Iris
Tara doesn’t like me. It doesn’t take a genius to figure that one out.
She’s been sitting in the chair Declan left behind, arms crossed, watching me the way you’d watch a spider you found in your shoe. Not scared, but not happy about it either. More like grossed out.
She hasn’t said a word since the others left. That’s fine. I don’t need her to talk to me. I don’t need any of them to talk to me.
I only need Declan to come back.
It doesn’t matter how many times I shove the thought down. It keeps floating back up. He left maybe ten minutes ago. Maybe longer.
All I know is a howl cut through the air and everything changed. The argument in the hallway stopped dead. Tara appeared out of nowhere, and then he was gone. Running down the stairs and out the door.
Toward whatever’s out there. Nobody bothered to explain what was happening. I’m wondering if they even know.
It’s insane to worry about him. I should be worried about myself. I’m the one tied to a bed. I’m the one surrounded by people who hate Dad and me. But when that howl hit the air, my chest seized up and hasn’t let go since.
Something crashes downstairs.
Tara is on her feet instantly, her body shifting from stillness to coiled tension so fast it’s almost inhuman. Which it is. I keep forgetting that, or maybe I keep choosing not to think about it too hard. It’s easy to forget who I’m really dealing with when they look so human.
More sounds from downstairs. A door being forced open. Boots on hardwood. More than one pair. Shit.
Tara’s eyes go to the bedroom door, and her upper lip pulls back from her teeth in a way that’s all animal, and even tied to a bed, as confused and messed up as I am, the sight sends a chill racing down my spine. I wouldn’t want to be the person she was looking at that way.
“Stay quiet,” she hisses at me without looking at me.
The footsteps are on the stairs now. Moving fast, heading straight for us. Tara positions herself between the door and the bed, feet planted, hands loose at her sides. She’s not big. Maybe my height, lean. But there’s something about the way she holds herself that says size isn’t the point.
The door flies open.
Two men. Tactical gear, helmets, the same kind of bulky rifles I’ve seen the facility’s security teams carry during drills but never thought much of because they were never supposed to actually use them, right? Tara launches herself at the first one before he’s fully through.
She’s scary fast. She catches him across the jaw with an elbow strike that makes his head snap sideways, then drives her knee into his gut with a vicious grunt. He doubles over, which lets her grab the back of his helmet and slam his face into the doorframe. He goes down.
The second one raises his rifle. I open my mouth to—what? Warn her? Give her a chance to get out of the way?
It’s too late. The sound it makes isn’t like a normal gun. It’s quieter. A pressurized hiss, a soft pop.
Tara jerks. Her hand goes to her neck, and I see the dart embedded just below her ear. She pulls it out, stares at it, and for a second, I think it didn’t work. She turns toward the second man, taking one step.
Her knees buckle. She catches herself on the nightstand. The water glass from this morning crashes to the floor. Her eyes are already glazing when she looks at me, and there’s something in her expression—not anger, not blame, just confusion—before she drops.
“Tara?” The word comes out of me before I can think about it. Before I can remember that she doesn’t like me, and I really shouldn’t care that she’s powerless now.
The first man is getting up with blood pouring from his nose. He and the second one sweep the room, check the bathroom, then turn their attention to me. I flinch when one of them reaches for the rope at my wrist, but he just cuts it with a knife from his belt without saying a word.
“On your feet,” he grunts once I’m free. His voice is muffled, thanks to his nose probably being broken. “Dr. Moore sent us.”
Dad.
The relief is so sudden and so overwhelming that my eyes sting. Dad sent them. He came for me, like I knew he would. Like I told Declan he would.
But the relief is tangled up with something I wasn’t expecting. Because if Dad sent these men, then the howl, the fight that pulled Declan and his brothers out of the house… that was Dad, too.
Which means something might be happening to Declan.
“What about her?” I look down at Tara, crumpled on the floor, her dark hair fanned around her face. She’s breathing, but she’s out cold.
“She comes with us.”
One of them scoops Tara up as if she weighs nothing and throws her over his shoulder. The other one takes my arm—not rough but not gentle—and steers me toward the door. Down the stairs and through the living room, out to the driveway, where a black van is idling with its side door open.
They dump Tara in the back. That’s the only word for it. She’s limp, her head lolling, and I watch them zip-tie her wrists and ankles before laying her on the floor of the van like cargo. My stomach turns in a way it shouldn’t.
“Get in,” the man holding my arm says. He doesn’t ask if I’m okay or whether I need anything. He’s barely even looking at me.
He sort of half-shoves me into the van. I sit on the bench seat across from Tara’s unconscious body, and the door slides shut, and then we’re moving. Just like that, it’s over. Why do I want to cry? And why doesn’t it feel like relief making my eyes sting?
The drive takes what feels like forever.
There are no windows in the back, just the hum of the engine and the rattle of equipment secured to the walls.
I stare at Tara the whole time. The dart wound on her neck is already bruising purple, but should fade fast, her being a shifter and all.
If there’s one thing I know about them, it’s that they heal quickly.
The zip ties cut into her wrists. Her limp body slides on the floor every time we take a turn.
She fought because Declan told her to stay with me, and she did. She doesn’t even like me, and she put herself between me and two armed-men without hesitating.
I don’t know how to feel about that. About any of it.
The van slows, then stops. The engine cuts. There’s no chance to adjust to the sudden silence before the door slides open, and I’m hit with a familiar smell. Pine trees.
I’ve spent half my life in this place.
Why doesn’t it feel like coming home?
They walk me inside through a side entrance I’ve used a hundred times. Down a hallway I know by heart. Everything looks the same. The fluorescent lights, the polished floors. The quiet hum of machinery behind closed doors. Nothing has changed.
Everything has changed.
Dad is in his office. When the door opens, and I step inside, he looks up from his desk, and for one stupid, desperate second, I think he’s going to stand up, walk around the desk, wrap his arms around me and tell me he was worried sick, and he’s sorry for leaving me, and he’s so glad I’m safe.
He doesn’t.
“Good. Sit down.” He gestures to the chair across from his desk. I’ve heard him sound warmer and more cordial when speaking to his techs. “How do you feel? Any dizziness, nausea, unusual pain?”
I stand in the doorway with my arms hanging at my sides, and I wait for my father to ask if I’m okay. Not medically. Just... okay.
His eyes narrow. “Iris. Sit.”
I sink into the chair he gestured toward, shivering, though I don’t think the cool air is the reason for it. I’m with the one person who should care I’m safe, and he might as well be looking straight through me. Why is he looking at me that way?
“I need you to tell me everything that happened.” He’s pulling on gloves, reaching for the blood draw kit he keeps in the top drawer of his desk. Always ready to work. “How many shifters were there? What did they ask you? Did you tell them anything about our research?”
“I didn’t tell them anything.” My voice sounds flat, even to me. “There were… I don’t know. Four? Five? Different kinds. Wolves and bears.”
“Bears.” He frowns, noting something on a pad. “We suspected they were collaborating with the wolves. Go on.”
“They wanted you to shut everything down. The facilities, the experiments. All of it.”
“Obviously.” He says it dismissively, like it’s barely worth acknowledging. “What else?”
I stare at him. He’s not looking at me. He’s prepping the needle, tying the tourniquet around my upper arm. I’m here, he’s speaking to me, but I might as well not exist. “Dad.”
“Hmm?”
“I was kidnapped. They took me from our house. I was tied to a bed for hours.” I can’t believe I have to say this. I shouldn’t have to beg him to care.
He glances up briefly. “I know. That’s why I sent a team to retrieve you. Hold still.”
The needle slides in. I watch my blood fill the vial, almost black in the fluorescent light. He fills one, then swaps in a second. Then a third. He’s never taken three before.
“I was scared.” I can’t believe I have to say that, either.
“I understand.” He doesn’t sound like he understands. He sounds as if he’s thinking about something else while his mouth forms the right words. “But you’re safe now. And we have work to do.”
He takes the vials to the counter behind his desk where he keeps a portable analyzer.
He loads the first sample, enters something on the keypad, and waits.
The machine hums. He watches the screen with that look I know so well.
The one where the rest of the world fades into the background until it might as well not exist.
Minutes pass. The machine beeps. He leans closer to the screen.
And he smiles. It’s a small, tight curve of his lips, but it’s something I hardly ever see. This is excitement. Real, genuine excitement, more than I’ve seen from him in forever.
“Iris.” He turns to me, and for the first time since I walked through the door, he’s actually seeing me. “Your cells are beginning to mutate.”
I blink. “What?”