“Well,” he says, letting out a breath, “not all of it. A good portion of his files caught fire in the explosion. What we have here is only what survived.”
He grabs another fresh stack of folders out of the box next to him, then adds, “Gary and Orin had both been pressuring him to digitize more of it. I think he started to, but most of these records predate my father’s leadership. A lot of it was inherited. Passed down from the men who came before him I guess.”
So paranoia runs in the family, great.
I don’t know how long we’ve been reading through these files, but it’s long enough that my eyes feel like sandpaper, and the words on the page blur together like melting ink. At some point, Irina came down to tell us she was leaving, but that feels like hours ago.
Most of what I’ve sifted through is useless: scraps of old auction records, faded lists of names and numbers, handwritten tallies of prices paid and buyers labeled only by initials. There are black market receipts for shady deals that lead nowhere and pages of coded memos that reference conversations, with no clear sender or recipient. It all feels… sanitized. Too clean. Like someone packed it intentionally to look damning without actually giving away anything important.
Maybe this whole stash was curated to throw us off.Maybe everything that mattered went up in flames the night he escaped.
I’m about ready to toss in the towel and find something to eat, but Malachi’s been silent for so long I glance over to make sure he’s still breathing. He hasn’t looked up once. Whatever he’s reading has his full attention, so I figure I’ll give it one last try before I disturb him.
The next box catches my eye because it looks nothing like the others. It’s not weathered or falling apart at the corners. No yellowing tape, no brittle edges. This one is new. Pristine. Like someone packed it last week.
Something about that makes the hairs on my arms stand up.
I drag it toward me and peel back the crisp edge of the tape. It opens with a clean rip, the kind you only get from a fresh seal. Inside, the first thing I notice is the lack of dust. The second thing is that everything inside is perfectly organized. Not a single page out of place.
This wasn’t abandoned. It was preserved.
With a flutter of unease starting to fester inside me, I lift out the top folder. It’s unmarked on the front, but the tab has two words in bold block letters.
PROJECT GRAFT.
Chapter Eight
LOG EIGHT – REFLEXES BEYOND CONTROL: SHE MOVED BEFORE THE NEEDLE TOUCHED HER. EYES CLOSED. STILL SMILING.
Project Graft.
I crack open the folder and immediately slam it shut, heart lurching into my throat. My pulse stutters. There is a photo of a monstrosity. At first glance, it looks like a fox, or maybe it used to be, but it is now something else. Limbs stitched where they shouldn’t be. Eyes too large, too human. The fur patchy, wiry, and singed.
I take a breath, then another, forcing the bile back down my throat.
You have to look. You have to know.
I open it again, slower this time, blinking fast as my eyes skim over the grotesque image and drop to the page beneath it. Black ink. Sharp, clinical. Unfeeling.
I flip through the documents, each page worse than the last. Organ grafts. Genetic manipulation. Neurological rewiring. They’re not simply testing on animals; they’re trying to remake them. Rebuild them. Strip them down to muscle and bone and insert something else in their place. Something Avid.
I read,Cognitive Enhancement Trial #6. Increased aggressionnoted. Subject terminated after breaching enclosure.Another line is scrawled in the margins.No tranquilizer necessary. Subject responded to heat signature, nearly intelligent.
My hands tremble as I keep reading.
Project Graft isn’t some theoretical idea; they’ve already done it. They’re giving animals powers. Trying to gift them strength, speed, even perception. As if the world isn’t already a nightmare.
And then it hits me like ice water down my spine.
The wolves that tore through the forest in the snow. We knew something was off. They were too fast. Too organized.
I squeeze the folder tighter until the paper crumples at the edges.
Marco. This has his corruption all over it.
I don’t know how anyone could justify this. Why would anyone need this kind of weapon, this kind of creature?
But someone does. Someone wants this army and thinks the only way to win is to play God. And they’ve already started.
