Roman Yuma/ Camryn Diaz

He'd hoped he would come back to his own body before anyone knew he was gone, but he supposed he should've known better. Since Daniel's death, Camryn had taken it upon herself to be more hyperaware of everything Roman did. She seemed to tune her senses so that she heard the slightest change in his breath or heartbeat, practically materializing by his side. He tried to keep her preoccupied with other things, giving her more responsibility over things Daniel was once in charge of but she always managed to get them done or pawned off on to someone else in time to reprimand him for "wasting himself away."

His visit to Emersyn--or Madalyn, as she insisted on calling herself--was entirely spur of the moment. He'd agreed to let Camryn enact her little plan, but when he hadn't heard any positive results for it, he decided to take matters into his own hands. His sister had what he wanted and one way or another he was going to take it from her; and he wanted her to remember that.

What he hadn't accounted for was how much it would drain him to do it. More and more these days it seemed as though the alien DNA was working overtime to kill him faster, leaving him tired and bedridden from the smallest exertions of power. When he went to see Emmy, he didn't want her to know what it cost him or what his current state was, making him push harder. He could barely hold on by the end of it and instead of snapping back to himself in his room, he'd fallen unconscious.

And hours later he woke to Camryn's dark hair curtaining around his face.

"Oh good, you didn't die," she said somewhat bitterly, her dark eyes looking over his features as though she weren't entirely sure. Roman clenched his jaw, staring up at her stiffly. "You reek so bad, I wasn't too sure."

He knew she was referring to a scent that only her superior sense could pick up on, but he couldn't help but turn his head slightly and sniff at himself. Her comment made him self conscious for a moment. "Smell fine to me."

Camryn growled in her throat, snapping herself to sit up straight beside him and give him room to do the same. She noted every slow movement Roman made, the wince he tried to hide when his hand touched the back of his head, the dark circles under his eyes despite the hours he'd slept. Images of the strong Roman she'd met years ago, the one that saved her from being yet another subject in a lab and made her feel in ways she never imagined possible, flashed through her mind. It was hard to reconcile the two figures, so far apart from each other as they were.

She moved a hand to grasp one of his and he pulled away sharply, curling his fingers into a fist. She gritted her teeth, her own fingers curling in on themselves in frustration. They'd gone from roaming hands in dark, inappropriate places to him not even wanting to be in the same room as her in a matter of months and the only thing she could think to explain it was his deteriorating health.

"Well trust me, you don't," she snapped, eyes narrowed at him. "I thought we agreed you weren't going to use your powers unnecessarily."

"You decided, I said nothing. That doesn't make an agreement." She growled at him again, but it failed to make the point she wanted. "And just because you think something is unnecessary, doesn't mean that it is."

"Oh? And what was so necessary you needed to wait until I was gone to do it?" Roman didn't reply and she laughed bitterly. "I thought so."

Faster than she was expecting for his current condition, Roman's hand lashed out, closing tight around her throat and forcing a gasped breath out in surprise. Her eyes widened as she stared at him, fear sinking in her gut knowing that he could kill her right then and there was nothing she could do about it. She was nothing against him, an insignificant bug on his path that he allowed to live. She couldn't stop him if she wanted to--

"Stop. It," she gasped out around the pressure of her throat, realizing what he was doing. She could see the light sheen of sweat forming on his forehead, his brows twitching down slightly as he tried to concentrate.

"First, let me make sure you understand something," he said darkly, moving forward so his face was inches from hers, breath coasting across her skin as he spoke. "I don't answer to you; you answer to me. You are not my mother or anyone else who thinks they get to tell me what to do. Dying or not, I could take you out before you saw it coming. If I say something is necessary, than it is and all I expect in response from you is 'yes sir.' Is that clear?"

Camryn nodded against his grasp, shivering slightly as he leaned forward to press a light kiss to the corner of her mouth before letting go. She sucked in air greedily, the cold stinging the inside of her throat as it coasted through.

Roman sat back against the headboard of his bed, slumping against it despite himself and glaring at Camryn as if to dare her to mention it. "Now, is there anything I should be made aware of?"

Camryn rubbed her neck, staring at him contemplatively as she considered her next words. The vindictive part of her didn't want to report her latest success, but the part of her that thrilled at his attention and felt as if she owed him fought harder. She got up from the bed, turning her back on him silently as she made her way across the room to the metallic suitcase by the door. She hesitated for a second before her resolve kicked in, her fingers curling around the handle and lifting it.

Turning back to him, she silently caught Roman's eyes as she put the case down on the edge of the bed and opened it. He cocked a brow at her impatiently but she still didn't utter a word. Her fingers grazed softly over the glass vials, watching the blue liquid slosh slightly with the touch. Finally she picked one up slowly, holding it so the light from lamp by Roman's bed glinted off the glass and shifted the blue color into teal.

Roman's face twitched as his eyes focused on the vial, memories of being tied to a gurney for hours flooding his mind. The nervous energy that used to fill his body buzzed now just beneath the surface, a pull coming from within him like the liquid was calling to him; or him to it. He couldn't tell either way, just knew that the need for it simultaneously left him nauseous and salivating. "You found it," he said slowly, never taking his eyes off of it.

"I found some," Camryn emphasized.

Managing to pull his gaze to her, she could almost see the desperation swirling in Roman's eyes. "How much?"

Her freehand braced on the suitcase as she took a deep breath, lowering the vial carefully. She didn't stop until she'd freed the syringe from its protective foam, leveling the two side by side. "Not enough," she answered. She swallowed hard before looking back at him. "Not if you keep using the way you're using."

"How. Much?" he repeated through his teeth and she sighed.

"A couple of months, tops. And that's only if they read the notes right. Remember, this isn't a permanent fix and it's probably going to make things worse. Maybe even faster--"

"Give it to me," he demanded, not letting her finish. "Now."

"I have to find some restraints--"

"Fuck the restraints," Roman snapped, the desperation now leaking into his tone. His gaze was growing wild, darting between Camryn's face and the suitcase lid that hid the vial from view.

"I've seen the videos, babe, you need the restraints."

"You can restrain me just fine."

Her teeth snapped shut, biting back anything else she might've said. It was clear no matter what she told him, he wanted this done and he wanted it done now. Camryn nodded once, prepping the needle and pretending not to notice the light bouncing off the mattress as Roman's leg shook with anticipation. "Lay down completely," she said.

For the first time since he'd woken up, he didn't fight her on her demand.

She made her way along the edge of the bed beside him, eyes roving over his form trying to decide the best way to approach the task at hand. Like she told him, she'd seen the videos; the footage of his parents' experiments on him and his sister. The immediate effects of the serum injections and the resulting damage. With Emersyn, the results were more physical, visible as much as it was tangible to everyone in the room and even Camryn through the screen.

But Roman's...His was more unsettling, more an attack on the mind than the body. Though she couldn't forget the multiple head explosions that often affected the camera's view during his sessions.

She repressed a shiver at the thought of her potential fate, knowing that whether he was restrained or not that particular result would always be a possibility. Tying Roman down was more of a beneficial act for his own safety than hers.

With nothing else coming to mind, Camryn sighed, positioning herself to straddle his hips and pinning him as much as she could to the spot. Without looking at him she prepped the skin of his arm for the injection and then paused with the needle just against his skin. Her dark eyes moved up to meet his.

"Last chance to back out," she said, sounding stronger than she felt. Roman was all she had left and she didn't want to have a hand in his end if things went bad. "We don't have to do this."

"Yes, we do," Roman replied stiffly, huffing out a breath before bringing one hand up to her neck. Camryn flinched without meaning to as he made a point of slowly placing his palm against the side of it, putting no other pressure on it. "I need this Cami, I'm too weak without it. Like you said, this is just temporary. Something to hold me over until things with my sister come together."

"How can you be so sure it's going to work though? What if it just ends up poisoning you quicker?"

His jaw clenched at her words, his own coming out emotionless in response. "As you so frequently like to point out, I'm dying. The only time I didn't feel like I was dying was when they were injecting me. So maybe this makes it worse or kills me. Or maybe it gives me what I need long enough for the permanent solution. But I'm running out of options and time to explore them so either you inject me now or you get the hell out and let me do it myself." His hand at her neck pushed her aside roughly and she growled in response, her more animalistic emotions taking over.

With no more words or warning at all, she jammed the needle into his skin and injected the serum with one movement, it's success marked by the harsh jerk of his body beneath her as he tried to bite back a scream.

Freeing the needle and letting it go, she tossed it to the side of the bed, gripping his arms down beside them tightly. It took all her strength to keep him pinned beneath her as he bucked wildly, his knees bending up to jab into her spine. Gritting her teeth, she moved so that she held both his hands in one of hers while she twisted enough to shove one leg back down against the bed. Still, the other jabbed into her back, shooting pain through her muscles.

Roman let out a scream so deep she felt it vibrating through her body, her head whipping around to lock eyes on him only to see ocean water beneath her instead.

Startled, she blinked rapidly, looking around and watching as her surroundings shifted from his bedroom to the ocean, then concrete and a floor smeared with blood. The last image stayed firm the longest, her hands tightening around Roman though she still couldn't see him. She tried blinking harder and shaking her head, but the vision didn't change back to reality.

Nausea swirled thick in her stomach as she followed the blood trail across the room, knowing what she'd find even before her eyes fixed on it.

She was watching herself be dragged away, the gash across her stomach gaping and leaking more than blood as she coughed some up. She could almost feel the hands gripping her wrist as her so called saviors took their time pulling her mangled body away from those of her family, as if they didn't care if she'd died or not.

She didn't know it then, but she was just to be another experiment for the lab nerds and as far as they were concerned she didn't have to be alive for them to use her.

A sudden pain lanced through her head, the memory before her blasting away in a painful white light. Her head throbbed, pinpricks progressively stabbing harder into the back of her eyes, drawing a pained gasp from her chest. Her own screams began to pierce her consciousness as the sharp pain grew, her hands letting go of Roman to grab desperately at her head.

She felt a shift beneath her, warm liquid rolling down from her nose. Her eyes pressed tight together as though it would somehow relieve the pain but she could still see the light across the back of her eyelids, watching it turn white to red.

She felt something like a small explosion inside and then there was nothing.

A/N: Well, this escalated very quickly 😅 It might seem like a random chapter for me to include for you guys but trust me it plays its part.

Not that you needed it, but consider this a little reminder of just how far Roman is willing to go to get what he wants😜

As usual leave your thoughts in the comments! I love reading your reactions and getting the feedback. Your support really does mean so much to me and I hope you continue to enjoy reading this as much as I love writing it!

And no worries, we will be returning to your regularly scheduled Maddie POV next chapter😉