He sacrificed himself for me? He volunteered himself for drug experiments for me? To protect me?

            That was when I started mistrusting him. That was when I started wondering if people who could do this to me even cared about innocent people. I knew Raines didn’t. But I started to mistrust Sydney then, and it was then that he was proving that he cared.

            It didn’t work. It didn’t protect me. But it doesn’t matter. All that horror is gone now, from inside my soul. Because he tried. Because he loved me. Sydney loved me.

            I failed to protect him. I would have given my soul to protect him. I very nearly did. That brief drug addiction nearly killed me. Worse, it nearly destroyed my mind. But the worst thing of all was that it rendered me incapable of protecting Jarod. That was why I did it, to protect him. But I failed.

            At least I tried. At least I didn’t stand by and watch as Raines strung my boy out on drugs. That would have been the worst failure yet. I stood by for so many things, but not for that. I shared his torment.