If they’re trying to give animals powers like Avids, then I don’t even want to think about what kind of experiments they’ve done on actual Avids to make that happen. The folder in front of me is bad enough. But there’s more out there. Worse. I know it.
Meadow.
She wasn’t herself. Stronger, yes, but something had been twisted inside her and stitched back together incorrectly. They did something to her. Changed her. Used her.
I know she wasn’t the first.
And she won’t be the last.
Every single person behind this deserves to burn for it.
Torture would be a kindness compared to what they’ve done. And I don’t care if that makes me sick or depraved. Iwould deliver the pain myself, smiling, if it meant they paid for what they did.
I have to go to this facility. I will find a way in. I will tear down everything the Volkovs have built. And anyone helping them—anyone complicit in this horror—will fall with them. This world is already hanging on by a thread. We’ve poisoned the planet, ripped each other apart, turned survival into a currency only the powerful can afford. Society is fractured beyond recognition. Still, we don’t stop.
Natural disasters used to humble us; earthquakes, floods, the kind of events we couldn’t control. They reminded us how fragile this earth is. How small we really are. But even after the planet fought back, even after half the population died… we didn’t unite. We didn’t learn.
We found new ways to destroy each other.
I think about what I read in the scientist’s journal that Malachi gave me. The first Avid wasn’t born. She was made. A terrified girl experimented on in some desperate attempt to cure a plague we brought on ourselves. Millions died. And we turned on our own. We created monsters and then blamed them for existing.
We are the problem. And we’re not only killing each other. We’re killing everything—every innocent soul still trying to live on this scorched Earth.
“Are you all right?”
Malachi’s voice breaks through the spiral, and I turn away quickly, blinking back tears before he can see. I hate feeling this way, hate letting the darkness inside me swell to the surface. I want to believe in people. There’s still good left in this world, but every time I think I’ve found it, something like this rips it away.
This godforsaken lab full of cages and needles and screams will fall. I will tear it down myself if I have to. I’m going to putmyself through Bash’s machine. Whatever it takes. I have to get stronger. I need to be ready. Because therewillbe a mission. I’ll lead it if I have to.
Marco thinks I hated him before? That was before I knew how deep his sickness runs. Before I understood what kind of monster he really is. I let myself be blind. Let myself believe ignorance was protection.
That ends now.
Every hand that touched this, every mind that approved it—they all have blood on their hands, and I won’t let them walk away from it.
“Kat?” Malachi’s hand finds my shoulder, grounding me for a beat. I pass him the folder, swiping at the tear that escapes before he can notice.
“Project Graft,” he mutters.
He flips through the pages, his expression tightening with every turn. His brows knit together, then his jaw locks. I watch his hand clench around the paper, the tendons straining with a soundless fury as he exhales through gritted teeth.
I don’t need to look again. The images are already burned into my mind.
And this is only the first folder.
My gaze drops to the box still full beside me. Whatever else waits inside, I’m not sure I’m strong enough to face it tonight.
Malachi closes the file and sets it down. His arm slips around my shoulders, pulling me into him.
“That’s enough for tonight,” he says gently. “Come on. Let’s get you something to eat.”
I lean into his warmth, into the steady thrum of his heartbeat, and let myself sink there for a moment. For all the cruelty and chaos clawing at the edges of this world, somehow, I still found him—this calm, this good.
We barely make it halfway to the kitchen when I hear something.
A sharp beep.
Then another.
