THIRTY-ONE
DAKOTA
The science wing reeks of bleach and bad decisions.
Not old bad decisions, either. Not the kind left to rot in abandoned buildings, soaked into carpets and forgotten under collapsed roofs. Oh no. These are fresh ones. Organized ones.
The hallway beyond the door is cleaner than the rest of the medical building.
Too clean. The floor has been scrubbed to within an inch of its life, so thoroughly I’m convinced the tiles almost remember they were once white.
Plastic sheeting covers parts of the ceiling, and wires run across the walls in neat bundles, taped down and labeled with black marker.
LAB ONE.
COLD STORAGE.
SAMPLE PREP.
ARCHIVE.
The last one catches under my ribs with a particularly interesting hook.
Archive.
That’s a shitty word, because archives mean records. Names. Histories. People reduced to folders because someone with a badge decided paper was safer than memory.
A guard walks ahead of us. Valeria follows at my left, close enough to redirect me if I bolt but not close enough to touch. Commander Hale brings up the rear with two more guards, because apparently nothing says welcome to Haven Ridge like a hallway parade full of armed suspicion.
Fletcher is at my right, not in front or behind, just right there. I know he’s doing it on purpose, too. I hate that I even know, but I hate that I don’t actually hate it more.
Kaito trails a little behind, his side patched but not fixed, moving with that quiet stubbornness that makes me want to scream into a cushion.
Xeon stays just close enough that his scent cuts through the chemical stink when the air shifts.
Ewan has one side of his headphones lifted, eyes sharper than his mouth wants people to believe he’s capable of.
No one says anything, because the walls have windows.
Not normal windows, either. Observation windows.
Narrow panels of thick glass set into doors, all of them showing slices of rooms I don’t want to be anywhere near.
I spy metal tables, locked cabinets, and microscopes.
Gloves drying on racks. Whiteboards covered in writing.
Refrigerators humming behind safety locks.
Science.
I used to think that word meant my dad smelling like coffee and ink, kissing my hair while his mind races twelve equations ahead of the room. Then science became NOVAC. Then NOVAC became bodies in the street. And then the world shit itself and ended, taking whatever soft meaning the word had left.
My palms sweat inside my gloves, and I flex my fingers once. Not in fear, but in preparation. Obviously.
A woman in a lab coat passes us with a tray of sealed vials.
She sees the Alphas first, and her gaze skips over them quickly and cautiously.
Then it lands on me. On my bandana and hat, my too-big clothes and then my injured arm.
The tray rattles once and I smile under the fabric. She looks away then. Good.
“Super friendly place,” I mutter.
Ewan leans in close by half an inch. “I mean, I’ve been to worse.”
“The bar is in hell.”
He snorts. “I said worse, not better.”
Valeria glances back at us and asks, “You always talk this much?”
Ewan points at himself. “Who? Me or the angry raccoon?”
“I’m not angry,” I argue with an angry frown.
Four men say absolutely nothing with a really impressive volume that speaks for itself. Filthy little traitors.
The guard stops at a set of double doors marked RESEARCH ACCESS. Valeria scans a card against a panel and something buzzes right before a lock clicks. Just one click, then another, and then a third. My spine stiffens with each one.
Fletcher’s voice comes low next to me. “Two exits in the hall behind us. One side corridor past the archive sign. Vents too small. Ceiling panels are screwed down.”
I don’t look at him. I just know that if I look over at him, he might see something on my face I’m not ready or willing to hand over. Instead, I ask, “Are you trying to soothe me with architecture?”
“Is it working?” he answers.
“Nope.”
A pause follows, then a very soft, “Liar.”
My teeth clamp together. I should snap at him or something, but I don’t, which I consider another thing I currently don’t have the mental fortitude to examine.
The doors open then, and the room behind them isn’t a lab.
Not exactly. It’s half an office and half a command center, with long tables, filing cabinets, maps pinned to corkboards, and glass walls that overlook the actual labs beyond it.
Several scientists look up when we enter, a few guards already standing inside.
In the center of it all, a man with silver-streaked hair leans over a desk covered in files.
He looks older than Hale, but less hardened by rank.
Late fifties, I want to guess. Brown skin, tired eyes behind square glasses, beard trimmed close.
His lab coat is wrinkled, his sleeves have been rolled to his elbows, and there are ink stains on two of his fingers.
He looks like someone who still does the work himself, not just someone who stands close by and claims the credit.
He looks up and his eyes go to Hale first. Then Valeria. Then the pilot’s drying blood on Xeon’s sleeve. Then the Alphas. Then me.
He stops. Not in the way men stop when they scent something they want, and not in a way scientists stop when they see something useful. This is worse. It’s like he’s just seen a ghost and knows better than to utter its name.
My body grows painfully still.
“Dr. Elias Mercer,” Hale says. “These are the survivors from the crash site.”
Mercer removes his glasses very slowly, but his gaze doesn’t leave me.
Crash site. Survivors. Not guests or patients. Just pieces on a board.
“What happened to the pilot?” Mercer asks with an English accent I can’t quite place the exact origins of.
“In surgery,” Valeria answers. “Ellis has him.”
“Did he speak?”
Hale’s jaw tightens. “A little.”
Mercer looks at Fletcher. “What did he say?”
Fletcher gives him nothing for free. “Vector. Cargo. O’Reilly. Marker.”
The room changes in an instant. It’s a tiny change. A breath catching from someone near the filing cabinet. A pen pausing over paper. Mercer’s hand tightening around his glasses. Tiny things, but I catch all of them.
O’Reilly hits this room like a bullet no one wants to admit was fired. My father’s name clearly lives within these walls, but not in memory. In their mouths. In their files. In their fear.
I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am anyway.
Mercer’s voice lowers. “You’re sure he said O’Reilly?”
My heartbeat fills my ears.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
Hale answers, “That’s what he needs to clarify.”
Mercer’s eyes return to me, and I tilt my head down. Small Beta boy. Small Beta boy who absolutely does not have the same surname sitting under his flesh like some fucked-up detonator.
The doctor doesn't ask me to remove my mask or hat, and that’s the first reason I don’t hate him on sight.
He gestures to the nearest table and says, “Sit if you need to. No one’s touching anyone without permission in this room.”
Hale looks at him sharply, but Mercer doesn't look away from me.
“We’ve got injured people,” he says. “And frightened ones.”
“I’m not scared,” I say, but my voice comes out too fast.
That’s just great. Amazing. As convincing as three stacked raccoons wearing a trench coat and a hat trying to pass for a tall man.
Mercer nods once. “All right.”
No argument, no pity. That’s the second reason I don’t hate him instantly.
Fletcher remains standing, and so do I. Kaito leans his shoulder against the wall like it was a casual choice and not because he’s started the negotiation process with gravity.
Xeon’s gaze sweeps the room. Ewan angles himself close to a humming machine that might be a refrigerator.
That, or it might explode if it’s insulted.
Valeria crosses her arms. “Doctor, the cargo?”
Mercer turns to one of the tables and opens a sealed gray case.
Not the case we recovered, but a different one.
Inside are folders, sample tubes, old external drives, and stacks of laminated labels.
NOVAC’s logo sits in the corner of several pages, that clean, clinical symbol I’ve hated since before I even fully understood why.
Then Mercer lifts a file.
O’REILLY, DR CONRAD.
My father’s name.
Printed.
Typed.
Official.
Not Dad. Not the man who carried me on his shoulders and called me thunderbug when I stomped through the house in rainboots.
Dr. Conrad O’Reilly. Research Lead: Omega Fertility Stabilization.
My vision narrows, but the room moves on without me. Mercer says something, and Hale answers. Valeria asks a question.
The file sits on the table.
O’REILLY.
O’REILLY.
O’REILLY.
The letters crawl under my skin like tiny skittering bugs.
I can taste honey at the back of my throat.
Wild honey and rain. My scent. Too sharp and sudden.
I try to clamp down on it, but stress has grown fingers and my body has once more turned into a traitorous bitch.
Heat rolls under my skin. Not a full heat, not yet, but it’s close enough to make sweat gather at the base of my spine and at the nape of my neck.
No.
Please, not here. Not right now. Absolutely not in a room full of scientists, guards, Alphas, NOVAC files, and my father’s name currently wearing a fucking lab coat.
Kaito moves first. Not toward me, but away. A single step that puts his body between me and the closest scientist who has started looking at me a little too closely. Burning wood and worn flannel brushes the edge of the air, steady but restrained.
Distance. A wall without hands.
Fletcher’s voice reaches me from the other side. “Door behind us is still unlocked. Guard left has a bad knee. Window latch on the interior office looks weak.”
Practical.
Exits.
Not calm down, not breathe, not who are you?