Michael's pov

I hadn't let the guards leave my room yet, and it was the moon. With a heavy, suffocating thrust, they pressed their feet together and walked along the corridor till the silence faded.

I stood on the balcony, staring at the silver light over the trees while holding my hands together on the stone's frigid rail. The stars shimmered on the pitch-black night like shards of glass. Gorgeous. Quiet. cruel.

The experiment left me with the smell of iron and smoke from the house's ...