The question catches me off-guard. My pulse quickens, and I force myself not to fidget. Shit. Did I say something earlier that gave me away? I mentally replay our conversation, searching for the slip. Years of hiding what I am has made me an expert liar, but even experts make mistakes.
"Nothing was different." I keep my voice flat, professional. The same voice I use when reporting successful eliminations to Hayes.
"Then why are you speaking about it differently?" She taps her tablet. "I've reviewed your previous post-encounter reports. You typically describe entities as 'it' or 'the target.' Yet throughout this evaluation, and in your written report you've referred to this wolf shifter as 'the wolf' and just now as a ‘he.’ You're personalizing it."
My stomach drops. Sloppy. Careless. I mentally curse myself for such a basic error. This is exactly the kind of mistake that gets people like me killed. I need to recover, and fast.
I lean back slightly, adopting the posture I've seen Marcus use during evaluations—slightly defensive, but reasoned. "I was using the language from the briefing material. The initial reports referred to the entity as male." A practiced shrug. "Force of habit to mirror terminology. I can assure you, Doctor, it was a target like any other."
The lie feels like ash in my mouth, but I maintain eye contact. Years of hiding and hunting others that hide has taught me that looking away is the first tell evaluators watch for.
"Hmm." She makes another note, then looks up at me with those disconcertingly perceptive eyes. "You know, many agents who've had close encounters with Class Three entities develop a kind of fascination afterward. It's perfectly normal—the human brain trying to make sense of something beyond its experience."
Fascination. The word echoes in my mind, uncomfortably accurate. I can still see those golden eyes watching me through the trees, intelligent and wild all at once. Can still feel the strange pull when our gazes locked. But fascination implies curiosity, academic interest, not this constant, intrusive awareness that's been haunting me since that night.
Why can't I stop thinking about him? About the wolf? Years of hunting, and I've never lost focus like this. Never caught myself replaying an encounter in my mind during quiet moments. Never found myself wondering what it would be like to…
I shut down that thought before it fully forms. Dangerous territory, Astrid.
"I'm not fascinated. I'm doing my job." The words come out sharper than I intend, still raw from Hayes' accusation that I've neglected my actual job—hunting the chimeras. But even as I say it, I recognize the defensive edge in my voice. Would I react this strongly if there wasn't some truth to her observation?
Maybe that's what frightens me most. Not that I'm thinking about the wolf, but that I want to. That some part of me, the part I've spent my entire adult life denying and hiding, recognizes something in him that resonates with what I am.
"Of course." She offers a smile that doesn't reach her eyes. "Just a few more questions, then."
The rest of the evaluation passes in a blur of standardized questions and careful answers. I maintain my composure, but something must have slipped through my defenses. When Dr. Carrow finally sets down her tablet, her expression is thoughtful.
I've spent years perfecting the art of appearing human to people trained to spot anything that isn't. But for the first time since joining GUIDE, I'm not sure my performance was convincing. Not because I'm slipping in my disguise, but because something fundamental has shifted inside me. Something I don't fully understand yet. Something that started the moment I locked eyes with that wolf.
"You're cleared for restricted duty, Agent Mathieson. Seventy-two hours, as Deputy Director Hayes indicated. I'm also recommending an extended observation protocol."
"Extended observation?" I keep my tone merely curious, though my heart slams against my ribs. Being watched is dangerous. Being watched means mistakes can be seen. And in my world, mistakes are fatal.
"Just a precaution." Her smile is professional, empty. "Close encounters with predators, of which you have had many, can have subtle psychological impacts. We want to make sure you're fully processed this experience."
Translation: Something about my responses raised red flags, and now they'll be watching me even more closely.
Perfect.
Back at my workstation, I pull up the GUIDE archives and begin a two-pronged research approach. With Sherlock likely monitoring my digital footprint, I need to be strategic.
Seventy-two hours. That's all I need to ride out before Hayes puts me back on the chimeras. Just three days of this bureaucratic bullshit, then I can get back to what matters. My jaw clenches at the thought of Williams and Reyes handling my case in the meantime. My case. They can't possibly screw it up too badly in three days, but these are the same agents who fumbled a simple goblin infestation last winter.
"I just got all this information from Rossi and Hayes took me off the case," I mutter under my breath, the injustice of it burning in my chest. My knuckles go white as I grip the edge of my desk.
This isn't just about protocol or procedure. It's personal. Every day the chimeras remain active is another day I'm not avenging my father. Another day some other child might lose a parent.
First, chimeras—the official reason I'd be accessing the archives, and my actual case that Hayes has temporarily stolen from me. I pull every case file, every report, every scrap of information on the creatures that match the ones we encountered in Rome.
I casually glance around the operations center, checking who might be paying attention to my search. Two analysts at the far end are engrossed in their own work. Agent Rivera is on a call, facing away from me. I catch Gonzalez looking in my direction and offer a curt nod before returning to my screen. Just another agent doing routine research. Nothing to see here.
The search returns fewer results than expected. Chimeras are rare. The few reports that do exist describe single predators, territorial and vicious.
My heart sinks. There's nothing here I don't already know. No new insights, no patterns I haven't already identified, no leads that might point me toward the one that took my father’s life. The frustration builds behind my eyes like gathering storm clouds. Over a decade of searching, and I'm still running in circles.
I save the files to my secure drive, then prepare for my second, riskier search. If anyone questions it, I have a cover story ready… comparative analysis of shapeshifting entities to identify behavioral patterns. Standard procedural research. But my pulse quickens anyway as I type the keywords.
Wolf shifters rarely interact with human society in ways that draw GUIDE's attention. Most encounters describe feral creatures driven purely by rage—nothing like the intelligent being that carried me from that sinkhole.
