Ash just grinned, hair wild, mismatched eyes shining.
But when he glanced back toward the building where Seph had vanished with Marr…
the grin cracked.
“I don’t like him taking her,” he muttered.
Neither did I.
I turned away before he could look too closely at my face.
“Keep him here,” I ordered.
Dev groaned. “You try keeping him here.”
But his eyes stayed fixed on the doors Seph had disappeared through.
Mine did too.
I knew why I was here.
I knew what I was supposed to do.
But in that moment, I could’ve thrown it all away.
Because a single thought pulsed like a warning beneath my skin:
If Marr crosses the line — if he does anything more than observe, test, prod — I’m going to kill him.
Chapter 15
Seph
Marr led me down a narrow staircase into what looked like a basement.
Except basements weren’t supposed to look like this.
Cold, sterile light washed over gleaming metal counters, glass monitors, humming machines lined in perfect rows. It smelled like disinfectant and something sharper—something chemical—like a hospital that had forgotten how to care for people.
A lab.
Of course he had a lab.
We walked down a long corridor flanked by small square windows reinforced with iron mesh. I peered into the first one as we passed.
A man stood inside.
No—slammedinside.
He repeatedly bashed his forehead into the padded wall, humming a strange, tuneless song under his breath. With every hit, claws burst from his fingertips, then retracted, then burst again—scratching long ragged lines into the padding.
My stomach turned.
“What the hell is this?” my voice came out thin.
“Ward A,” Marr said pleasantly, as if giving a campus tour. “Some refer to it as the Chaos Wing. I find that term a touch dramatic.”
I didn’t.
