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“I know,” Danyal said softly. “I know who your father is. I sent Bryn in specifically for you, Misha, because of who you were.”
My face burned. “You think he let me escape?”
“Do you?”
The words were a challenge, and I hated that I wasn’t sure. “It seemed easy, but I also have no idea what that other Wolf had to go through in order to secure our way out.”
The doctor looked at me for a very long time, then squeezed my shoulder once before leading the way down the corridor. We said nothing, the silence following the echoes of our footsteps until we reached a familiar sight—a room with a heavy door, a single bed, monitors, and a standing shower.
So. I was to be prisoner again. It was something I’d prepared myself for, but the weight of it was heavy.
When the door shut behind us, Danyal took me by the arm and led me to the bed. It wasn’t particularly easy to hoist onto the edge, but sitting felt nice, even if that’s all I’d been doing for days. My arms were aching from the position, but I could see in Danyal’s face, he wasn’t ready to free me. Not yet.
“I believe you’re not a threat to us. Not as yourself,” he started.
I swallowed, then shook my head. “But possibly my subconscious.”
“Or something in your blood,” he conceded. “You could be a bio-weapon and we’d have no idea until our people started dying. When Major Peterson called in to let us know he had secured you and General Titus, he told us that you were experiencing pains.” At that, he pulled something out of his pocket—a little tablet the size of his palm, and a stylus, but I was distracted by Kor’s title.
General Titus.
“They started a while ago,” I finally answered him. “They started before I was locked up in the lab. For as long as I can remember, my father was always forcing injections on my brothers and I. I didn’t think anything of it until I started getting sick.”
He made a note before looking up at me. “Sick how?”
“Pains at first,” I told him tiredly. “Weakness, fatigue. It progressed to cramping and nausea, but it wasn’t all the time. Every few weeks. By the time I realized I should be tracking the symptoms, I was already locked up.” I managed a shrug with my bound arms. “They didn’t exactly give me a diary, and they weren’t super forthcoming about the date.”
His mouth twisted into a sort of mocking grimace, but I knew it wasn’t meant for me. “Did they sedate you a lot?”
“Enough,” I said. “I think it was mostly to keep me from trying to escape. I was in a room with a glass wall—I could see Kor most of the time.” I stopped and flushed. “General Titus, I mean.”
Danyal’s face softened a fraction. “You saved his life. I have a feeling he’ll forgive you for watching him in that state.”
I wasn’t entirely sure about that, but I still liked the idea of it. If I died now, at least it would have been for something. “They gave me infusions three times a day, kept me hooked up to monitors.” I nudged my chin in the direction of my collarbone, and Danyal pulled the shirt down gently, inspecting the shallow marks from ripping them off the night we escaped. “General Titus had them implanted, and I had to carve them out.”
He made another note, then scrolled through his screen. “It looks like General Titus is receiving an MRI shortly. That’ll detect whether or not there was any sort of tracker left behind in his body—and I’d like to do the same to you. As well as a full work-up.”
“Take whatever you need,” I said, unable to hide the fatigue in my voice. His brows rose again, and I shrugged helplessly. “I know how this ends.”
“Mr. Kasher,” he said carefully, dropping his hands and taking a step close, “we’re not in the business of killing people.”
“But you might not have a choice,” I pointed out, and his gaze darted to the side just long enough for me to see the truth.
“We will do everything we can to find out what they did to you, and why.”
I let out a bitter laugh and leaned back just far enough that I didn’t topple over. “The why is easy, Dr. Bereket. My father is… He’s not a good man. He’s a patient one, and intelligent enough that people should be terrified, but he has no sense of morality or empathy. I was a disappointment to him until I became a useful test subject, and if he’s looking for me at all, it’s because he thinks I can further his research. He’s the perfect man for the job.”
Danyal’s eyes narrowed. “What job?”
“You said yourself you know what he’s doing in that lab,” I reminded him bitterly. “Altering humans—stripping living beings down to the very makeup of their core and putting them together in all the wrong pieces just to see if he can. And if it gives the humans a weapon they’ve been after for so long…” I trailed off with a shrug, and I saw something in his eyes like pity. “Whatever he did is probably going to kill me, even if it wasn’t intended to kill you.”
He touched me again, just a gentle grip on my shoulder, but it was the kindest thing I had felt since Kor had been near me. It took every ounce of my self-control not to cry, and I wasn’t sure how long I’d be able to hold back. “We’re going to do everything in our power,” he repeated again, “to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
I was too terrified to really believe him, but something about the strength in his voice gave me hope.
* * *
I was given a mild sedative for the MRI, and then a stronger one when they wanted to take tissue samples from my body. I woke with a single stitch in my abdomen, and a headache that made me want to claw my brain out through my ears.
