Chapter 28
tweNty-eiGht
HAVEN WENT STILL NEXT to me so I pried my eyes from her to the computer screen. It was a list of names.
"All these women..." she breathed.
"They're all participants?"
Her jaw clenched. "They're all guinea pigs.
These women trusted the system. Trusted false consent forms they signed.
They were lied to, manipulated... altered.
" She pointed to one name on the screen.
Haven Ward. Confirmation she'd been one of those women.
"We need to tell them. Somehow. They deserve to know. "
She closed the file and opened the next. It was a dossier of sorts. A photograph of a woman taken against a blank wall, employee badge style. Her name and other details listed underneath.
She closed and opened each file, going through them one by one.
Until she was staring at her own face on the screen.
She scrolled past the photo and demographic information, stopped when she found a section titled "Observations."
A viable candidate who trusts the flu shot narrative and exhibits no adverse effects from the injections.
I stopped reading. If I had too many details of what they'd done to her, I wouldn't be able to stop myself from leaving a path of death through Novagen.
Haven put her small hand on my arm and I realized I'd been growling. "Tell me I can kill them."
"The ones who knew." She nodded. "Yes."
"How will we know who knew?" If she wanted those she considered innocent spared, I'd need a list.
"If their name is in this file as a researcher or staff member, then they knew." Her eyes returned to dart across the screen. "Do you have a pen and paper?"
I fished the items from a drawer and slid them onto the counter next to her. She flipped the notebook open to a clean page.
“Are you starting a list of names?”
“Yes. I’m also taking notes on the exact procedure used to make whatever they injected me with.”
I didn’t need to understand the mechanism. I already had proof that it had been done.
Justin Beringer’s name surfaced more than once, always at the same level. High enough to make decisions. Not high enough to design the trials.
I started noting names—not the nurses, not the techs, not the people who would’ve handled syringes or signed off on routine injections without context. I marked the ones who would’ve had to know. The ones who saw the whole picture and kept going anyway.
Beringer wasn’t the end of this.
He was as high as it went at Novagen.
Haven tapped the pen on the paper. “We’ll need to have a plan to get them all in one place.”
I don't want to confront them individually. Actually..." the pen continued to tap the paper as she thought, "I don't want to confront any of them except for Justin Beringer. I want to watch his face as he realizes I'm going to ruin his company."
"We can't do anything too public." I hated that fact, but it was a necessary evil of being a member of Society. We had to stay hidden.
"We won't need to. If we drain Justin's accounts, Novagen will cease to exist. They'll have to shutter the doors." The pen rose to tap against her bottom lip. "I guess we'll torture the account information out of him."
"As nice as making him suffer sounds, we won't need to torture him for information. Bacon and Bull can hack his records and make sure they've drained even accounts he thought were hidden."
She was lost in thought for a while, then said, "They're handy friends to have." She clicked back into the initial file—the list of names. "They shouldn't have been able to do this. Not with the layers of oversight on clinical trials. A lot of people had to be in on it. Looking the other way."
I clenched my fist until my claws pierced my palm. "They won't get away with it."
She looked at me then, studied my face. "You really mean to kill them, don't you?"
"I do." I ran my nose up the side of her neck. "They hurt you, Haven."
I watched her swallow. Turn back to the screen. Nod.
She opened another file, scrolling slower this time. Not reading each line, but searching. I knew enough about the way labs operated to know she was looking at the trial brief. Objectives, Procedures, and Tracking Protocols marched up the screen in bold headings.
She went still when she got to Outcomes. "They categorized us. Viable. Non-viable. Indeterminate."
"Indeterminate?"
"They defined that status as 'exhibited partial bonding indicators.'"
The growl returned to my throat. "Why would they do this?"
"I don't know. Offspring, maybe?"
I snarled as I stood and paced behind her. "Cavi says we can't reproduce. He says we are sterile hybrids."
"Would they have known that?"
"I don't see how they wouldn't. They engineered us, after all."
The pen swung in her fingers, finding the paper every third dip with a soft tap. She scrolled to the top of the document, stopping when Objectives came into view in bold type. I looked away. "Read it out loud, please?" I didn't trust myself not to smash the computer if I saw the words.
A small, "Okay," followed by a deep breath warned me it wouldn't be good.
"Primary Objective: To determine whether engineered interpersonal bonds can function as reliable behavioral governors for wyrfang subjects exhibiting elevated aggression, territoriality, and resistance to command structures.
"Secondary Objective: To assess the durability of said bonds under stress conditions and their utility as leverage in containment, compliance, and mission execution scenarios."
Her breath caught in her throat. She cleared it. Twice. I didn't look. I couldn't look. Rage was crawling under my skin like fire.
"Success Criteria: Demonstrated reduction in wyrfang resistance following human subject distress, threat, or removal."
A choked sob finally turned me toward her. I gathered her into my arms, careful of her back.
In halting words, she summed up what I already knew.
"They were going to use us... use your mates... to control you."
I nodded, rubbing my jaw along the side of her head. "It would never have worked."
"What? Why?"
"Because they don't understand what the word mate means."
She leaned back, her eyebrows scrunched in the middle.
"It means we will destroy everything, everything, to keep them safe.
We would tear the skin from our own bodies before we let our mate be cold.
When the bond is complete, half our soul belongs to them.
" I shook my head. "They sought to control us, but they would have made us completely out of their control. "
I felt her breath even out as she rested against my chest.
"You're exhausted. We can start again in the morning."
She nodded. "We start with Justin," she said. "He's the keystone. When he falls, Novagen collapses."
"Kragen will want to search the files for any information related to BioSynth and their current operations."
She nodded and I let her candy scent calm me. I filled my lungs with it. She was here. She was alive. Her fingers curled in my ruff as I walked us to the bedroom.
"Promise me something."
"Anything."
"When this is over," she whispered, "when we complete the bond... don't doubt that I chose you. Me. Not them."
My throat constricted. "I won't. Not ever."
I lay next to her while she slept.
Haven woke screaming.
My body moved on pure instinct, covering hers. She thrashed against the blankets, her breath coming in ragged gasps, her face twisted in terror.
I moved to the side of the bed, crouched on her level.
"Haven." I kept my voice soft. "You're safe."
Her eyes snapped open but they didn't see me. They saw something else—something that made her whimper and curl in on herself.
"No, no, please—don't—"
My heart shattered.
I'd seen her back. I knew, in abstract terms, what had been done to her. But hearing the fear in her voice, watching her trapped in the memory of it—I wanted to resurrect Hector so I could kill him again. Slowly. Painfully. For hours.
"Haven." I touched her shoulder, ready to pull back if she flinched. "Little moth. Come back to me."
Her eyes focused. Found mine.
"Quin?" Her voice was raw, broken.
"I'm here. You're safe now. He can't hurt you anymore."
She reached for me and buried her face in the pillow.
Sobs wracked her slight frame. I crawled to her side and situated her on my chest. I wrapped myself around her—arms, legs, tail, staying careful of her back—until I completely encased her.
Until nothing could reach her that didn't go through me first.
"I dreamed—" She choked on the words. "He was—I couldn't—"
I pressed my muzzle to the top of her head. "I know. And I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I wasn't there to protect you."
"You came." Her fingers curled into my fur, holding tight. "You came and you saved me."
"Always." The word was a vow. A promise carved into my bones. "No matter where you are, no matter what happens—I will always come for you."
Her breathing gradually steadied. The trembling eased. But she didn't let go, and I didn't want her to.
She was quiet for a moment. "Do you have nightmares? About BioSynth?"
I considered the question. The honest answer was complicated.
"Not nightmares," I said finally. "But the memories are there. The labs. The tests. The way they looked at us like we were things." My arms tightened around her. "I learned to compartmentalize. To lock those memories away. But they never truly leave."
She tilted her head back to look at me. In the darkness, I could make out the rough shape of her features, but I felt her gaze like a physical touch.
"We're both messed up," she said.
"Extremely."
"But we're messed up together."
"Yes."
A small laugh escaped her—watery but real. "That's strangely comforting."
"I aim to please."
She settled back against my chest, and I felt some of the tension drain from her body. Not all of it—but enough that she could breathe without shaking.
"Will you stay awake?" she whispered. "Just for a little while. Until I fall asleep again."
"I'll stay awake all night."
"Just until I sleep."
"Close your eyes, little moth. I've got you."
She slept again within minutes, her body heavy and warm against mine. The nightmares didn't return—or if they did, she didn't wake.
I kept my promise, watching over her until dawn painted the sky pink and gold.
To think at one point, I thought she might have been a BioSynth plant. Working with them. The very idea seemed ridiculous now. She was a victim.
They tried to make her a tool. They thought they could control us.
They failed.
And when the time came, I would delight in every second I spent making very sure they understood that.