Brenna doesn’t sit. She stands with her arms crossed, her back to the window, and when she speaks, her voice is low and controlled in a way that’s worse than shouting.
“You lowered the sedation.”
“I didn’t.”
“Don’t lie to me, Sable.”
“I’m not lying.” I keep my voice level. “I’ve been following full protocol since you told me to. Same dose. Same schedule. No adjustments.”
“Then how did he break out?”
“His body is adapting to the drug.”
The words come out before I’ve fully assembled the thought, but the second I say them, I know it’s true. I can feel the pieces lining up, all the small things I noticed and explained away, one by one, falling into a pattern I should’ve seen weeks ago.
“His metabolism has been adjusting,” I say. “Not suddenly. Gradually. When I first reduced the dose, I thought the changes I saw were just his body responding to lighter sedation. But when I put him back on full protocol, the changes didn’t stop. They slowed down, but they didn’t stop.”
Brenna’s eyes narrow. “What changes?”
“Small things. His fingers twitching during wound care. Sleep cycles that shouldn’t have been possible under full suppression. His heart rate trending upward.” I pull out my notebook and set it on her desk. “Every dose is logged. Times, amounts, method. Look for yourself. The protocol hasn’t changed. He’s been burning through it.”
She flips through the pages. Her jaw works while she reads. When she looks up, her eyes have gone from hard to sharp.
“You logged a correction dose this morning.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He surfaced two hours early. I assessed, administered, documented.”
“Two hours early. On full protocol.”
“Yes.”
Brenna sets the notes down. “And you didn’t report that immediately.”
“I wanted another cycle to confirm.”
“Confirm.” Her voice drops. “Sable, that man nearly killed a child because you wanted more data.”
My chest goes tight. Not because she’s cruel. Because she’s half right.
“He didn’t,” I say.
“Because Dane darted him.”
“No. He stopped before that. I was there. I spoke to him, and he stopped.”
Brenna goes still. “You spoke to him.”
“Yes.”
“And you believe that stopped him. Why?”
I open my mouth. Close it.
Because he grabbed my wrist and let go when I asked. Because the pressure he was pushing through the corridor—whatever it is, whatever his body does—dropped the second I spoke. Because I’ve been in a room with him when he surfaced, and the wolf who looked at me wasn’t the same wolf who fights when men pin him in corners.
