Quinn was careful to stay in the shadows, making her way across the building. It seemed to take an eternity, but eventually she found a secure room.
She opened the door to find that Adam had apparently gotten there before her. He didn't seem to notice her at first, so she spoke up hesitantly. "What are you doing?"
He looked up from the screen. His glasses were askew and blood was visibly dripping down the side of his face.
"What the hell happened to you?"
"Th-They got to him," he said shakily.
She realised what had happened and her heart sank. In the panic, she'd forgotten to give him a heads up. "I know," she said quickly, but he continued over her.
"He just kept talking, a-and I didn't notice anything wrong. He didn't do anything at first. He-He just talked, and I believed him..." He paused, realising. "What do you mean, you know?"
She hesitated. "Look, I know you're upset..."
"Don't do this to me now, this is serious." He said, a dangerous edge to his voice. "Why the hell didn't you tell me?"
She paused, trying to think of an excuse. "Look, I didn't want you to freak out about it."
"Well that worked out well, didn't it?" He let out a shaky laugh. "Do... Do you have any idea what I've been through tonight?"
"What?"
"I just got attacked by a walking corpse, my friend held a gun against my skull, and you can't even pick up a goddamn phone?"
She swallowed, nodding her head. In all the years they'd known each other, she'd never seen him this angry. "Listen, you have a right to be upset, but..."
"You realise what could have happened?" He gestured over at the computer screens. "He could be seriously hurt right now, o-or dead, and I could be him again permanently... I could have killed him. I came this close..." He faltered, turning to her and running his hands through his hair.
"I... I just assumed..."
"W-Well, you know damn well what happens when you make assumptions at times like this." He started to raise his voice, and she mimed at him to calm down, but he ignored her, letting out something resembling a laugh. "You don't care, do you? It's... It's all just theoretical to you. You never think about how your actions affect other people."
She looked away from him and into the screen. It displayed a small room that was dimly lit, and there was a table covered in sharp tools and bottles of chemicals. It stirred some sort of memory in her, but she couldn't place it.
"Th-The door's soundproof, I checked," He added.
"I'm sorry," she said eventually.
"You know what?" He said, turning around to face her. He paused for a second, deliberating, before shaking his head. "We'll leave it at that, okay? I... I don't want to talk about this anymore. Consider that book closed."
She struggled to find anything she could say that wouldn't make it any worse. Eventually she decided on, "What did he tell you?"
"C-Can we not..." Adam didn't look at her. "It doesn't matter."
There was an awkward silence as Adam picked up an instruction manual from the shelf and opened it up. Eventually Quinn broke it. "You like him."
He let out a strangled sort of laugh. "You're doing this now?"
"If that is what he said, then he wasn't lying." She thought back to what Jessie had told her about drained people's actions being shaped by their previous thoughts, then about what Luke had told her about distractions. "I don't know if that makes a difference now, but he was telling the truth. He didn't want to say it at the wrong time, and so I just... I promised him that I wouldn't tell you."
"Well, when have you ever kept a promise?" He closed the book. "A-And you're right. It doesn't make a difference. N-Now he wants me dead, just like everybody else. Right when I thought that maybe I'd been lucky enough to find one person who wouldn't try to kill me."
"I'm sorry," she said again.
There was another very long silence as he picked the book up again.
"Can we talk?" She asked him eventually.
"I don't think that's a good idea," he replied stiffly. "There isn't a lot I want to talk about."
"Are you okay?"
"Is that a serious question?" He replied, covering his eyes. "T-Take a long hard look at the situation we're in. A tiny building, with over a thousand people at the very least, none of whom have any idea what's going on right now, and a-are fully willing to kill both of us on sight. Or worse..." His hand went to his arm where he was still scarred. He looked up at her. "I may be breathing manually for the rest of my life. Where's Jess?"
She didn't reply.
"Her too?"
"Look, I know it's not great, but..."
"Do you know how terrified she was to come back here?" He snapped, taking another step towards her. "She was so close to not coming at all. But she did it. She came j-just so you'd have some more backup."
"What does it matter?" Quinn took a defensive stance. "She's safer without them hunting her down. Now she's with them, they'll leave her alone. They can't hurt her, and we're going to get her back, so why..."
"God, you're dense," he said. He was smiling, but it wasn't remotely pleasant. "They censored every negative thought she had so that she couldn't cause any trouble. That's why she is the way she is. They literally tore her brain to shreds. Y-You know, she told me this would happen. She was more afraid of them finding her again than of anything else in the world, but she came. For you. And now she's in there all alone, once again, because of you. And you didn't care enough to mention it."
She was silent for a few moments. Nothing she could say seemed to fit. "She never told me that."
"Well she wouldn't, would she? She didn't want to scare you. But if you're so laid back about all of this, maybe you deserve to be afraid." He laughed slightly and looked down at her. She realised again that he was a lot bigger than her when he stood his full height. "Because whenever the going gets tough, the tough act like nothing happened, right?" He was speaking slower than usual. "That's... That's what you do, isn't it? That's what you always do. You want everyone to think you're invincible so badly, so you act like it's all fine when you know it isn't, and you refuse to take anybody else into account. I'm not going to ignore it anymore."
He took a step towards her and she flinched instinctively.
He realised what had happened and his expression softened. "I'm sorry, I-I didn't think..." He stuttered.
"It's fine," she replied quickly. Her voice caught in her throat. The memories were more vivid than ever now, she knew that if she tried she would be able to remember what he'd done to her. Her head burned, and she pushed them away.
He stayed away from her, eyes wide. "I wasn't going to..." He took a sharp breath. "I won't hurt you."
"I know." She forced herself to calm down. "Obviously, I know."
He took his glasses off and put them on the table in front of them. When he looked back up at her, she saw that his eyes were red and raw from crying. "Th-There, see? Better?"
"I really couldn't care less about that right now," she lied. "Besides, someone might see you."
He put them back on and his eyes turned black again. Brushing his hair back with one hand, he rubbed at his forehead with the other. "Th-They do give you a headache."
She attempted a smile and didn't respond.
Adam swallowed, and for a second she was worried he'd break down in tears again. "H-How much further is it now?" He said, his voice strained.
"I don't know. Couple of hundred meters? I'm not... Great at measuring distances." She tried to visualise the path to the classroom. "Couple more corridors."
"Then we should just go. I... I just need this to be over now." He took the spraybottle out of his pocket and held it up to examine it. Quinn took her tranquilliser out and loaded it in preparation.
She pressed her ear up against the door, listening for anything coming up the corridor.
It was silent.
Turning back to Adam, she nodded shakily, and lead the way.