Zachary Chase lay on his cot, staring at the low ceiling of their cell, wide awake despite the late hour. It wasn’t just the chill that gnawed at his bones—the thin blanket draped over him did nothing to stop it—but the memories, the endless looping nightmares that always seemed to come back when the lights dimmed. Even after a day spent in the extraction room, he couldn’t find rest. His blond hair stuck in damp tufts to his forehead, green eyes glinting faintly in the dim overhead light.

They were in Block C of the facility, the wing where the government—or whichever scientists were running this place—kept them. They weren’t here by choice. Zachary and the others were considered “special,” and for one reason: their blood healed. Real, tangible healing. Cuts that wouldn’t close, diseases that resisted medicine, broken bones—they’d been told that just a few milliliters of their blood could undo any of it in a normal human. For the people running this place, that meant weaponization. Soldiers, agents, whoever—they wanted the power of life bottled, and the cost was always them.

Earlier that day, the extraction had been brutal. Zachary had nearly collapsed in the chair, his vision narrowing to green-flecked spots as the nurses siphoned from him again and again. His arms ached from the IV clamps, his veins bruised and screaming. Gracie had been even worse off, practically hollowed out, her usual fire dimmed to near nothing by the relentless draining. He’d watched her sit rigid in the chair, hands clenched into fists that shook as the technicians murmured their quiet calculations, and all he’d been able to do was squeeze her shoulder once, whisper something he wasn’t even sure she heard.

Now, tonight, she was quiet—or so he thought. Her cot was a few feet from his, only the small bedside table separating them. He could make out the dark sweep of her hair over her shoulders, tangled from the day, and the thin, gray tunic that served as her uniform for sleeping. Her blue eyes weren’t visible, shut beneath lashes, but her body was tense, as if bracing for the next unavoidable ache. He assumed she’d fallen asleep, that after a day like today, it was the only thing she could do.

And then he heard it.

A soft, stifled sob.

He froze. Gracie never cried. She didn’t. She had the kind of quiet strength that made her seem unshakable, the kind of person who would grin through nausea, through fever, through days in the extraction chair where the room smelled of metal and antiseptic. But now, the sound made his stomach twist.

He shifted on his cot, the mattress squeaking under his weight. “Gracie?” His voice was rough, hoarse from disuse and exhaustion.

A hiccuped whimper came from the other side of the table.

“I—shit,” he muttered under his breath. He wasn’t good at this. Not at comfort, not at soothing anyone. Most of the time, he just said the wrong thing, or worse, nothing at all. But he couldn’t leave her crying there, not tonight.

“Gracie, talk to me,” he said, keeping his voice low.