Leo’s POV

The examination room walls burned white, too perfect, untouched by real life’s grime. My fingers curled around the juice box, wrinkling its cheerful packaging. “100% REAL FRUIT JUICE,” the label announced as if such a thing should exist.

I stared at it, unsure if I was even allowed to have it. This small carton would drain a week’s energy credits in Dome City Eight. Only Admin officials’ children ever tasted real fruit, not the synthetic flavor packets we mixed with recycled water when credits allowed.

Yet here, the medical tech had placed it in my hand without a second thought after her scanner flashed red, chirping about “critical glucose deficiency.”

I wanted to refuse it, to push it away. The logical part of my brain screamed warnings: debt, obligation, trap. But a primal part of me made my fingers tear open the straw, made my throat gulp down the sweetness.

My body overrode my mind’s caution. For a heartbeat, the sweetness filled more than my stomach. It tricked something deeper into believing I was safe. I crushed that thought as fast as it came.

“Easy there,” Martha had cautioned when juice dribbled down my chin. Her weathered face creased with a concern that seemed impossible to fake. “Small sips, honey.”

Martha had passed along a wrapped granola bar. The wrapping crinkled under my touch, revealing a dense, golden-brown rectangle studded with actual nuts and fruits. Not the uniform gray, compressed algae protein blocks that crumbled into bitter chalk in your mouth. This one smelled sweet and spicy, rich and warm in a way that made my mouth water.

I held the bar without taking a bite, feeling its substantial weight in my palm. One food item for another person meant nothing here. In the domes, sharing meant sacrifice. Mothers went hungry so children could eat. Yet Martha gave away food like it was worthless, like my existence warranted nourishment without question.

Too much kindness grated on me worse than any inspection by dome admins. A vice of anxiety clamped around my chest, squeezing until black spots danced at the edges of my vision. Breathing felt unnatural here, weightless, stripped of the rust and blood tang I’d known all my life.

My toes pressed against the cold floor. The granola bar remained untouched, a line I refused to cross, a final resistance against accepting their charity.

The examination room door slid open with a hiss of compressed air. My fingers convulsed, crushing what remained of the juice box. The orange fluid trickled down to the edge of the oversized jacket sleeve, soaking into the fabric, staining the cuff with juice.

More fitting. More like me.

Ava entered, the woman who’d jabbed Pierce with that injector. A white lab coat had covered her all-black uniform, and rectangular glasses now framed her eyes. Her mouth attempted a welcoming smile, but exhaustion pulled at the corners.

“You’re looking more alert now,” she observed. “A definite improvement from earlier.” She glanced at my juice-stained hand, her forehead creasing with what seemed to be worry.

I couldn’t read her. In the domes, care often masked calculation: what would this person cost me, what could they provide? But her eyes held an unfamiliar sincerity. I almost believed that someone could help without expecting anything in return.

The thought was a trap closing, worse than any threat. Hope was the cruelest trick of all.

“When Lieutenant Pierce carried you in here last night, you were unresponsive. It’s a relief to see you awake and coherent.”

Carried me in. Completely unresponsive. My throat constricted, parched despite the juice. Her confirmation explained the gaps, the feeling of wrongness, and the medical gown, but didn’t make the situation any less terrifying.

“Where’s Callan?” I asked, the words scraping past my tight vocal cords. The question emerged unbidden, surprising me with my own apparent concern for the man who’d dragged me into this mess.

“Why don’t we talk about you first?” Ava sidestepped my question about Callan. She reached for a wheeled stool by a nearby table and pulled it toward me. The small wheels glided without a sound across the polished floor, unlike the screeching, metal-on-metal protest of the dome furniture when moved.

“Let me check your eyes,” she said, pulling a slim, pen-like instrument from her coat pocket. When she clicked it, a narrow beam appeared. “Look straight ahead for me.”

She leaned in closer than I liked, her face inches from mine. A clean, subtle scent emanated from her, contrasting with the room’s harsh antiseptic sting. The proximity made my shoulders rise toward my ears.

The instrument traced across my vision, and I fought the urge to look away. Her fingers brushed the skin beside my eye, applying scant pressure as she examined me.

“Do your eyes hurt?” she asked, still too close.

“They feel… uncomfortable,” I said, trying to focus on anything but her scrutiny. “Too bright in here.”

She nodded, switching off the instrument and sitting back. “That’s normal after prolonged exposure to low-light conditions. Your pupils will adjust.” Her clinical tone didn’t match the light way her fingers had touched my face.

“Need to check one more thing,” she said, her hands moving to my neck.

Her fingers pressed against a spot just below my hairline. A pinch shot through my nervous system, making me flinch away. “What was that?” I demanded, my free hand flying up to probe the tender area. My fingers found a small, raised bump beneath the skin. Not large, but definitely not natural.

“Just a bruise I needed to examine,” Ava said without pause, adjusting her glasses. “From the rescue, most likely. It won’t cause any trouble.”

A skeptical frown touched my lips. Her explanation didn’t match the deliberate way she’d pressed that specific spot, or how fast she moved on.

“So,” she continued, placing the pen back in her pocket. “Tell me what happened when you woke up.”

My mouth went dry. How much should I tell her? That I’d tried to escape the first chance I got? That I’d been caught between a wall and the man who’d somehow fished me out of a collapsing dome? That I still had no idea why I was here or what they wanted from me?

“I…” I hesitated. A lock of my own disheveled hair tumbled into my eyes as the thin paper sheet covering the exam bed crinkled under my restless fingers. My gaze dropped to the crushed juice box in my hand. “I didn’t know where I was.”

This much was safe to admit. Let her think confusion was my only problem.

“That’s understandable,” Ava said, her eyes studying my face for hints I wasn’t willing to give. “You’ve been through a traumatic experience. The dome collapse, then waking up in a strange place.”

Her casual mention of the collapse sent a jolt through me. My home, my job, my studies, everything I’d scraped together—gone. The reality I’d been pushing aside crashed back like a physical blow.

“Is there anything left?” I needed to know, even if the truth was what I feared.

Ava let out a long breath, removing her glasses to rub the bridge of her nose. “Dome Eight suffered catastrophic structural failure after the Nephilim attack. The eastern quadrant, where Lieutenant Pierce found you, was hit hardest.”

“I had… people there,” I said, the words catching in my throat. “A friend… Maya Serrano. And her brother, Angel. I don’t know if they were able to leave.”

“I can look into it for you. What are their names again?”

“Maya and Angel Serrano,” I repeated, unable to meet her eyes as I hated the hope that surfaced as I spoke. “She works—worked—at the recycling plant with me. Her brother’s in medical care. Some chronic condition.”

I didn’t elaborate on how Maya took double shifts to pay for his treatments, or how she shared her charger with me that last night. How she’d offered me a place to stay when mine was about to lose power. How I’d rejected her help because accepting kindness had always felt like a trap. Things like that don’t matter here.

Ava made a note on a small device she pulled from her pocket. “I’ll access the evacuation manifests. If they made it onto a transport, there will be records.”

“And if they didn’t?”

She met my eyes, not softening the truth with false reassurances. “Then there won’t be.”

“Right.” I didn’t bother hiding the bitterness, just like Dome City Twelve. My parents vanished in the chaos while I was shoved onto a transport. When I asked about them later, all I got were blank stares or useless condolences. Nobody searched the rubble for bodies. Nobody compiled complete lists of the dead. Bureaucracy crumbles when domes fall.

Maya and Angel were either on a transport or crushed under tons of concrete and alien flesh. No middle ground. Hoping otherwise would only delay the inevitable grief when reality caught up.

Ava’s chair squeaked as she rose. Her white coat swished with each step as she moved toward the far wall. The sink’s sensor detected her hands, releasing a stream of clear water, not the rusty trickle dome sinks produced on good days. Her finger movements were economical, scrubbing between knuckles like someone who’d done it thousands of times.

The cabinet’s tempered glass door reflected the light when she tugged it open. Glass vials lined the shelves in perfect rows, each label crisp and readable. Her fingers lingered, found what she sought, and withdrew a small bottle.

The seal cracked under her thumb. Pills rattled as they tumbled onto the metal tray. The water dispenser whirred, filling a paper cup with crystal-clear liquid. No sediment, no chemical smell.

“Here,” she said, extending the tray toward me. “These will help with the eye sensitivity and general recovery.”

I stared at the pills, my gaze moving from the capsules to her. White, unmarked. The kind of medication that never reached the Dome markets. Even smugglers, with their hidden routes and black market connections, rarely trafficked meds, too risky, too regulated, and too valuable to waste on ordinary people like me.

“I can’t cover this. Any of this. Or why your pilot decided to haul me into this place. What is this going to cost me?”

Ava lowered the tray. Understanding crossed her features before she hid it again.

“Leo,” she said, my name somehow sounding different in her mouth, “you’re not being charged for basic medical care. And for why you are here, I—”

The door opened. Callan Pierce filled the entrance, broad shoulders squared, his height stealing the room’s air. I could see him clear now, not like the dim light where I’d first woken. His hair was rumpled and damp at the temples, like he’d splashed water on his face in a hurry. Tension radiated from him; it carved lines around his blue eyes and set his jaw hard. He looked like a storm about to break, focused straight on me.

“I can explain that,” he said, his deep voice triggering an immediate memory of his breath against my ear when he’d caught me trying to escape.

Every instinct screamed to bolt. My body stayed rooted to the bed, trapped between fear and something I didn’t dare name.