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Cyn shook her head, more tears falling free. “I’ve only seen this hallway,” she admitted, not looking at me. “This is the first time I’ve even been in the same room as someone who wasn’t a guard or a doctor.”
That doesn’t bode well. If they were keeping captives separate, they were doing it for a reason. I rolled that fact over in my mind a few times, but the door opened, revealing none other than Dr. Brenner. He looked entirely too smug as he offered us both a placid smile, and I wanted nothing more than to smack that look off his weathered face.
“Good day Subject 290. Subject 296.”
I blinked, my stomach dropping to my feet. If Cyn was 290, and I was 296…there werefive peoplebetween us, and it had only been a matter of weeks.Does that include Ashley, or was she just leverage? How did five extra people slip past my radar?
Beside me, Cyn started crying openly, her distress growing by the moment. Fear started to prickle inside me.
“We are going to try something different today,” he stated, picking up something that looked like a cattle prod. Before I could ask, he flipped an electric switch and pressed it to one of Cynthia’s exposed arms. The woman screamed at once, squirming and flinching wildly as she tried to escape.
My heart leapt into my throat. “Hey!” I yelled, struggling. “What the hell is that for?! Leave her alone!”
“No,” Dr. Brenner replied, pulling the prod away for a moment. He waited for the end to start glowing again, and he once more pressed it to Cyn’s arm. She screamed, tears rolling down her face as she began to beg incoherently.
I thrashed again. “Stop it!” I hissed, grinding my teeth. “She hasn’t evendoneanything!”
“Correct,” Dr. Brenner stated, repeating the motion. “This isn’t about Subject 290 today. I am interested in you, Subject 296.”
My heart plummeted like a bag of stones, landing somewhere beside my stomach. “What? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Wolves are pack animals, are they not?” He fixed me with a bland smile. “You don’t fit into my original plan, but that doesn’t mean I can’t learnsomethingfrom you. How you react to other shifters in pain, for example.”
Without warning, Dr. Brenner pressed the brand to Cyn again. Her cry was weaker this time, muffled by her open sobs. She wasn’t even trying not to weep anymore. Her entire body was shaking.
I turned my head and closed my eyes, trying not to give the man anything else tostudy.
That’s what he said, right? He wanted to learnsomethingfrom me. It had been alarming when he was talking about my fuckingorgansearlier, but somehow that paled in comparison to what he was doing right now. Every time I thought there was nothing more Dr. Brenner could do to surprise me, he sank to a new low.
What comes after this?
Cyn cried again and I clenched my eyes more tightly, trying not to react visibly. The first thing that came to mind was Alice. I didn’t think of her often, not anymore. It hurt. But with Cyn’s cry, all that came to mind was my childhood friend as a silver bullet tore through her, making her fall to the earth, dead before she could take another breath.
I sucked in a ragged breath and shook my head.No. No, no, no. You can’t give Dr. Brenner this sort of satisfaction. Or…I don’t know, studying.Whatever it was he thought he was doing.
I was not going to watch the man torture another shifter, much less Cyn, the woman I’d been sent to rescue.
Does he know that?My eyes cracked open as the thought popped into my head and I snuck a glance at him. He was looking at something on his screen, as if neither Cyn nor I were worthy of his attention. I bristled, about to snarl before I caught myself.
No, there’s no way he could know that. This is just some bullshit coincidence, and I can’t let on to that, either.If Dr. Brenner somehow found that out, I couldn’t imagine what he might start trying to do to the other wolf. I didn’t want this to be any worse for her than it already was, especially if the so-called doctor was trying to get something out ofme.
I took another steadying breath and tried to bring Alaska to memory instead. I was already halfway there — it was the fields of fireweed I tried to call to mind. The smell of the blossoms, the brilliant purple-red-pink color swaying as far as the eye could see. I thought of the way the streams would burble and babble over the rocks, how I used to love following them from hours. If I could just blot the rest of this out…
At some point, I realized that Cynthia had gone quiet. Too quiet. I held my breath and opened my eyes, trying to focus on the present instead of the memories I’d been so intent on calling up from the depths.
My wolf became alert all at once, whining insistently. Her ears folded back and she whimpered, her voice tapering off. I lifted my head to look over at Cyn, and I quickly realized I couldn’t see the rise and fall of the other woman’s chest anymore. She was staring blankly forward. My wolf whined again, pacing as my heart rate intensified. Her tail curled against her hind legs, tucked well beneath her belly.
Did they…holy shit. They just murdered her. They just murdered her, and forwhat?
Tears finally rolled down my cheeks as I looked at the woman I’d only just met, feeling the weight of her death squarely on my shoulders. If I had been faster…if I had been smarter, maybe I could have found her before it came to this. Maybe I wouldn’t have gotten taken, and they wouldn’t have felt the need to torture her just for Dr. Brenner’sresearch.
And Demi…
My heart lurched and bile welled up in my throat before I could swallow it back down. Demi had sent me to find her sister, and I had found her alive…but I couldn’tkeepher that way.
I failed her. I failed themboth.I can’t even imagine—
“Interesting,” the doctor murmured, breaking my train of thought. I blinked several times, trying to stop the flow of tears. I didn’t dare askwhathe found oh-so-interesting. My heart stuttered in my chest. I felt woozy and weak, and distantly, I knew that couldn’t be good, but…
