The underground chamber hummed softly — ventilation, distant generators, the faint pulse of reinforced systems doing their work.
Syth stood behind the glass as if it were a balcony railing instead of a barrier.
One shoulder leaned against the wall. Chin slightly lifted.
Kai stopped in front of the enclosure. He stands in front of the cell hand length away.
“I need you to transform,” calling out to her.
No greeting.
Syth’s gaze slid over him, unhurried.
“And?”
Ray shifted his weight beside Kai. “Just that, we have a situation. All you need to do was transform.”
She watched Kai while Ray spoke.
Not the scientist. At the decision-maker.
Kai held her gaze evenly.
A few seconds passed.
She exhaled through her nose. “Fine.”
Ray’s jaw tightened slightly.
“Kai.”
Kai didn’t look at him. “What.”
Ray’s eyes moved briefly toward the inner cells — where cravers were contained.
Kai followed the glance.
Silence stretched.
He pressed his thumb lightly against the bridge of his nose, then lowered his hand.
“Five persons at a time,” he said.
Ray didn’t nod. “I hope you know what you are doing.”
Kai stepped closer to the glass, ignoring Ray.
“Ms. Syth.”
Her lips curved faintly, an artificial one at that.
“Yes, Chairman?”
“I expect you to full cooperate with us.”
A flicker crossed her eyes — something amused.
“You’re asking a wolf to behave in a cage.”
“All you need to know was it concern the safety of all of us,” Kai replied.
Syth smile turned into a thin line.
A beat.
“Can I ask?” she said quietly.
Kai considered her.
“Not now, but I think you will know sooner, not too long.”
Her jaw set.
“You guys can leave if that is all there to it, I need to change.” Her voice higher a knot than normal.
Her gaze shifted briefly to Gideon by the wall. The guard straightened instinctively.
“I don’t need spectators.”
A quiet breath escaped Kai — almost a laugh.
“You’re negotiating from behind reinforced glass.”
“Oh, I have all the time in the world.” she replied.
Their eyes held.
Then Kai stepped back.
“We’ll clear the corridor.”
He turned away.
The steel door sealed behind them with a dull hydraulic thud.
They walked several paces before Ray spoke.
“You’re going to show this.”
It wasn’t a question.
Kai didn’t answer immediately.
Up ahead, a technician passed, making a nod to them as he walked past.
Kai’s hand brushed briefly against the inside of his wrist — where the SW rested beneath his sleeve.
“I can’t hide it,” he said.
Ray watched that small movement.
A pause.
Kai slowed slightly.
“There’s something I need to tell you.”
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Ray’s attention sharpened. “Tell me.”
Kai searched for the word — and didn’t like that he had to.
“My focus drifts.”
“That’s fatigue.”
“NO! it isn’t.” His voice hardens.
They walked again.
Kai’s fingers flexed once at his side.
“I know the characteristic of SGV,” he continued with a sigh, “but the emotion shift was too often and it’s annoying.”
He stopped.
“Like what?”
The abnormally active mind, the ever harder to control the emotions. A sharp irritation at insignificant sounds. An urge that didn’t match his own. He doesn’t know how to express his situation.
He inhaled slowly.
“Like interference.”
Ray’s eyes dropped to Kai’s wrist.
“How often?”
“Unpredictable, the SW help. But that was all about it.”
Ray’s expression thinned.
“Stop taking Limiter for now.”
Kai’s jaw tightened.
For half a second — something flickered across his face.
Or the faintest edge of something more volatile?
Then it was gone.
“Fine,” he said.
They resumed walking.
Behind them, inside the chamber, Syth lifted her hand and pressed her palm lightly against the glass.
Not testing it.
Feeling it. As if measuring how long it would take to regain her freedom.
Outside the Holding Wing
Tension crackled in the air.
The townsfolk were restless, murmuring behind clenched jaws and darting eyes. Suspicion brewed in their expressions. From time to time their eyes shift toward the guards.
Kai emerged, looking at the crowd,
“Mr. Doyke will join the first group,” he said. “Five at a time. No more.”
The bald man stepped forward, as he yelled out before others could reply. “Why not all of us? What is this?”
“Safety,” Kai start frowning as he stared for a moment. “Yours and ours.”
The bald man step back after checking Kai’s expression, and look warily at the guards.
He scanned the group. “Who’s first?”
No one moved.
Linda’s image suddenly appeared in Kai’s mind. How much he hopes she were here now.
Eventually, five stepped forward—three older men, one younger worker, and the mayor himself. Gideon and one of his lieutenants followed.
The heavy security door shut behind them with a low hiss.
Underground Holding Cells
A growl rolled through the corridor.
Low. Layered. Not loud but it carried in a way human sound never could.
The townsfolk stiffened.
Kai turned to them.
“Whatever happens,” he said evenly, “stay calm. No sudden movements.”
It wasn’t reassurance.
It was instruction.
Doyke swallowed. “You heard him. Stay calm. I’m here.”
His voice tried for steady and landed somewhere short of it.
They turned the corner. It’s like an open room, but at the other end it’s house a cell with reinforce steel and glass.
And saw it.
Behind reinforced glass, a creature was already shifting.
Bone cracked under skin with a wet, splitting sound. Her spine arched unnaturally. Silver fur tore through flesh as if it had always been waiting beneath. Her jaw extended, teeth lengthening, reforming.
The girl vanished.
In her place stood something taller, broader — silver-furred and breathing hard enough to fog the glass.
Her eyes glowed.
Not feral.
Aware.
“W– what the hell—?!”
A man stumbled back into the wall.
Another made a strangled sound and nearly tripped over him.
“Stay calm,” Kai said sharply. “She’s contained.”
No one heard him.
Fear moved faster than reason.
The corridor erupted.
Bodies shoved. Someone tried to run back the way they came. A woman screamed. A man grabbed Gideon’s shotgun in blind panic.
Gideon reacted without hesitation — drove his shoulder forward and slammed the man against the concrete.
“Idiot. Take them out.”
The guards moved in, trying to pin people down before panic turned into something worse.
And then—
One of the townsfolk stopped struggling.
His breathing changed.
Short.
Rapid.
His eyes rolled back white —
Then snapped open.
Red.
Veins bulged beneath his skin, thick and branching. Muscle twisted violently beneath fabric, swelling in seconds. Skin darkened to a slate gray sheen, stretching tight across a frame that was no longer proportionate.
Ray’s voice dropped.
“Kai.”
The man — no, the thing — threw back its head and roared.
It moved.
Too fast.
Gideon fired.
The blast thundered down the corridor — pellets sparking uselessly against reinforced glass as the creature ricocheted off the wall, rebounding with unnatural agility.
Inside the cell, Syth’s lowered its head.
Watching.
Tracking.
The creature sprinted toward the containment barrier —
Then pivoted mid-stride.
Toward the crowd.
Kai’s pulse sharpened. Every nerve in his body lit at once — a flare of awareness that burned too clean, a nameless urge starts to burn.
“Ray.”
He didn’t finish the sentence.
Ray was already moving.
His cheeks flushed faintly. Silver eyes sharpened to a cutting brightness.
The twin cleaver was in his hand before the eye could track it.
The creature lunged.
Steel met claw with a violent clang.
The impact shuddered down the corridor.
Ray pivoted, redirecting the force instead of absorbing it. The cleaver flashed in a tight arc — precise, economical.
Missed artery by inches.
The creature flipped backward, landing on all fours, snarling. Concrete cracked under its weight.
Gideon fired again.
This time the pellets tore cloth — but the creature barely reacted.
It moved like something that didn’t understand pain.
Or it did little damage to it.
Ray adjusted.
He stopped matching speed.
He began predicting.
Metal struck again — sparks, a slash across gray skin that bled but didn’t slow it.
They blurred — claw and blade, impact and recoil. The corridor rang with the violent clash of steel against hardened flesh.
Each impact cracked through the concrete walls, sharp and metallic, echoing back on itself. The air snapped and whipped around them, displaced by movements too fast, too tight — coats snapping, dust lifting, breath tearing through lungs in harsh bursts.
It wasn’t just sound.
It was pressure.
Like the room itself was straining to keep up with them.
Behind them, guards dragged the unconscious mayor and townsfolk flat against the wall.
Cleared the center.
And then—
Ray disengaged.
Half a step.
Deliberate.
The creature’s attention shifted.
The creature’s head snapped sideways.
Its gaze locked onto Kai.
There was no one between them now.
For a fraction of a second, the corridor narrowed to a single line of intent. The thing’s eyes burned with naked malice, and Kai felt it—not as fear, but as pressure. A weight that pressed against his skin and slipped beneath it.
Something answered.
Heat flared along his nerves. Every cell in his body seemed to awaken at once, humming, sharpening. His pulse did not spike in panic—it steadied. Focused.
And beneath that control—
A surge.
Not retreat.
Not caution.
An instinct that whispered: meet it.
The creature lunged.
Time fractured into fragments—muscle coiling, claws extending, concrete cracking under the force of its push.
A silver arc split the air.
Ray moved.
Not hurried. Not reckless.
Precise.
He stepped between them as if the space had always belonged to him.
The cleaver drove down between them — edge angled, calculated.
The creature’s claws slid beneath the blade — and Ray let it.
Then twisted.
The sharpened steel sheared through the forearm joint and continued downward in the same motion.
A sound tore from the creature’s throat—
Cut short.
Ray’s follow-through was already in motion.
The blade reversed direction and buried itself at the base of the neck.
Precise.
Deep.
The creature collapsed mid-snarl, momentum carrying it forward before it hit the ground hard enough to rattle bone.
Blood spread quickly beneath it.
The twitching lasted only seconds.
Then stillness.
Silence flooded the corridor in its wake.
Kai straightened slowly.
The heat beneath his skin didn’t fade as quickly as it should have. And the urge, it lingers. The feeling was not pleasant, and leave a bad after taste.
Ray pulled the cleaver free with a wet sound.
He wiped it once across the dead man’s torn shirt.
Inside the cell, Syth’s wolf watched through the glass.
Unblinking. Those beastly silver eyes shimmer with light.
