⊳⊱ ♕ ⊰⊲

Everything was exactly the same as the place he'd grown up in. The walls were blindingly white, the windows were black, one-way glass, and although he couldn't see what was on the other side, Elijah knew that it was labs and offices. The floor was as white as the walls, not a single scuff mark or spec of dirt in sight, and that smell...that mixture of blood, bleach, and sulphur...it was enough to make Elijah feel sick to his stomach.

He held it together, though, walking beside Zoe as they navigated the halls in search of the elevator. When a pair of security guards turned onto their path up ahead, he saw Zoe tense up, but they both passed without a word or batting an eye, and the girl relaxed. He trusted her more than Jake not to fuck things up, but he was still anxious, and if they were caught, he wasn't sure what he could do other than kill and hope they'd still have time to make it out with Haru.

They turned left into another corridor, and at the end where it split left, right, and straight ahead, a sign hung from the ceiling, telling them where each path led. Left was to the medicine labs, straight was to the security mess hall, and right was to the elevators. So, they turned right, and at the end of the corridor was a rectangular room with three different pairs of silver elevator doors and a door to a stairwell.

As Elijah approached, he quickly assessed each elevator's label. The one in the middle headed to floors minus five through minus eight; he pressed the button, his hand trembling, and his heart racing so hard in his chest that it felt like it might burst out of his body. He was getting closer, so close that he could almost feel Haru's warm embrace. And when the elevator doors opened, he hastily stepped inside.

Elijah pressed the button to floor -7, and the doors slid shut.

Zoe glanced around—presumably for cameras—and when she noticed that there weren't any, she looked up at Elijah. "What's the plan once we get down there? There's bound to be cameras, right? Won't they see us taking Haru and Jake?"

"Your cover as a doctor should hold up long enough," he answered, impatiently tapping his claws against his thigh. "Doctors come and take subjects randomly during this time of the day; us grabbing Jake and Haru would look like any other doctor taking a pair to fight. But I'm going to disable the cameras anyway; it'll give us more time."

She nodded. "Okay. And once we have them, we're heading straight for the surface, right?"

"No. I need to find the server room. I want my file."

"Wouldn't it be easier to go there first?"

"I need Jake," he muttered. "He found his way into Lyca Corp.'s computer systems before, so I'm sure that he can do it again."

"I hope so," she said. "You deserve answers."

He stared at the screen that told them which floor they were on; he watched it slowly count down, and his angst consumed him, getting stronger with every passing second. But then a cold chill ran down his spine and tensed up even more. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck stick up, and he couldn't shake the feeling that someone was watching him; since there weren't any cameras, though, and after what happened between them, he suspected that it was Maverick.

Elijah scowled as desperation and dismay constricted him. Could Maverick see where he was? Could he see what he was doing? Was he going to stop him from reaching Haru? His scowl thickened, and his racing heart was beginning to ache. He was too close to get caught now; he couldn't let anything stop him, and if he had to head into The Darkness and tear Maverick's other arm off, he would.

The elevator reached floor -7 and came to a halt.

Clenching his fists and tightening his grip on the stun gun, Elijah prepared for whatever might be waiting on the other side of the doors.

But there wasn't anybody waiting. No guards, no detainers, nothing...just an empty, silent corridor lined with steel doors and one-way glassed windows which let the doctors see into each room.

Elijah stepped out of the elevator, and Zoe followed beside him. Before he could search for Haru, though, he had to take care of the people in the security office. He wasn't going to leave them to alert everyone in the laboratory that someone was taking subjects out of their rooms without clearance.

"This way," he muttered, turning right.

A steel door stood beside a mirror which Elijah knew was actually a window. He knocked on the door, and when it opened, he was relieved to see that there was only one man working in there. Before the guy could ask him what he wanted, Elijah grabbed and snapped his neck, and then he went over to the console and tapped the enter button, which froze the feedback of every camera in the building.

"How'd you do that?" Zoe asked.

"Ronan," he muttered, leading the way out of the room. "He used to steal medication from the stores in one of the labs he worked at. He'd freeze the cameras so no one caught him."

Zoe scoffed. "He seemed the type."

Elijah closed the door, leaving the dead man inside the room, and then he began hastily searching for room 3A. He eyed each door as he passed them, his heart racing faster and faster every time the room numbers climbed higher. But just as they passed 4A, a door opened at the end of the hall, and voices broke the silence.

"Someone's coming," Zoe panicked quietly. "What do we do?"

"Just be quiet and look like you're working," he muttered.

She nodded and looked around, and when she saw a clipboard in a tray connected to room 4A's door, she took it and stared down at it as if she were reading.

Elijah stood beside her, watching from the corner of his eye as another doctor walked down the hall with his guard.

"Good afternoon," the black-haired man said to Zoe, looking up from his clipboard as he passed her.

"Good afternoon," she replied, glancing at him.

The demon held back a scowl. He hated how these people acted...like their job was just like any other. They didn't seem the least bit guilty or upset that they were experimenting on, hurting, and killing children. But all these doctors were human; they thought of Caeleste as nothing but animals, things for them to do with as they pleased.

He waited until the doctor and his guard got into the elevator, and once the doors slid shut, Zoe put the clipboard back, and Elijah continued through the corridor in search of Haru's room.

They passed 3D, 3C, and 3B, and when Elijah stood in front of the door to room 3A, his hands started trembling. He felt nervous and eager at the same time; a part of him was afraid of what might happen and what Haru might say when he opened the door, but the part of him that loved and needed Haru was much stronger than his fear—his desperation to save him from this place no matter how he felt about him was greater than his worry that Haru's feelings might have changed.

He looked at Zoe. The girl took the key card from her pocket and swiped it over the pad beside the door handle, and the door beeped, clicked, and unlocked.

Elijah exhaled deeply, trying to calm his racing heart and his tense body. Then, he pushed the door open, and the blinding white lights switched on to light the room.

His eyes found Haru curled up on his bed; the moment the lights switched on, he flinched awake, pulled his white blanket over his head, and scrunched up in the corner, trembling and murmuring.

"Please don't," came his terrified, shaky voice. "I went this morning."

Utter heartbreak struck Elijah. He scowled despondently as he handed the rifle to Zoe along with the guard helmet he'd worn to hide his hair. He then went over to Haru's bed, and through the sorrow that enthralled his body in an awful ache, he reached out and tried to pull the blanket away from Haru's face.

"No!" Haru exclaimed, fighting him, holding the blanket tightly.

"Haru, it's me," he said sadly.

Haru stopped struggling but didn't pull the blanket from over his head. "E-Eli?" he murmured.

"Yes," he answered and tried to take the blanket away.

But Haru still held on. He didn't reply for a few moments, and he was shaking beneath the cover. "No," he whispered to himself. "You're not here. This isn't real."

"I am here," he insisted calmly. He understood why Haru wouldn't believe him, though. Some of the drugs and tests Lyca Corp. did induced hallucinations; Elijah had experienced his fair share. "I've spent the last six months looking for you."

Haru shook his head. "You're not here. You can't be here."

"I escaped," he told him. "Six months after they transferred you, the Nosferatu attacked the lab that we were at together. I managed to get away, and I've been looking for you ever since. I hunted down the doctors who hurt us, including Harris, and I finally got your location from someone called Ronan Palmer, some kind of transfer organizer."

"No, no, no," Haru cried, shaking his head. "You're not real! Why are you doing this to me?!"

Elijah's aching heart started racing again, and his dismay gripped him tightly. He didn't know what else to say or do, and they didn't have enough time for him to try and convince Haru that he really was there. So he instinctively moved his arms around him and pulled him into a tight hug. "It's me, Haru," he said quietly, listening to him sniffle beneath the blanket. "I thought I'd never see you again; I thought that I was taking too long and that I'd run out of time. I spent so long thinking that Lyca Corp. had taken you from me forever, and I couldn't stop blaming myself for everything. I know that I took a long time, but I'm here now, and I'm taking you with me."

Haru didn't respond, but Elijah felt his shaking body calm a little.

The demon tightened his embrace around him. Through the blanket, entangled with Haru's natural citrusy scent, was the smell of old blood, and it made Elijah frown in concern. Haru had wounds, and he wanted to see to them, but he wouldn't forcefully remove the blanket until Haru was ready—and the only way that would happen was if Elijah could convince him that he really was there, that this wasn't a hallucination.

"Do you remember that drawing you made of the orange mountains and the blue grass?" he asked with a small smile. "There are actually orange mountains outside, and I bet if I looked hard enough, I'd find blue grass, too. The sun is this sort of yellow colour, though."

Haru sniffled and shuffled around. "Really?"

Elijah nodded. "I've seen forests with trees so high that it looks like they reach past the clouds, and an entire mountain range filled with metal; I couldn't use my senses very well, but a wolf walker helped us."

"Us?"

"I picked up a few people on the way."

He sniffled again, still hiding beneath the blanket. "So...you finally figured out that...that you can't do everything alone?"

Elijah scoffed quietly. "Something like that."

The elevator suddenly dinged.

Haru flinched.

Elijah sharply turned his head to look at Zoe.

The girl looked horrified, and as footsteps echoed their way, her eyes widened.

"Deal with it," Elijah insisted.

Although she was clearly nervous, Zoe nodded and stepped out of the room, pulling the door shut behind her.

Elijah listened, holding Haru as he shivered beneath the cover.

"Oh, good," Zoe said. "Could you please get another guard sent down to me? I'm going to be taking a look at 0410 in a few moments."

"Of course," a man replied.

"Thank you," the girl said.

The footsteps then started fading away.

Elijah's racing heart calmed, and he turned his attention back to Haru. "We need to go," he insisted. "There's someone else we need to find before we can head for the exit."

The demon then gripped the blanket, and when he slowly pulled it from over Haru's head, he didn't fight him this time. Elijah's eyes met Haru's, and although they were teary and sore, there was relief in them. A sullen smile stretched across his pale face, and a surprised scoff broke free of his shaky breaths as he lifted his hand and placed it on the side of Elijah's head.

"Your hair got long," Haru said.

Elijah ran his fingers through Haru's short, black hair. "Yours is shorter than I remember."

Haru laughed a little, and then he edged his face closer to Elijah's.

The demon felt like he'd waited for this moment for such a long, long time, and he wasn't going to waste it. He guided his hand to the back of Haru's head, and then he pulled him closer. Their lips met, and as they kissed, Elijah felt like a huge burden had been lifted. He loved Haru, and feeling him in his embrace, feeling his lips against his filled him with such happiness and relief that all he could do was smile and rest his forehead against Haru's.

"I missed you so much," Elijah murmured, gazing into Haru's brown eyes.

Haru smiled, too. "I missed you, too. I knew...well, I hoped that you'd find me someday."

"I'd never leave you," he said sadly, and then he kissed him again.

Zoe then opened the door—

Haru tensed up and went to pull the blanket back over his head, but Elijah grabbed it and shook his head.

"It's okay," he insisted. "She's one of the people I found on the way."

He shifted his horrified stare from Zoe to Elijah and back to Zoe again. "S-she's a doctor?"

"No. I killed the doctor who was doing the intake, which is why we don't have long. Someone's going to want to know why all the kids are still in the intake hall very soon," Elijah explained.

"I'm Zoe," the girl then said. "Elijah...well, he saved me. I was investigating some Lyca Corp. things and got a little too close."

"She was in the trunk of Harris' car," the demon said.

Haru frowned and looked up at him. "Who else do you need to find?"

"Some muto pardus called Jake," he answered. "He's Zoe's roommate. He got called into intake before I did."

"You...came in on one of the trucks?" Haru asked.

He nodded. "And we have another guy outside waiting with a jeep. He has a plane; he's going to fly us far away from here."

"How did you find a plane?"

Elijah wanted to tell him, but they were running out of time. "I'll tell you everything as soon as we're out of here, okay? We're running out of time."

Haru nodded stiffly, but when Elijah stood up and tried to pull him with him, he grunted painfully and pulled his hand free from Elijah's.

"What is it?" the demon questioned worriedly.

With a quiet wince, Haru pulled the blanket away from himself and lifted his shirt to reveal his waist. A ghastly scar cut across his skin from his waist to his belly, and it didn't look like it was healing properly.

Rage quickly replaced everything else that Elijah was experiencing. He wanted to ask which doctor did that to him so that he could find them and make them suffer, but there wasn't time for that. "We'll take it as slow as we can," he said as he carefully helped Haru off his bed.

Haru moved his arm around Elijah's shoulders, and Elijah held him firmly, helping him walk towards the door.

"Jake's in room 2B, right?" Zoe asked as they left the room.

Elijah nodded and followed the girl as she led the way. He was still furious about Haru's wound, but relief and happiness were starting to outweigh it. He was finally with Haru again; he'd freed him from his room, and all they had to do now was find Jake, get to the server room, and then head for the surface.

And they'd both be able to put Lyca Corp. behind them forever.

⊳⊱ ♕ ⊰⊲