Page 12

Darkness creeps across my skin as my tail whips against the floor with a dejected thump. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters if it’skillingyou.” The tablet trembles slightly in her grip as she shows me the latest test results. “The toxin is spreading, isn’t it? That’s why you’re losing strength in that wing, why traditional treatments aren’t working. Dante, the lab equipment here isn’t advanced enough to give me an accurate analysis of the toxin. I need to know what we’re dealing with to synthesize a toxin-specific antidote.”

“What you need is to drop it.” The warning growl in my voice doesn’t mask the shame burning beneath my skin. She’s too close to truths I’m not ready to face.

Her hand grazes my injured wing, making my entire body tense. “I can’t. Not when every test shows the poison spreading further into your system. Whatever you’re protecting—whatever secret you’re keeping—is it worth dying for?”

My wings snap open, the injured one trembling visibly now. “Better than living with…” I snap my jaws shut before I reveal my shame.

Turning away from her stunned expression, I stalk toward the door. The weight of her gaze follows me, heavy with questions I won’t answer. My collection of her things sits in my desk drawer, each item a reminder of something I don’t deserve to have.

Later, alone in my chamber,I stare at the small token I’ve kept hidden from everyone—a curved black horn, broken at the base. All that remains of the Jersey Devil I failed to save.

“I’m sorry, Kieran,” I whisper to the darkness. The poison in my wing pulses, as if responding to his name. The same weapon that took him is now slowly claiming me. Poetic justice, perhaps, for the one who got away while his brother in species died by Apex’s hand.

Some poisons run deeper than blood.

Some wounds resist all attempts at healing.

Some secrets are worth dying to protect.

Chapter Nine

Blair

The nightmare starts the same way it always does.

Cold metal against my back. Harsh fluorescent lights burning my retinas. The clinical beep of monitors tracking my vital signs as the sedatives flow through my veins.

“Tell me what you learned about the Sasquatch’s vulnerabilities, Blair.” Their angry disappointment cuts deeper than any needle. “Tell us about the cryptids.” The voice is always the same—detached, methodical. Professional. “Their weaknesses. Their hiding places.”

The scene shifts, fragments into pieces. Suddenly, I’m a child again, standing in my father’s laboratory as he shows me samples under a microscope.

“This is what killed your mother, Blair,” he explains, his voice tight with grief and rage. “This is why our work matters.”

The venom sample glows withan eerie bioluminescence I’ll never forget—it spreads in the same pattern now radiating through Dante’s wing.

Back in the Apex lab. My throat burns from screaming, but I won’t give them what they want. Won’t betray the beings I once helped hunt.

The needle slides into my arm again. Fire races through my veins as they increase the dose. Through the haze, I hear them discussing my “remarkable resistance” to their cocktail of drugs.

“Perhaps we should try a more aggressive approach…”

Terror claws at my throat—

The scene shifts and bursts into pieces like a kaleidoscope. Now I’m strapped to a chair while they show me images of cryptids being dissected. Living beings treated like specimens. The way I used to view them, before I learned the truth.

“Your father would be so disappointed.” The voice changes, becomes familiar. “From what I hear, he raised you better than this.”

Terror claws at my throat as I try to explain, to make them understand what I’ve learned. But the words won’t come. They never do.

Then I’m back in the cell, alone in the dark, knowing what comes next. The door opens, bringing light and pain and—

“Blair!”

Strong hands grasp my shoulders as I thrash against phantom restraints. A familiar scent of leather and bergamot cuts through the nightmare’s grip.

“You’re safe.” Dante’s voice, rough with concern, anchors me to reality. “I’ve got you.”