Chapter 37 Wolf
Wolf
We didn’t stay in the bunker.
Not after what just happened.
Not after what Nora remembered.
Saint shut the feeds down and looped false signals through the sheriff’s system, making it look like Nora had been transferred to the county hospital.
She hadn’t.
We moved her underground routes — old service tunnels beneath Eagle River most people didn’t even know existed. Havoc led point. Trigger took rear. Sheriff Tate sealed everything behind us like a man already planning arrests.
And me?
I never let go of Nora’s hand.
She walked beside me in silence, steps steady, head high — but I could feel the tension in her fingers, the way she squeezed whenever a shadow shifted or metal creaked overhead.
When the door finally opened, we stepped into a place so quiet it felt unreal.
A safehouse.
Not fancy.
Not obvious.
Concrete walls disguised behind a renovated old fishing lodge on the outskirts of town. Remote. Locked down. Shielded.
Havoc swept it first.
Trigger checked every window.
Saint jammed signals and sealed comms.
Only when I was certain—absolutely certain—did I turn back to Nora.
“You’re safe here,” I said.
Her eyes searched mine. “For how long?”
“As long as I breathe.”
She nodded once. That was all she needed.
Nora
The lodge smelled like pine and cold stone.
It should’ve felt peaceful.
But my head wouldn’t stop spinning.
Images flickered behind my eyes — broken, blurred, incomplete.
A child’s hand slipping from mine.
A voice saying don’t look back.
A door closing.
Wolf sat across from me, elbows on his knees, eyes locked on my face like he was afraid to blink.
“What else do you remember?” he asked softly.
I swallowed. “Not much. Just feelings. Like I was being evaluated. Watched. Praised—but only when I didn’t cry.”
Trigger cursed under his breath.
“What happened to your family?” Trigger asked.
“I never knew my family. I guess they gave me away.”
Saint looked physically sick. “They were training emotional suppression.”
Havoc added quietly, “Trying to shape resilience.”
Wolf’s jaw tightened.
Sheriff Tate stepped in, files in hand. “I made a few calls. Quiet ones.”
He slid a folder onto the table.
“This foster placement you mentioned,” he said. “We found paperwork. Redacted to hell. But not invisible.”
My stomach dropped.
“What was his name?” I whispered.
Tate hesitated.
Wolf noticed. “Say it.”
Tate exhaled. “Dr. Keller.”
The name hit me like a punch.
Sudden.
Violent.
Real.
I gasped.
Wolf shot to his feet. “You remember him.”
My hands began to shake.
“Yes,” I whispered. “He wore gloves. Always. Said skin contact distorted outcomes.”
Saint stared at the file. “Jesus Christ… Keller ran one of the most controversial cognitive-behavioral trials on juvenile aptitude. Government shut him down quietly.”
Trigger growled, “Meaning he didn’t stop.”
“No,” Wolf said darkly. “He went underground.”
Havoc crossed his arms. “And took his test subjects with him.”
I hugged myself tighter. “They called us assets.”
Wolf crossed the room in two strides and knelt in front of me, gripping my hands firmly.
“You were a child,” he said. “You survived something monstrous. That doesn’t make you theirs.”
Tears slid free. “They still think it does.”
Wolf looked over his shoulder at the team.
“They’re not after Nora now,” he said. “They’re after what they think they lost control of.”
Saint nodded slowly. “A variable who didn’t break.”
Trigger’s voice hardened. “They want her back to prove the program worked.”
I felt sick. “They want to finish me.”
Wolf’s eyes went lethal.
“No,” he said.
“They want me to fail.”
He stood and turned to the team.
“Which means,” he continued, calm and violent all at once, “we stop reacting.”
Havoc cracked a grim smile. “We hunt.”
Trigger nodded. “On our terms.”
Saint added, “We bait.”
Sheriff Tate stiffened. “You’re proposing what I think you are—”
“I am,” Wolf said. “They believe Nora is isolated. That she’s afraid. They don’t realize she’s fucking angry.”
He turned to me, voice dropping, intense but gentle.
“They don’t know you,” he said. “They don’t know what you became.”
My heart pounded.
“They don’t know,” he continued, “that I’m done playing defense.”
I lifted my chin. “What do you need from me?”
The room went still.
Wolf didn’t hesitate.
“Trust,” he said. “And permission.”
“For what?”
He leaned closer, voice low and deadly honest.
“To use myself as bait.”
Fear stabbed through me — sharp and immediate.
“No,” I said. “Absolutely not.”
Wolf met my gaze evenly. “Nora. They want proximity. Control. They want to reassert dominance over what they failed to shape. They have to be finished.”
Tears burned my eyes. “And what if they hurt you?”
His voice softened. “Then they die trying.”
I shook my head. “I won’t lose you.”
He reached up and brushed his knuckles along my jaw.
“You won’t,” he murmured. “Because I’m not going anywhere.”
I searched his face — this man who stood like a shield and a weapon all at once.
“Promise me,” I whispered.
His eyes locked onto mine.
“I promise,” he said. “They don’t get you. They don’t take you. And they never touch your life again.”
The vow settled into the room like steel.
Havoc exhaled. “Alright.”
Trigger adjusted his gear. “Then let’s end this.”
Saint shut his laptop with a decisive click. “Keller thinks he’s still the smartest man in the room.”
Wolf smiled — slow, dangerous.
“Then we let him believe that,” he said.
“And we burn his program to the ground.”
I reached for Wolf’s hand.
He squeezed back.
For the first time since the nightmare began —
I wasn’t being hunted.
I was part of the fight.