. He didn't blend in. They all looked strong and normal. Ari looked like he'd worked his whole life to seem functional and was barely passing. What was wrong with him? Why couldn't he look the way he should?
Because you've willingly offered your body to scientific pursuit! the dark part of his mind reminded him helpfully. Ari groaned, fighting the urge to hurl again as his eyes darkened further. He hated himself for parroting the rhetoric, even internally, and tore his gaze from the mirror.
He shuffled back towards the bedroom portion of his dorm, palms sliding along the walls for stability, and realized along the way that his wings were so strained and droopy and his posture was such a slouchy mess that the tips of his dark primaries were dragging across the cold tile floor. He should care, but he didn't—should try harder, but didn't want to. He didn't have the energy to fold his wings, and they needed to air out to dry anyway, so Ari just let them whisper across the ground. He made a small effort to straighten up a bit, but that was all he could manage. He'd put on a better facade when he left the room.
Ari headed for the closet but stopped up short when he noticed that his watch and cellphone, the latter of which he'd forgotten in his pocket when he'd discarded his pants, had been returned and placed casually on his bedside table. Did he overlook those items before, or had they only just been dumped while he was in the shower? Grumbling a little at the continued invasion of his nonexistent privacy, Ari put the watch on before any clothing and took a moment to unlock the phone and flip through it. As he did, a tiny, devious sneer tugged at the corner of his mouth, tugging the veil of indifference back with it.
Despite purchasing two news outlets and the collective footage of nearly a thousand Chicagoans just to erase any evidence of Ari's existence, ego, and mistakes, Itex had forgotten to wipe his phone. The selfie he'd taken with Ivy at the foot of the "L" was still there, as clear as day and as hilarious in retrospect as it had been in that moment. She looked deliciously vulnerable, sprawled, and broken on that pile of soiled street snow. Ari's expression in the photo was triumphant—he'd thought his day was over and had savored the success of a capture. He'd taken that picture to taunt her…and for clout amongst the others, of course.
So much for that, he thought, delight fading rapidly. Although the photo would certainly still rile up Ivy, he'd have to work his ass off to impress the others after the stupid broadcast loop of his treatment. He wanted to hope that the "educational cut" of his torture didn't include all of the clips of him crying and pleading…but Ari knew better than to hope.
A few quiet minutes later, Ari was dressed and ready to go. He had found a dark grey thermal undershirt with long sleeves and a mock neck high enough to effectively hide his burns. The shirt was meant for training and verged on being too tight for general comfort, but at the moment it kind of felt like duct tape, holding Ari together and forcing him to stand erect. Conveniently, it also had finished edge wing slits cut into the back. Although folding his wings in enough to slide them through the slits had sapped even more of his energy, letting them stay uncovered would help them dry faster. Ari tucked the shirt into fitted black jeans and threaded a black belt through the loops. Then he sank onto the edge of his bed to yank on a trusty pair of black combat boots and hoped he looked put together enough to be respected, or at the very least ignored.
But sitting down had been a mistake. He could just fall over sideways, and then he'd be in bed. He could sleep, and heal, and dream…about all of the memories he didn't have. About how shitty his life was. About all of the things he wanted. About how utterly empty he felt.
Get up! You can sleep when you're dead, dumbass! his brain hissed at him, clawing through his exhaustion. You've got a freak to visit. You've been waiting for this moment for weeks. Go show her your lovely bedside manner. With that thought and the reminder of his building desire for this exact opportunity, Ari hauled himself to his feet. He set off to find Ivy with a wobbly spring in his limping step and the same demented, scheming grin from earlier—it didn't reach his eyes. But with every step, he stood taller and straighter. With every step, his numbness started to fade into the background of anticipation. And he was so focused on carrying himself like he was functional that he'd left his dorm and nearly made it back to the elevator before realizing that he had no idea where the girl was being kept.
He hated that he had to ask, but he did it anyway. Voice? He prodded, trying to channel all of his frustration into his mental tone. You said they were moving her to a dorm to recover. Where? Ari half expected the Voice to decide to be "busy" again. Indeed, it remained silent for a painfully heavy beat before finally responding.
Twentieth floor. It sounded displeased, and the brevity of its response suggested reluctance. Ari didn't care, and his crazed grin returned as he called the elevator, entered it, swiped his wrist, and pressed the corresponding button. His depth perception had nearly returned, at least. What makes you think you'll have access to her room, Ari?
"Oh, I don't think I will," Ari replied in a devious and cocky tone, though he sounded a little hoarse in the small space of the elevator, his throat a little raspy. Probably a result of the vomiting. Either way, Ari wasn't stupid enough to think he'd have access, but that rarely slowed him down when he wanted something. The Voice didn't question him, and Ari was genuinely a bit surprised that it didn't take a jab at his ego or foolhardy behavior. Then again, it didn't tell him Ivy's room number either, so it obviously intended to make him work for his prize.
As the elevator descended, Ari sighed and indulged his exhaustion, slumping sideways against the wall. Although his blood boiled at the prospect of Ivy finally at his whims, he still could have just gone to bed. Even his mind might have let him sleep if he hadn't had such a frustrating day, but at this point, he desperately needed a release. He needed to feel powerful and in control and dominant. He needed to fill the empty pit inside himself. Visiting Ivy and using her the way he'd dreamed of for nearly a month would certainly make Ari feel better. He'd sleep better afterward, too. But he was still so goddamned tired. He needed more energy.
Ari pulled the pill bottle out of his pocket, eyed it. Contemplated.
Don't, the Voice interjected immediately, knowing. Ari, you have already far exceeded the recommended daily amount of—
Feeling resentful and vindictive—the Voice had abandoned him before, after all—Ari shook out a single pill and swallowed it. The effects weren't quite as intense or immediate as usual, but as the medication started to kick in, Ari did feel better. A little stronger, a bit more awake. Definitely more energetic. He straightened up a smidge, folded his wings halfway.
You are a foolish child, the Voice admonished, somehow sounding cold and frustrated in a way that didn't entirely make sense. Why did it care about his use of the meds?
"And you are a motherfucking dick. Stop telling me what I can and can't do," Ari hissed, enjoying the gleeful power-trip that he got from denying and snapping at the Voice, even though a deeply buried part of him agreed with it. His thoughts started to slip. He'd taken a pill an hour ahead of his timer earlier that day. It had been the right choice. But since then, he'd taken…well, he didn't quite know. Three or four? Four or five? He was only supposed to take one every six hours. Frowning, he looked at his watch. It had only been a little under eight hours since he'd prematurely popped a pill on Lakeshore Drive. He squelched it quickly, looking away from the watch, but he could almost hear a whisper inside himself saying "be smarter!" But then the elevator dinged, the doors opened, and Ari hobbled onto the floor that held his evening's entertainment.
The twentieth floor, like most of the housing floors, was divided into small offshooting suites, each of which contained a cluster of four rooms. Every room was a tiny double with narrow bunk beds, and every floor shared a single communal bathroom. Dividing the space like that didn't seem necessary to Ari, but it did allow for the greatest number of beds per square foot. And even though it felt vaguely like a cross between a labyrinth and a prison, the suites and the shared bathroom created a perverse sense of community. Suitemates tended to flock together in training sessions and at meals. Roommates were often assigned as partners. Sometimes floors were made up of whole flights or squadrons. And then there was Ari. He'd done his time on the main housing floors. He hated them. Living there was tedious, and he hadn't bonded any better with the others in that setting anyway.
Ari could admit, however, that if you wanted someone to have to look for you, living on housing was ideal. The halls were like a maze, especially if you didn't know which room number to hunt for. Ari heaved a frustrated sigh, weighing his options: he could ask the Voice for help again, or he could engage in a door-to-door pursuit. He was leaning toward the latter when a soft sound and the movement of white fabric caught his eye. It was the bottom edge of a white lab coat, swishing as its wearer quickly and quietly crossed an intersection up the hall. Ari smirked, starting in that direction and squaring his body more and more with every step. A whitecoat would only be on this floor to check on a fresh acquisition or to monitor a health defect—they generally avoided housing, and for good reason.
As anticipated, Ari turned that corner into a suite and found his favorite old whitecoat lurking outside one of the rooms, a clipboard-sized tablet resting across his arm. My luck is looking up, Ari mused, posturing. He leaned imposingly against the door frame, dark wings curving around him.
"Is she in there?" Ari rasped. The whitecoat apparently hadn't heard Ari approach and visibly jumped in surprise, shuffling to face the entrance to the suite.
The man's face relaxed as he realized who prowled by the door—it wasn't a group of suitemates looking to cause trouble. The man clearly didn't understand that Ari could be much, much worse. "Oh! Batchelder. They thought you'd turn up. If you're referring to the girl you brought in today, then yes."
Ari pressed on. "How is she?" He already knew she was stable thanks to the Voice (though he never understood how the Voice knew what it did), but wondered about her remaining value and if it would align with his long-term plans. Stable didn't necessarily imply functional. Of course, Ari truly did not give a shit about her health. He just needed to know for the sake of his future self-preservation. If she proved useless or damaged beyond repair, he might be due for another treatment sooner rather than later.
The doctor tilted his head and peered up at Ari's face over the tops of his browline glasses. "I see you didn't take kindly to electrocution." Ari choked down a snarl and felt rage rattling around inside himself again, winning out briefly over apathy and exhaustion. He took a quick, jerky lunge towards the man, who stepped away and threw up a flat palm in preemptive self-defense. Despite Ari's general distaste for the doctors, this one had never posed a problem or threat. He was ancient, probably one of the originals at this base, and had been phased out of projects and downgraded in positions over time. At this point, Ari thought they couldn't fire him because he knew fifty or so years of Itex's history, so they gave him menial tasks and waited for him to die.
Besides all that, this whitecoat didn't have the eerie, malicious expression that so many of the other doctors shared. He didn't look at you like he was already vivisecting you in his mind. In fact, Ari had always thought this man distinctly resembled a sloth—bleary eyes, docile expression. Easily intimidated, a little slow. The doctor certainly had nasty claws within his personality, but he didn't seem to default to using them in his old age.
"How is she?" Ari repeated with a growl, ignoring the electrocution jab, the embarrassed flush it brought to his cheeks, and the reminder it carried—that his treatment was most likely still being broadcast.
The whitecoat frowned, but he knew better than to push Ari's buttons and switched into sharing mode after a glance down at his tablet to review his notes. "In short, she's fine. Mildly concussed. Recovering quickly from hypothermia, though we encountered some additional comorbid issues, such as superficial frostbite. We think she's caught pneumonia as well, since her lungs are inflamed and many of the related symptoms are manifesting. Pneumonia is a common result of the combination of hypothermia and near-drowning, so it makes sense. Her wing was broken as well, as you know, but it was a clean break to the phalanges, and we've got it set. All in all, we're not worried, but her file is incomplete and lacks data on her healing factor. While we suspect that it's comparable to that of most of the recombinants, we're monitoring her closely to be sure her recovery is swift."
That same sense of queasiness from earlier bubbled up in Ari's chest again, accompanied by a very small sense of guilt. He quickly pushed it to the back of his mind, but not before he'd thought, At least I broke her wing effectively. Good to know I can still do some things right. He really had made a mess. "Is she awake?" Ari asked, throat dry and tight.
"Well," began the old man, looking up from his tablet and shifting uncomfortably. His eyebrows knit together, and he made harshly direct eye contact. "Not exactly. As you know, the human-lupine hybrids burn through sedatives very quickly. It seems her bodily response is comparable. We had trouble keeping her under…but when they realized you'd likely try and visit, it gave the others a good idea." Ari stared back at the man pointedly, waiting to hear this so-called "good idea." He was already wary, though. The doctor's speech had changed rapidly from "we's" to "they's," as if to distance himself from the plot. "Well, they've given her flunitrazepam, and it seems promising. I am here to monitor the initial effects."
Ari frowned. He recognized that word, flunitrazepam. He recalled hearing it tied to another word in a file—Rohypnol. As realization set in, he felt a weirdly contradictory sense of amusement and disgust that made his head rush. "Wait… You roofied her?" Ari questioned, snorting. Itex had access to every drug ever created. Itex also had the resources to manufacture any drug they might need in a pinch. Of all the things, a roofie? Ari thought for a second that it might've been a joke.
Tapping a few buttons on his tablet compulsively—he just opened, closed, and reopened the same page in a medical file—the whitecoat responded in a matter of fact tone: "Flunitrazepam is a very powerful benzodiazepine. It's about ten times more potent than Valium, and many countries use it as a precursor to anesthesia. Many others use it to treat severe insomnia. We need her to rest. And we don't want her to—" He stopped up short, and his eyes flicked over Ari with a combination of judgment and pity. "As you know, we intend to recruit her. That will be easier if she doesn't clearly remember what you're going to do to her."
Ari felt a burst of rage ignite inside him, only to be instantly doused by queasiness as the doctor's words sank in. The whitecoats had anticipated his desires but didn't care about Ivy enough to try and stop him—only enough to make her forget what Ari would do. That felt…weird. It felt gross. They had prepared her for him, made her a perfect little victim for the sake of his appeasement and her recruitment. Ari didn't think he liked the idea of playing along with this, and he was at least smart enough to question it—it felt like a trap. Were they setting him up to be reckless and ruin another good thing? Was this a ploy to get him to make another wrong move, just so they could make an example of him again? Or did they seriously place such little value on Ivy?
Then again…this also felt like a golden opportunity. Maybe the doctors realized that they'd been too hard on him earlier. Maybe they understood that he deserved better treatment, that he'd earned a reward for his hard work—despite his mistakes. Perhaps they'd finally decided to cut him a break. Ari desperately wanted to believe that, wanted to believe that he had value to them. Plus, he knew what he wanted from Ivy. He knew it wouldn't be entirely voluntary on her part—to start, at least—so this…assistance would save him a lot of work. Even though the whole thing felt fishy, felt like an obvious trap…well, who was Ari to look a gift horse in the mouth?
"The flunitrazepam hasn't quite kicked in entirely yet, but it should take hold any minute now," the doctor continued quietly, disapprovingly, as he tapped some additional buttons on his tablet and checked a live account of the girl's vitals. Ari reeled internally, barely hearing. "The dose we gave her ought to last roughly eight to twelve hours, and will render her nearly paralyzed. That should allow her body to direct all of its energy toward healing. When she wakes, she shouldn't remember anything. At that point, we will reassess her health and move forward accordingly. An intake interview will be conducted. If she's kept, she'll be assigned a roommate."
Why is he telling me this? Ari thought, uneasy. Is that my timetable? Eight to twelve hours? What do they think I'm going to do?
The doctor tapped the touchscreen of his tablet a few more times, noting changes in Ivy's vitals and comparing them to previous readouts. A handful of minutes passed in weighty silence, and Ari started to zone out, weighing the pros and cons of giving in to his overwhelming wants.
"And… Yes, she's out. You can go in now." The old man closed the open application on his pad, pushed his glasses higher up on the bridge of his nose. Ari stared at him, speechless, though his mind was racing. He knew what he wanted: control of Ivy, control of the situation, control of himself. In fact, those wants felt more like an imperative. Not a want, but a need. But he still couldn't shake the feeling that this might come back to bite him in the ass—that he should go back to bed and wait for a better opportunity. Ari didn't want to make a choice like this on the spot. He needed more time to figure out how to make this situation work for him and him alone. "Batchelder?" the doctor pressed, bowing his head curiously.
An obvious solution popped into Ari's mind, and he wheeled on the ancient man. "Update my access codes. I want to be able to open this door whenever the mood strikes." Not a request, a demand. If he could leave and think it through for a bit, maybe he'd come up with a clearer answer.
"Well, Batchelder, didn't you just hear me?" the doctor replied, tone patient. "There's a limited window for you to—I can't—"
Ari took another fast, unbalanced step forward, and the whitecoat withdrew, crashing back against the door to Ivy's room. Before the man could trip and fall, Ari grabbed him by the shirt collar and lifted him a few inches, just high enough that only his toes brushed the ground. It took all of Ari's drained strength, but the old man's alarmed expression was a satisfying justification.
"Update my codes," Ari repeated with a cold, throaty hiss, too distracted to come up with a better or more menacing threat. He flared his wings a little behind him, for the drama.
"Alright, alright," choked the whitecoat, wriggling. "Put me down, damnit!" Ari released him instantly, and he slid down the door, coughing and reaching up to straighten his collar and glasses. He grumbled something that sounded like "temperament of a toddler, the lot of you."
"What did you just say to me?" Ari growled. He didn't give even a hint of a shit about the doctor's remark, but toying with the man was helping clear his head.
"I said that I can't remove your new restrictions. Those are above my authorization level," the man covered. Ari nodded curtly, unsurprised that his new restrictions—no food until tomorrow, no hot water for a week—had been made public as well. "But…I'll update your room access as requested." Ari loomed over the doctor until he'd lifted his tablet, opened a different application, entered a security code, and then used the tablet to scan the keypad on the girl's door, followed by Ari's wrist key. The screen beeped with a green-tinted message, accepting the added code.
"Good," Ari murmured. "Now you're going to get the hell off this floor, and you're not going to come back until that roofie wears off. If I catch you back here sooner than eight hours from now, I'll help you work out an early retirement plan. Got it?" The doctor looked like he was contemplating laughing at Ari's behavior or ridiculous threat, but he didn't dare. Instead, he nodded, straightened his white coat, and shuffled away, out of the suite and down the hall, leaving Ari alone with his internal conflict.
Moments later, rowdy, mocking voices stirred as the elevator dinged and a group of suitemates arrived, passing the whitecoat in the hall and jeering. Ari had absolutely no desire to interact with anyone else at that moment, so he took a deep breath and decided to slip into the girl's dimly lit room if only to think more clearly in silence and privacy. His key worked perfectly, and he closed the door quietly behind himself, hoping not to attract any attention. Then he turned to look at Ivy's unmoving, petite form and froze, all of his conflict and coherent thoughts melting away.
The first thing Ari noticed was that she'd been left on her back. That was stupid. It was an uncomfortable position for a winged creature on a good day, let alone with a broken phalange or whatever. His wings, spread loosely behind and around him, ached at the concept. On top of that, her arms were extended up above her head. Who slept like that? That wasn't natural for anybody, Ari thought. But the thought slipped away as he surveyed the rest of her from the door, not quite ready to slip further into the near-dark of that room until his eyes adjusted. A thick looking, fleece-lined blanket covered her lower half loosely, but beneath that Ari could see that she'd been dressed in the flimsy paper-fabric T-shirt and pants that they gave to all new acquisitions. It didn't do much to hide her form. Her chest rose and fell languidly. Dim twilight light from the small slatted window on the adjacent wall reflected off of something, and Ari realized that a few sensor discs had been placed on her temporal and carotid pulse points, and a dull silver ring encircled her neck. He winced, his own throat aching a little more as he recognized the shock collar. He did not envy her that inevitable discovery. However, his pinch of pity was replaced by a different set of emotions as he inched closer to her. Her wrists had been bound in restraints and tied down into the specialized mattress, hence the awkwardly upraised arms.
You've got to be fucking kidding me, Ari thought, body locking up as his discomfort returned. They had tied her down, and he knew it was only for his benefit. There was no other legitimate reason to restrain her to that extent. They were making a point.
It felt wrong. It felt like a trap. A little voice in Ari's head was screaming at him to turn around and leave… But at the same time, looking at her like that made his body start to ache in a different way. It was a good ache, and it drowned out the physical pain and emotional detachment. She was a gift. For him. Those fabric restraint straps were like the bows on a pretty Christmas package.
Gnawing on the inside of his cheek and compulsively running a hand through his hair—instantly rumpling what he'd neatly combed—Ari stepped a bit closer and peered down at her face. It was bruised. From where he'd kicked her. But her eyes were shut, and her thick, dark lashes rested peacefully on the tops of her sharp cheekbones. Her skin, a lovely freckled cream, was flushed and irritated—probably the result of a pneumonia fever and an aggressive pass through decontamination—but at the moment, the pinkness kind of made her look more alive. It was better than the pale, frozen creature she'd become on the ride back from Navy Pier. Her mouth was open just a fraction, and her lips alone looked like a perfect appetizer. Her red-gold hair splayed around her head and under her raised arms, flaming like a halo on the thin pillow. She was majestic, despite Ari's destruction.
Ari felt that same demented smile tug at his lips, fail to meet his eyes once more. This was a golden opportunity. He would not waste it.
Moving slowly from a mix of achy body and distracted mind, Ari peeled back the fleece blanket and shoved it to the foot of the bed, revealing restraint straps around her ankles too. He didn't let himself question the restraints this time, but he didn't do anything about them either. He just decided to leave the girl strapped down until he was good and ready to be between her legs.
Ari swung one knee up and over Ivy's hips before lifting himself onto the bed above her. He scooted until his knees found a semi-comfortable position pressed against her sides and sat back slowly, resting his weight cautiously on her hip bones and taking in the enthralling view. It was a view he'd longed for for weeks. Strangely though, and for some reason he couldn't identify, this wasn't quite as satisfying as when he'd flipped her over in the alleyway earlier—that was a memory for the spank bank. Still, her body was warm underneath his, and she was unconscious. He could do anything he wanted. He had complete control. It was exactly what Ari needed.
For just a minute—one, peaceful minute—he sat still and watched her breathe. Despite his weight on her hips, Ivy's chest continued to steadily rise and fall, and her breathing looked so much better than it had in the van. As much as he refused to care about her, Ari found that improvement oddly reassuring. He tried to match his breath rate to hers. It worked for a bit, but the pattern was so soothing that he started to get sleepy again. Adrenaline and a building need made him move forward.
Ari spared a glance at his hands before pressing them against her sides. He just wanted to hold her, to confirm that she was tangible. He could feel her ribcage, but could also feel taut muscle stretched across her midsection through the thin paper-fabric that separated his fingers from her skin. Then he slid his hands up excruciatingly slowly, tracing the curves of her slender frame from waist to wrists, letting his torso dip down and lengthen to reach as far across her as possible, allowing his wings to fall forward, cloaking them both in heat and intensified darkness. Ari's body pressed against hers, and he didn't stifle his moan. It felt so good. He rolled his hips into hers and closed his eyes, thriving. All of his painful aches disbanded. All of his apathy started to fade. The emptiness gave way to an intense craving and heat in the pit of his stomach. He longed to feel close, to feel good.
But Ari wanted to draw this out, to really enjoy it. To make memories. He didn't know how many golden opportunities they would give him. So he pulled himself back, retracing her body in reverse, delighting in every paradoxical part of her that varied from soft and supple to firm and unyielding. She had a body like a pin-up girl, if said girl also spent the better part of her life eating dumpster scraps and bare-knuckle boxing. Ari wanted to see her better. He reached for the hem of her shirt and started to lift it. He pulled it up slowly, drinking in the view of her—the shadows and slopes. And then he froze.
She had an undocumented tattoo.
It was a delicate, twisting vine of ivy, drawn in a very minimalistic style with black ink. It made a gentle curve, hooking from her left side towards her sternum like an external rib, maybe an inch or two below her covered breast. Ari smirked at it, wondering what had prompted her to tattoo her namesake in such a hidden place. He would have to ask later. He dropped the hem of her shirt and instead redirected his hand to the tattoo, tracing it listlessly with his index finger and grinning wickedly when he saw goosebumps pop up around where he caressed.
Then, in true cliché jump-scare form, Ivy gasped, and her whole body quaked between Ari's legs. Her chest heaved forward beneath his hands, and she tried to sit up but was jerked back by her pinned wrists and fell heavily against the pillow, wincing. She must have squished her wings. Ari yelped in surprise, and his body locked up as his hand withdrew from her ribs of its own accord. His wings half-flapped once on instinct—he was genuinely shocked to discover that Ivy was not entirely unconscious. Ari watched her with an undoubtedly perplexed expression as she coughed, her head rolled to the side to meet her extended upper arm, and her eyes blearily focused on his.
Ari instantly began to feel queasy again, his head spinning. What poor timing! Now that she was conscious, the whole dynamic changed…didn't it? Even though he'd never been in this situation before, Ari understood the basics of Rohypnol. At least enough to know that despite her current consciousness, there was hardly any chance of her remembering anything, and absolutely no chance of her being able to fend him off, restrained or not. Even in his weakened state, Ari could just…tell. She wouldn't stand a chance. But it didn't matter—the drug probably just hadn't taken a complete hold of her yet. It would any time now. Ari could wait a few minutes, and she would undoubtedly pass out again (or he could knock her out and save everyone a little trouble). But as he stared into her eyes and recognized the shift in her expression from confused disorientation to genuine fear, Ari decided that he didn't want to wait. He was conflicted, but he thought that he'd actually like forcing her to experience this. Part of him wanted her to remember it, remember him—even if her memory would be colored by terror and faded by drugs. If she was semi-conscious, Ari could get everything he wanted and avoid playing a part in the whitecoats' plots. And God, the way she squirmed between his legs made everything feel so much better.
So, Ari chose to be a problem. "Good morning, sweetheart," he crooned. "Or, I guess, good night. How are you feeling? Happy to be back beneath me?" He watched with wicked delight as her eyes widened, and her respiration rate became more rapid—apprehension and understanding were setting in. Ari decided to make it worse by tracing her tattoo again and looking up at her through his lashes. "I like this," he teased, stroking the little vine and using his fingernail to outline each dainty ivy leaf. "What else are you hiding?" Ivy whimpered softly, eyes fluttering closed, and her hips bucked against his—she was trying to wriggle free. Ari groaned, his own eyes shutting in satisfaction at the feeling. When they reopened, he noticed her wrists jerking weakly, sloppily against the restraints. She'd never be able to break them, and it was honestly kind of funny and a little cute that she even tried. "Hmm," Ari hummed, leaning forward again and pressing his chest against the girl's, which seemed to be rising and falling at the speed of sound. "That's no fun, is it? How are you supposed to fight back without your hands?" He was taunting her, of course, but he found that he wanted her to try to resist him. He knew she couldn't, especially not right now, but he wanted her to try just so he could deny her that sense of control. He undid one buckle, then another. Then he waited for her to resist.
She didn't move.
So he decided to piss her off, or at least terrorize her a bit more. Her face was so close to his that he turned just a bit and dragged the tip of his nose teasingly across her cheek until their mouths were centimeters apart. Ari exhaled, letting his shaky breath brush across her lips as he rutted his hips forward a little more violently than before. That did the trick—her arms trembled and lifted. One of her hands landed on his shoulder. Another found soft purchase in his semi-combed hair, messing it up further.
"That's more like it. Fight back, Ivy," he commanded. Her hands were so small and weak. She had turned her head to the side, away from him, and her eyes were pressed closed. She coughed again, and Ari ignored how pitiful it sounded. When she finished, he ducked his head enough to be even with hers and went straight for her lips—the perfect appetizer—pulling her lower one into his mouth with his teeth.
Ari's heart was racing. It felt so good to have that much power, to feel her so close. Finally! She couldn't leave him.
He bit down on her lip just a little harder but released it with an amused laugh when she tried with all of her tranquilized might to yank his hair. He rocked his hips against hers again and switched his attention to her throat, ignoring her feeble attempt at hair pulling and dragging his teeth threateningly up from her exposed collarbone to the soft spot just beneath her jaw. His lips bumped into the tiny sensor disc suctioned over her carotid—no doubt the readings of her pulse would be hilariously wild right now.
Ivy whimpered and quaked and coughed again, the hand on his shoulder sliding up to his face to try and push him away. Her fingers connected with the raw skin of his cheek, and it burned, but Ari just chuckled and grabbed her hand, then snatched the other as it started to slip out of his hair. He shifted them around until he had a good grip on her wrists before slamming them roughly back onto the mattress above her head. Restraining her himself was a way bigger turn on.
She mewled again in response, and Ari felt the warm ache building below his belt, pushing back the apathy. He returned his attention to her jaw, which he outlined with his tongue. Slow down, he thought. Make memories. So he changed pace entirely and shifted both of her wrists into just one of his hands. With his newly freed hand, he cupped her cheek the same way he had earlier that day in the van, forced her chin in the correct direction, hesitated briefly, and then pressed his lips to hers for a kiss. He wasn't gentle, but her mouth was warm, and her lips were as soft and smooth as two tiny silk pillows. Ari held her in place and sank into that kiss, drinking it in like water at the end of a week spent in a desert. Her cheeks made him feel like he was in the desert, actually—she definitely had a fever, but he didn't care. A shiver raced up his spine, creating a chain reaction of goosebumps. She tasted so good, and though her mouth was unmoving and her jaw was locked shut, he could easily pretend she was kissing him back. He wanted it to be real.
Ari groaned, pressing into her. Her hands shook in his clutch, trying to tug free. Ari needed more. He rocked against her, stifling her panicked cries with his mouth. More, his body demanded, in complete contradiction with his mind as the latter repeated, Slow down. Ari pulled away, panting for air. He'd forgotten to breathe during that kiss, but as he inhaled, he could actually smell the fear in her sweat and it made him hornier. He hated himself for feeling that way, but he ignored the hate and let go of her wrists to lean back, stroking the side of her face with his knuckles as he withdrew. He dragged his hand all the way back down the centerline of her body to the hem of her shirt. Then past it. Then up to his belt. The ache was demanding. The apathy was nearly gone. Ari fumbled with the belt, but managed to unbuckle it. He undid the button and unzipped the zipper. Ivy whined in dread, aware of what would follow, and her whole body trembled beneath his. Ari couldn't stop. He was just so bad at stopping something once he'd started. He knew that personality trait would screw him over again. Just knew it. But he was committed.
He'd have to stand up to remove his pants—hers too—and to undo the ankle restraints, but her shirt…that could leave now. Ari reached for the hem again, pulled it up a little further, and then froze as Ivy's hands fluttered forward. One hand, like a little white dove, crash-landed on his thigh, holding him back. The other landed on top of his hands, right where he gripped the thin fabric of her T-shirt. It was pleading. Ari was still panting, and his body and mind and the numbness that lurked and everything else within were begging him not to slow down now, but he paused. And in that quiet pause, Ivy spoke.
"Please, stop." It came out as more of a breathy, choked whisper, followed by a short, deep cough, but the words were as sharp and clear to Ari as a needle point knife to the heart.
He'd said the same thing just a few hours ago, in the same tone, in the midst of his treatment.
He remained motionless, but his eyes darted up to Ivy's face. It was contorted in panic. Tears were leaking from her eyes, getting caught in her long lashes where they glistened before drizzling down across her cheeks. The raw patch of Ari's face started to sting more as he thought about his own tears from earlier too. "Please," she sniffled. "Don't."
Ari couldn't move. He felt tethered to her, tied to her at the hips and wherever her hands connected with his body. He couldn't look away from her either, so he watched silently, open-mouthed and utterly lost, as her tears eventually stopped. Her face relaxed and smoothed into a beautiful, damp mask. Her hair clung to her clammy skin. She passed out again.
Only when her eyes closed could Ari tear his gaze away to look back down at their hands. Her fingers were splayed across the inside of his thigh or wrapped loosely around his fists—but Ari stared at them, unseeing. He braced himself for queasiness, but instead, he just felt…numb. Numb and…confused.
Ari had begged the doctors to stop hurting him. He had screamed and cried and begged, but they'd just ignored him and continued. Why couldn't Ari do the same?
Feeling a burst of hate-filled frustration, Ari abruptly flicked Ivy's hand away from where it sat stacked on his. Then he immediately felt a pang of guilt as her whole arm flopped to the right, bounced, and dangled off the small mattress. He looked down at the little hand that remained on his thigh and decided he wasn't ready to move it. He just stared at it, stared at how tiny it looked resting on the dense muscle of his leg, noted how close it was to the loose buckle of his belt. Compulsively, Ari lifted his own hands up to look at them, maybe to compare them to hers, but was horrified to find that they were trembling.
Not just trembling, but full-on shaking—it spread to his forearms as he watched. Ari gasped, balling his hands into painfully tight fists and pressing them to his chest to stop the quivering. It didn't work. He hunched over, curving in on himself and squeezing his eyes shut. He tried to breathe evenly. He counted to ten. He reopened his eyes and peered at his hands again—they were still shaking. It didn't stop. He examined them, fingers extending and curling shut repeatedly as he grew more and more confused. "What's happening to me?" he muttered, unable to ignore how still Ivy's hand looked in comparison now. Ari felt panic and anxiety creeping back in as his heart rate elevated and his breathing started to falter. Was this shaking another strange side effect of prolonged electrocution? Was he having a panic attack?
It seems you are experiencing the crippling weight of morality, the Voice piped in tonelessly, like that was helpful or reassuring. Either that or you've overdosed on your medication.
Ari was too confused and panicked to address the Voice's sarcasm. "Morality… Why?" he questioned, trying hard to focus on breathing in through his nose, out through his mouth.
Why? the Voice parroted with a drawl, drawing attention to the stupidity of such an open-ended question.
"Why is this happening?" Ari was trying like crazy to control his speech, to keep it from cracking under stress or turning into a scream with irritation. He looked again from his shivering fingers to Ivy's delicate hand on his thigh. He traced the line from her hand to her peaceful face with his eyes and realized that every ounce of pleasure and passion and need he'd just felt had been completely and totally obliterated. He felt empty and achy and broken. All of his pain seeped right back in, filling him up. Every inch of him was sore and fatigued—except for his mind. His mind was just numb. "Why is this happening to me?" he pressed, and this time his voice did crack, pitch squeaking a little.
Truth be told, I have no idea. Perhaps you're remembering, the Voice replied, somehow sounding almost serious now, though still not making any effort to seem reassuring. Or you know that what you're doing is wrong.
"Wr-wrong?" Ari couldn't wrap his mind around the word. Wrong was such an oddly specific concept to him, and it was hard to feel like you were ever doing something wrong when all you really did was take orders. "Wrong" for him was screwing up a mission by being reckless. "Wrong" was antagonizing doctors. "Wrong" was believing a treatment was unnecessary. All he wanted right now was an emotional and physical release. To feel better, or at least to feel something. To have control over a meager fraction of his life. He wanted this girl. He wanted to feel a sense of…connection. How was that wrong?
Do you understand the concept of moral reasoning? the Voice replied. It sounded as though it was lounging on a velveteen sofa, picking at its nails. Nonchalant. Only paying mild attention to the response.
No, Ari thought back, feeling a flicker of annoyance that seemed to steady his hands just a bit. The Voice was about to get up on a soapbox. And I don't need to either. I'm a killer. I'm a pawn. Morals are a waste of my time. They make me weak. He felt the tiniest burst of self-assured ferocity as the thoughts passed through him. But then he actually considered them and felt a little piece of himself fracture inside. His hands shook more violently.
Moral reasoning, the Voice continued, ignoring Ari's response and affect entirely, is the process of determining the difference between what is right and wrong through applied logic and consideration. An important aspect of moral reasoning is that often your intentions may be valid, but the actions you take to achieve a certain outcome can still be wrong.
"You're just spewing bullshit," Ari hissed, trying to make himself angry. He tried to tap into his reserve of rage, but his voice quavered. "Tell me what the fuck is wrong with me."
Actually, I think this is a sign there's finally something right with you, the Voice 's stomach lurched at that concept. He felt horrible. His head was ringing, and his chest felt like it was being crushed by a monster truck. He still couldn't breathe right. He felt emptier than he had all day. How could this be a good sign? Ari, you have every right to seek control in your life. And there's nothing wrong with wanting a…"connection" with this girl. But you're not thinking about the morality of your actions.
The Voice so rarely spoke his name, and it made Ari cringe. He shifted his weight on Ivy's hips and looked at her face again, trying to figure out how to respond. "I don't need to think about it. I don't care if my actions are moral. She's drugged. She wouldn't even know what happened. And if she found out later, she'd get over it." He sucked in a shaky breath between every statement.
Shouldn't she be given a choice in the matter?
"Why should she get a choice? No one ever gives me one." The words left Ari's mouth before he finished processing them, but hearing them spoken in his own inflection made them feel so much worse. His hands ceased their trembling. His respiration stopped entirely for a second. Realization hit him like a sucker-punch. "Oh, fuck me," he groaned. He wanted to scream. He kind of wanted to vomit. Instead, he pulled Ivy's shirt back down, very gently lifted her hand from his thigh, and rested it on her stomach. He dismounted her as quickly as possible, sliding sideways and swinging his long leg over her responseless form. He nearly fell over in the process, catching his balance with a painful flare of his wings. His shitty left knee twinged with pain, stiff from being bent for so long, and Ari only barely landed upright, dropping back to a sitting position on the side of the bed as his body caved inward with awful self-awareness.
I'm no better than they are, he thought, brain slouching towards numbness again. Everything I'm doing is no different than what the whitecoats do to me. They took away his choice, stripped him of his dignity, stole his memories. They made him believe whatever they believed. They did all of that on neverending repeat, and Ari had bought into it. Not only that, but he'd been indoctrinated and had applied those same essential methods to the unconscious body of a powerful, beautiful, fascinating equal.
Ari tried to suppress his vexed crying, but as he sat there with his head in his hands and his dark wings encircling him like a cocoon, confronted by his behavior, the tears started to roll. His cheek burned. He recognized the irony in his constant desire to avoid playing a part in the schemes of the whitecoats, only to realize now that his whole personality set him up to be a pawn. And he knew it. He knew what he was. He hated himself almost as much as he hated the doctors that tormented him. But how could he fix a problem that was seated at the very center of his lifestyle? Ari couldn't just change his personality on a dime, and he couldn't say "no" to the whitecoats. They'd killed him before—twice that day alone, technically—and they'd kill him over and over again until he said "yes." Dignity was null. Stolen memories couldn't be found. And so many of the indoctrinated beliefs that formed Ari's personality were conditioned. He couldn't just decondition himself. It didn't work that way.
But the worst part was that on top of not knowing how to change who he was or how he fit into Itex's grand plans, Ari didn't know if he genuinely wanted to. The mental exhaustion and anxiety he felt in that moment as he reflected so thoroughly on himself was horrendous. Why would he want to feel that way all the time? Apathy was a shitty alternative, but sometimes he liked feeling detached. He liked not caring. It was easier that way. He didn't want to change. Besides, he still wanted everything that he'd been craving from Ivy. Could he acknowledge that it might feel better if it was entirely voluntary? Yes. Did that mean a lot in the middle of the night, when she starred in all of his fantasies? No. He didn't even know her yet. Knowing her would only make things worse, but he longed to anyway. He wanted to understand who she was, and longed for anyone to care about him.
"I hate…everything," Ari's mutter was nearly a whisper, drowned out by his salty tears and embarrassingly sniffly nose. I hate myself.
Then fix it, the Voice asserted, ignoring Ari's thoughts and focusing on his words.
"I can't."
You can.
"I'm too tired to—"
It's a choice, Ari. A conscious choice. You want to be better than the whitecoats? You have to work for that. You can tell yourself that this, what your life is right now, is easier—but sometimes the things you have to work for are better.
"Nothing ever gets better, no matter how hard I work." It felt true. And he was so, so tired.
You are being pessimistic.
"Oh, sorry, let me just turn my positive attitude back on."
Ari, the hardest part of this is getting started. It's all about self-direction. When you're presented with a choice, you need to look to your feelings and sense of responsibility for guidance.
"No, thanks," Ari murmured. The Voice ignored him completely.
And you need to think about the consequences of your actions—both the right and wrong ones. Weigh your choices wisely, every day, and it'll become a pattern. It'll hardly feel like work.
"Just like that, huh?" Ari's throat burned. He didn't have the energy for this. He wanted to be in bed. He wished he could teleport and wipe his own memory all at once. He didn't want to work or think or self-direct or change. Ari didn't understand why the Voice thought that morality would fill the cavernous hole inside him, or help him overcome a couple of decades of conditioning, or make him hate himself a little less. He didn't think being moral would make Ivy less attractive.
Just like that. The Voice's toneless tone seemed gentle now, like it thought it'd just blown Ari's mind wide open and was trying not to overwhelm him further. But as much as Ari wanted to be cared for, he also hated being coddled, so he shrugged off the feeling that the Voice left him with and sighed.
Ari sat in silence on the edge of the bed for a long time before he realized that his lower back was pressed against Ivy's thigh. She was so warm. For half a heartbeat, Ari considered just falling to the left, letting himself curl up alongside her. He could sleep there, on that sliver of bed.
Maybe that way, he wouldn't feel quite as lonely. Wouldn't feel quite as detached and empty and numb.
But he turned a fraction and looked at her again as he ran out of tears. Her bruised face, still so beautiful, looked serene. He would not ruin that.
Instead of falling sideways, Ari made a moral choice and pushed down on his knees to lift himself up. His legs were shaky, but he turned and faced the narrow bed again. Only then did he realize that he'd never done up his pants or buckled his belt. Feeling another wave of guilt, he quickly corrected that mistake.
Then he reached for and undid the buckle on Ivy's left ankle. He wanted her to be comfortable, but he allowed one restraint to remain in place so she couldn't roll off the bed in the night. He glanced at her face once more, just to be sure she was still unconscious, and then carefully, so carefully slid an arm under her neck and shoulders. Then he slid another under her hips. She was so small and so…tender. Ari fought against the part of his brain that egged him on as he touched her, encouraging him to dive back in where he'd left off—even though a little piece of him wanted to get carried away by that mentality. You could finish. She would never know. He chomped down hard on his inner-cheek at the thought. Instead, he just lifted her off the bed as gently as he could manage and then rolled her slowly back onto it, resting her on her right side. Her wings—such pretty wings, unlike his—loosened and collapsed onto the bed beside her. Ari could see that the right wing had been force-folded and bandaged shut to help it heal faster. He frowned, feeling another pang of guilt. It would be okay. Ari's prowling eyes slid to her back, which was bare and exposed intermittently from her neck to her waistband. The bows that held the flimsy shirt closed were very poorly tied—he indulged in a fantasy of undoing them one by one. He could already see where the wings merged with her flesh. Flawless. Ari stuffed his hands in his pockets to resist stroking the strong back muscles and smooth skin that peeked out. Then he pulled his hands back out of his pocket, only for a moment, and tugged the fleece blanket back over her body, shielding her from his desires.
Ari was about to leave when he paused to sneak a last look at her face. It was still serene, but a chunk of that coppery hair stuck to her sweaty forehead. Ari couldn't resist. With trembling fingers, he reached out and carefully brushed the hair away, smoothing it back into the rest of her fiery mane. He wrapped it behind her ear, fingernails dragging delicately along her scalp. And then Ivy sighed—a slow sigh of comfort and calm.
For just a moment, the numbness vanished.
Ari slunk out of the room, raw eyes burning in the bright light of the hall, and made sure the door was latched and locked tightly behind him. He stumbled out of the suite and noted a minor miracle—the other residents of that housing floor were all asleep or away. Ari needed to be alone. He could feel the stains of tears on his cheeks. He didn't want to talk to anyone else right now—maybe ever again.
He made it onto the elevator, smacked the button for his floor, and slumped against the wall the same way as before. His body was back to hurting again—every inch of it. But he tried to remember that the physical pain was relatively temporary. He tried not to think too much about anything else. He tried not to hate himself, or wish he'd done things differently. The returning numbness wasn't better than the emotions and thoughts that Ari shoved down, but at least it was quiet. He picked a point on the opposite wall and stared at it blankly until the elevator dinged. Ari trudged back to his room, where he promptly plopped on the edge of his bed, unthinking, unfeeling, and undid the laces of his boots. He kicked the boots off and just sat there, staring at the grey carpet beneath his feet.
Sometimes the things you have to work for are better. The Voice's message reverberated in his head. The thought alone was exhausting. If Ari had been tired before visiting Ivy, he was nearly dead now, but now he was also conflicted. Everything he'd wanted from Ivy, he still wanted. Everything he'd planned to do to her…it still appealed. Ari still craved that control, still longed for that release and that "connection," though he knew he'd thrown that word out to mask his crass desires. But now he hated himself for being so willing to stoop to the level of the whitecoats to get what he wanted. He would have to find another way. Maybe a way that bordered on being…moral. Maybe he'd work for it—but not too hard. He'd only do the bare minimum. But maybe he would get more out of the experience that way, make more memories.
The numbness that had faded very briefly in the face of Ivy's soft sigh clawed its way back into place in Ari's chest, temporarily eclipsing his exhaustion. And self-loathing. And frustration. And anxiety. And apathy. He gave in and let his body crumple. He dragged his feet up onto the bed as he fell sideways, and stretched his wings out behind him. His body was a perfect mirror to how he'd positioned Ivy. Ari sighed in resignation again.
Just another day.
He closed his eyes and tried to drift, but the sound of Ivy's peaceful sigh replayed on repeat in his mind. So Ari lay there on his side, fully-clothed, and never slept a wink.
