Page 112 of Glitched Fates & Stolen Mates

“Was it you who attacked me? Who brought me here?” Who took me away from everyone I love.

I shoved him hard in the chest. His arm came up automatically. Pure conditioning. Muscle memory programmed by his handlers.

The sight of it broke something inside me.

“Answer me!” I shouted, panic and fury blurring together into something that tasted like copper and felt like drowning.

My father just stared, mouth still working silently.

“What kind of sick game are you people playing?” I screamed at the ceiling. I spun around, addressing the darkness beyond the doorway, the cameras I couldn’t see but knew had to be there. “Come out, you twisted bastards! What’s the bloody point of all this? What do you want?”

The silence that answered was worse than any threat they could have spoken.

Control slipped away from me like sand through my fingers. The wolf was clawing at my chest, desperate to shift, to fight, to do something other than stand here screaming at ghosts and puppets.

Fine.

The thought blazed through me as I dropped to my knees, muscles already beginning the familiar dance of transformation. If they wanted a show, I’d give them one. Let them see what years of their own training had created.

The dart hit me right in the neck before I’d even fully committed to the shift.

Heat blazed through my veins, chemical fire racing towards my heart. My legs gave out instantly, sending me crashing to the concrete in a tangle of half-transformed limbs. My vision blurred, then doubled, then started to fade.

Through the growing darkness, my father still stood there. Still staring down at me with those empty, terrible eyes.

Still saying nothing at all.

25

Felix

Isank deeper into the sofa cushions, trying to fill the Kit-shaped hole that gaped inside of me. The rest of the team were gathered in the basement, and it felt wrong without him—too empty, like someone had sucked all the warmth out of the air. Every second that ticked by felt like another weight added to the growing pile of dread inside me.

“We’re not using room 410,” Priya spat at Seb, tone arctic-cold. “We’re not treating her like we just treated Wren. I won’t let you.”

The memory of Wren zip-tied to that chair flashed through my mind, his face pale and confused as Seb interrogated him. Maybe I should have fought harder against that. Should have done more than simply stand there watching while they treated my friend like a criminal. Every second since Kit disappeared had been one nightmare after another.

“Emma is coming here, voluntarily, to talk to us all,” Priya continued, her hands knotted together in her lap.

Flynn made a noise of agreement, but it was strained. Even his usual buoyant energy hadn’t survived all of this.

A moment earlier, Priya explained to us the events of yesterday evening. She’d gone home to Emma’s, walking through the door sobbing over Kit, and finally cracked under the weight of one lie too many. She’d told Emma everything—about Kit’s disappearance, about us, about what we really did here, about everything she’d been hiding for months. She couldn’t bear it anymore, she’d said. Couldn’t keep pretending when the world was falling apart around us.

Emma’s reaction had been strange, according to Priya, but she’d been too consumed by grief to pay proper attention at the time. It was only today, when Emma had texted asking her to call immediately because she needed to talk about Kit, that the pieces had started clicking together in Priya’s mind.

She’d left Seb’s office to take that call, and when she’d returned five minutes later, her face had been ashen.

Now Emma was moments away from arriving to talk to us all in person, and we were making plans like we were preparing for war instead of welcoming Priya’s girlfriend.

“So we’ll sit right here in the basement, just like usual,” Priya added, voice carefully controlled.

Seb looked ready to argue, his jaw tight with barely contained tension.

“You can always lock her up afterwards, Seb,” Rory said with a casualness that almost made me laugh.

“We’re not locking Emma up anywhere!” Flynn protested. “I’m sure this is all a big misunderstanding.”

Priya stared at her lap, shoulders hunched. She twisted her purple scarf in her fingers. “Listen, I wouldn’t be so sure, Flynn.”