novelraw Chapter 414: Yourself To Blame
Chapter 414: Yourself To Blame
Behind Elias, Director Mercer nodded his head and murmured, "You’re doing well. Keep the samples cold and labeled. These patterns could rewrite everything we’ve lost. Your name will sit on every vial in this wing if you do this right."
Elias hated that his chest tightened in response.
He hated that a small, pathetic flame inside him flickered at being seen.
The creature felt it and turned cruel. There. That is your true god. Not saving anyone. Not her. Your name on something. Your name on paper. You would sell the sun for a signature.
Elias clenched his teeth until his jaw ached.
He moved to close the shoulder cut.
He reached for sutures.
Mercer’s hand landed on his wrist.
It wasn’t rough.
It wasn’t paternal.
It was ownership.
"Wait," Mercer instructed. "We need a deeper core sample. We’re not here for surface structure. You know that."
Elias jerked his arm free. "A deeper sample risks unnecessary damage."
"She will heal."
Elias stared at him. "She doesn’t need to pay for your impatience."
Mercer’s eyes sharpened. "Doctor. We are beyond patience. If you want her alive long-term, you give me what she is. Now."
The creature pressed forward so hard Elias’s vision shimmered. Say no. You still can. Say no and turn around and take her out yourself. I will help you.
Elias’s hands hovered above the tools.
He looked at Sera.
Her gaze didn’t soften. It didn’t forgive, and it didn’t condemn.
She just watched.
The only problem was that he could not read what she wanted.
But he could read what Mercer wanted.
And there was a terrible, clarity-heavy logic in giving Mercer what he asked for before Mercer decided to take the scalpel himself.
Elias lowered his head.
He selected a longer biopsy needle.
His fingers shook again.
Mercer leaned closer, voice a quiet poison. "You are the only one with the discipline to do this without killing her. You know that, Doctor. Don’t let your sentimentality ruin what you can build."
Sentimentality.
As if mercy was a flaw.
As if loyalty was a childhood disease.
The creature snarled. He is wrong. And you are letting him be right.
Elias positioned the needle at the edge of the shoulder incision.
He pushed in slowly.
The needle slid into muscle with a thick, wet resistance that made his stomach flip hard. He forced himself not to recoil. He drove it deeper, guided by anatomy and a map of nerve lines he’d memorized years ago, searching for what Mercer wanted: inner tissue where the virus integrated most aggressively.
Sera’s breath shifted once.
Just once.
A deeper inhale.
Her eyes narrowed the faintest amount—not in pain, but in attention.
Elias froze.
Then he felt it.
Something inside him bucked.
Not his body.
The creature.
It raged so hard against its box that it made his spine vibrate. Enough. You have done enough. You will stop now or I will stop you.
His hand tensed.
Mercer murmured, "Take it."
Elias pulled the needle back.
A thick core of tissue sat inside the hollow barrel, veined with blood, denser than anything he’d ever taken from a human.
He dropped it into a vial with shaking fingers.
The room felt too bright.
Too tight.
His breathing got shallow.
He reached for gauze to pack the wound, to close it, to make this stop being what it was.
Sera finally spoke again, voice quiet and flat.
"You’re finished."
Elias blinked. "I’m closing—"
"No." She didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t need to. "You’re finished."
The creature inside him burst into savage laughter that hurt. She just dismissed you like a tool she is done tolerating.
Mercer stepped closer to the table, examining the wound. "We’re not finished. Field protocols demand we document healing rate during exposure. Leave it open."
"No." Elias’s voice came out sharp.
Mercer looked at him. "Doctor."
Elias turned to him slowly, scalp prickling, sweat cold on his spine. "If you leave it open, it’s not data collection. It’s punishment."
Mercer’s jaw flexed. "You don’t get to interpret my intent."
"I interpret outcomes." Elias grabbed gauze anyway, pressed it to Sera’s shoulder. Her skin was already starting to knit. Not fully, but fast enough to make human logic feel childish.
Mercer watched him for another long second, then lifted a hand slightly toward the guards.
"Doctor Korkmaz is done for today."
His words weren’t said in kindness so much as in calculation.
But Elias heard it anyway.
Mercer was shelving him for later. For when the ego could be fed again. For when the next push would happen.
"Seal the samples," Mercer instructed Kearns. "Run preliminary structural scans. I want a full comparison chart by morning."
Kearns nodded, face tight, and moved to the side counter.
Mercer turned his attention to Sera. "You tolerated that well."
Sera didn’t answer.
Her gaze stayed on Elias as he worked to close the incision, not because she needed it, but because he needed to do something human with his hands to survive what he’d just done.
Elias finished suturing.
He taped the wound cleanly.
He wiped blood from his gloves.
His arms felt heavy.
His mouth tasted like metal and shame.
The creature leaned close, voice dead calm now, more dangerous than anger. You have proven exactly what she already knew. You will cut her when a human whispers your name the right way.
Elias swallowed. "I did what I had to."
No. You did what you wanted, and dressed it in survival. That lie is why I am trapped in your skull and she is trapped on that table.
He wanted to argue.
He couldn’t.
The room tilted slightly.
He tried to steady it by gripping the tray edge.
His fingers slipped on the steel.
Mercer glanced at him. "You’re pale."
Elias forced a breath. "I’m fine."
Sera’s voice came quietly, almost bored. "He’s lying."
Mercer didn’t react to the disrespect. He just studied Elias clinically, the way he studied any instrument that might break mid-use.
"Sit down, Doctor. You’re no help unconscious."
Elias opened his mouth to refuse.
His legs folded anyway.
The creature’s voice turned sharp. Pathetic. You think you can hold your body up by pride alone.
Elias sank onto the stool. The room spun harder now, a thin gray creeping in at the edges of his vision.
He looked at Sera through it.
She lay there restrained and calm, skin already stitching itself back together beneath the tape. Her eyes were unreadable, but there was a hard, quiet certainty in her presence that didn’t need language.
She’d seen the cut.
She’d seen the reason behind it.
She’d filed it away the way she filed every betrayal.
Not as a heartbreak.
As a fact.
The creature felt it too, a cold rage that constricted Elias’s lungs. She will remember this. And you will deserve whatever she decides to do with the memory.
Elias tried to speak.
He meant to say her name.
He meant to say something that wasn’t a plea.
He meant to say he was sorry, even if sorry was useless.
His tongue didn’t move.
The gray at the edge of his vision thickened. The hum in the walls stretched and warped. He felt his heartbeat stagger once, like a soldier tripping mid-march.
Mercer’s voice drifted from too far away. "Get him water. We can’t lose him."
Kearns moved into his peripheral vision with a cup in her hand.
Elias tried to take it.
His arm didn’t lift.
The creature’s last clear thought came flat and merciless. You cut her, and your body couldn’t even withstand the guilt. I cannot withstand the guilt. I warned you what would happen if you put anything before her. Now, all you have is yourself to blame.
Elias’s vision went white.
Then black.
The room dropped out under him like a floor giving way, and he wasn’t sure if the last thing he felt was the stool tipping, or Sera’s gaze staying on him as he fell.