Page 13

Story: Red Lace Manor

The library of Red Lace Manor looked more like it belonged in a storybook and not real life—especially in a place like this.

The floor to ceiling windows were uncovered, leaving moon light to spill in, illuminating the plethora of book shelves covering the walls.

Each one was stocked with different genres of books, classics, sci-fi, horror, even a few modern romances I recognized by the cover alone.

And, if that wasn’t enough to make this room feel out of place in the ancient mansion, the computer on the desk would have done it.

My first instinct was to turn it on, but when I tried, nothing happened.

This caused me to wonder if someone in the house cut the power for this event, but I didn’t have time to think about that, not with Ronan potentially closing in on me any second.

So, I focused on looking for the answers Cassian promised were hidden up here.

But, the only problem was I had no idea what to even look for. If they were on the computer, I was shit out of luck.

Water audibly trickled through the pipes, and the ceiling crackled above me.

I jumped on instinct before looking around the room.

Blowing out a breath, I took comfort in the closed doors around me.

There was one nestled between two bookshelves, that had been the one I came in through, and just outside of it laid a narrow hallway.

It was larger than the tunnel I’d crawled through to get there, but not by much. Then, directly across from me was another. I wasn’t sure what laid behind the redwood, but I wasn’t exactly eager to figure it out.

I reminded myself that, for now, I was safe before scanning the room again.

At first, nothing new popped out, but as I turned toward the wall behind me, I noticed another portrait like the ones I’d seen earlier in the night.

But, where the other ones had been perfectly straight, this one was just crooked enough to catch my attention.

Holding my breath, I reached forward and lifted the frame ever so slightly. Behind it was a hidden compartment lined with large envelopes and exactly one leather-bound journal. I glanced over my shoulders once more before grabbing the papers with shaky hands.

Carefully, I laid them out one by one on the desk. There was no way to tell how much time I had, so I made it my mission to leaf through all of them as quickly as possible. I bent back the metal clasp on the first one and pulled out the papers.

In big, bold letters, the first page read Project WRAITH–final phase candidates.

My eyes widened slightly as I moved to the next sheet, what looked like a mug shot of Cassian greeted me. He looked younger and bore none of the scars I’d seen just moments prior.

Enhanced auditory tracking. Neural rewiring successful. Subject capable of tracking prey in complete darkness.

Under that was charts and a bunch of numbers that made zero sense to me, but, on the bottom, stamped in red ink were the words PUBLIC SAFETY THREAT/ DO NOT RELEASE.

I continued to flip through the papers, finding similar ones for Solomon and Ronan. The only difference was that their notes dealt with sight and smell, respectively.

Then, I got to Seth.

I hadn’t seen his face until that moment, but he was prettier than I expected. Strong jaw, pouty lips, and impossibly blue eyes. Dark tattoos snaking up his neck topped all that off. My stomach did a strange flip, and I reminded myself that he was likely the mastermind behind all of this.

I reminded myself not to drool over a psychopath and instead focused on reading his notes.

Enhanced sensitivity. Extreme responses to physical stimulation, pain threshold drastically reduced. Do not sedate. Last attempt resulted in the deaths of four medical staff.

The house creaked again, and it was all I could do to not fly out of my seat. I shuffled the papers back into order before slipping them into the envelope and moving onto the next.

These documents detailed the experiments performed on the men in brutal detail –it even listed the surgical procedures performed on each of them and the varying levels of success.

They’d sharpened Ronan’s teeth to make him more lethal without a weapon, but they couldn’t do the same to Seth.

They tried, but the sedation didn’t work, and I assumed that was the incident that killed medical staff.

These men had been through hell . Treated like they were never human to begin with.

Isolation chambers, physical punishments, even a month-long period where each had every sense except the altered one taken.

A shiver ran down my spine as I tried to imagine only being able to hear. No sight, no touch, no smell.

My eyes started to burn with sympathy that had no right to exist. I swallowed the lump in my throat and put the documents away. It was probably for the best that I left the envelopes alone… but, my curiosity got the better of me with the journal.

The book felt heavy in my hands, and I turned it over. At one point in time, it was probably expensive, but years of wear and tear had left the leather dull and the spine cracked.

I opened the first page to find: property of Seth Kline. Part of me hesitated, and I wasn’t sure if I was silently opposed to invading his privacy, or if I was afraid of what I might find. Against my better judgement, I flipped the page.

The first few entries were fine. He was bored and unsure what he’d signed up for. And then, everything shifted.

My skin is on fire. It hurts when air moves too fast. I can’t feel my fingers.

I pressed my fingers to my lips but continued to read on.

The following pages were no less grotesque.

Seth wrote about being able to feel his blood flow through his veins, about how they’d dropped the four of them off in a random desert with nothing but the clothes on their back and essentially said good luck .

Somehow, they all survived. They worked together to hunt and watched each other’s backs while they slept.

After those pages, everything turned completely illegible.

The letters were too sharp, too crooked, and the few places I could decipher made absolutely no sense, that was, until I got to the last page.

Don’t want to kill.

Once a month. Keeps the urges at bay.

Need to find a wife.

Need to prove we can be loved.

Need to prove we’re still human .

Ibarelysuppressed a gasp before I snapped the book shut. Did I fully understand their crazed line of thinking? Absolutely not. But… part of me felt bad for them, worse than that, part of me wondered if these men could be fixed.

I didn’t have long to marinate with that thought though. Just as soon as it crossed my mind, the creaking I’d been ignoring grew closer. The rattle of a door handle soon followed, and on instinct I fell to the floor and crawled under the desk.

These men had enhanced everything, and I had no idea who might barge in, that meant I needed to be as inconspicuous as possible.

A door squealed open, and footsteps echoed in the otherwise silent room. I clamped a hand over my mouth, hoping it’d prevent me from breathing too loud. My pulse pounded in my ears, so disorientingly loud it made me dizzy.

The steps grew closer, and I forgot how to breathe. Hot tears slid from my eyes and down the fingers starting to dig into my cheeks. I suppressed a sob and tried to curl in on myself.

The floor beside me shifted, and a hand curled around the lip of the desk. Drops of water fell to the floor as someone slowly leaned over, bringing themselves to my eye level. Icy eyes stared at me for just a moment before the silence finally broke.

“It’s impolite to snoop, Little Light.”