Chapter 690
Before she could completely relax, Silas’s eyes began to violently spasm.
His pupils dilated massively before instantly contracting into pinpricks, a terrifying crimson mist bleeding into the edges of his irises.
Sienna knew that look entirely too well.
It was the exact same expression Maloney had during his episodes—like an invisible fire was incinerating him from the inside out.
“Silas?” She lunged forward.
Silas’s right hand clamped down on the bedrail, the stainless steel groaning under his crushing grip.
His entire body violently arched off the mattress, the veins in his neck bulging grotesquely as a raw, guttural growl ripped from his throat.
It wasn’t a cry of pain; it sounded like a cornered, savage beast fighting against its chains.
Sienna whipped around, snatching a pre-loaded sedative syringe off the console.
She drove the needle into his skin. The second the fluid hit his bloodstream, Silas’s body convulsed viciously.
His head slammed back into the pillow, and then, as if all his bones had been completely vaporized, he went utterly limp.
Sienna braced her hands against the edge of the console, swaying on her feet for a few seconds.
Her palms were slick with cold sweat.
The latest round of chemical observation was over.
The compounded residual toxin in Silas’s body was finally stabilized, but his nervous system was so severely burnt out that he had slipped into a deep coma.
He wouldn’t be waking up anytime soon.
Luna and Thea stood by the bed, gently tucking him in, their eyes heavy with worry.
Out on the balcony, Jarred remained frozen in his spot.
He didn’t cast a single glance at Silas; his entire focus, from beginning to end, was riveted solely on Sienna.
When Silas had gone into his violent stress response, Jarred had been more terrified than she was.
Thankfully, the crisis had passed.
Sienna stripped off her blood-stained rubber gloves.
Taking advantage of Silas’s comatose state, she immediately retrieved the preserved toxin samples.
She had memorized the chemical makeup of Maloney’s poison better than the lines on her own palms.
Yet there was still one single, unknown compound she couldn’t accurately identify.
Sienna placed the blood sample into the high-precision analyzer for a deep molecular breakdown.
The data quickly cascaded across the monitor.
Sienna frowned in deep concentration, cross-referencing every line.
She first mapped it against the violent characteristics of Maloney’s daily episodes.
Then she layered in the latent side effects Silas exhibited after the trial.
Finally, she factored in the specific traits of her synthesized poison and the first-stage antidote.
She kept going until a truly horrifying sequence of data flashed onto the screen.
Sienna’s pupils constricted, her fingers freezing violently against the console as a massive shockwave hit her chest.
She had seen this before!
Ten years ago, a foreign lab had published a paper that was immediately and aggressively retracted.
It detailed an unimaginably rare psychiatric pathogen.
The pathogen couldn’t be artificially cultivated; it could only be extracted from the cerebrospinal fluid of living hosts.
Infected patients would exhibit intermittent bouts of violent rage, cognitive fragmentation, and complete emotional collapse
They would be violently torn between lucidity and sheer madness, suffering continuous. organ failure and rapid physical degradation
Conventional anti-psychotic drugs were utterly useless, and heavy sedatives only worked temporarily.
There were fewer than twenty recorded cases globally.
Every single patient died within two years of diagnosis.
The disease was unspeakably horrific, with an infection rate so low it was practically non-existent.
Years ago, a top-tier foreign research team had attempted to develop suppressants and a complete cure to eradicate the pathogen.
But midway through the research, they were forced into an emergency shutdown.
The project was permanently sealed, scrubbed entirely from the internet.
The paper was pulled during peer review, never to be seen again.
There was only one reason, and it was devastatingly cruel.
The toxin could not be synthetically manufactured or replicated in a lab.
The absolute only way to acquire it was through Bio-Harvesting—extracting it directly from a living human host.
It was a catastrophic violation of fundamental human rights, crossing every medical and ethical red line on the planet.