Chapter 15 Chapter 15
I was a successful experiment. Nothing more.
And in three days, I'd either escape this facility or become a permanent part of Xiang's research
archive.
Either way, the girl I'd been was gone.
The question was who I'd become instead.
The morning of the third day arrived with false calm.
Dr. Mitchell conducted her routine assessment without meeting my eyes. The guards brought
breakfast—scrambled eggs that tasted like cardboard, toast that crumbled like ash. I ate
mechanically, fueling a body I might need to push beyond its limits very soon.
Charles hadn't given me details about the escape plan. Just the promise: when the alarm
sounds, follow me. Don't question. Don't hesitate.
Trust me.
I was about to trust a former pack member who'd stood by while they hunted me. About to bet
my life on a man I barely knew, in a facility I didn't understand, against security measures I
couldn't predict.
But what choice did I have?
The alternative was staying here until Xiang extracted everything useful and disposed of the
evidence. Until I became another missing supernatural, another casualty of research that would
never be publicized.
I'd rather die trying to escape than live as property.
The morning testing session proceeded normally. Dr. Mitchell was quieter than usual, her
movements precise and controlled. She drew blood, recorded my vitals, asked questions about my physical Professional. Detached.
"You're very calm today," she observed, labeling vials with my identification number. Not my
name. Never my name. Just a number.
"I'm tired of fighting," I lied. "You were right. Cooperation is easier."
She glanced at me sharply, suspicion flickering across her face. "You've never struck me as
someone who gives up easily."
"Everyone gives up eventually," I said. "When the cost of fighting becomes higher than the cost
of surrender."
"Is that what you're doing? Surrendering?"
I held her gaze. "What do you think?"
Before she could answer, the door burst open. A guard I didn't recognize stood there, breathing hard, his hand on his weapon.
"Security breach," he said urgently. "Experimental wing. Multiple subjects are loose.”
Dr. Mitchell's face went pale. "How is that possible? The containment protocols—"
"Override from inside," the guard interrupted. "Someone with system access triggered a mass
release. All hands to containment. Now."
He ran off, and Dr. Mitchell stood frozen for a moment, her mind clearly racing through
implications.
"You need to stay here," she told me, moving toward the door. "Lock yourself in. Don't open for
anyone except me or Mr. Xiang. Do you understand?"
"What's happening?" I asked, genuine fear in my voice. Because if subjects were
loose—supernatural beings who'd been experimented on, tortured, driven to desperation—this
facility was about to become a war zone.
"Just stay here," Dr. Mitchell repeated, and then she was gone, the door locking behind her.
I counted to thirty, my heart hammering.
Then the alarm started.
Not the security breach alarm—something worse. The emergency evacuation alarm, the kind
that meant catastrophic failure of containment. The kind that meant run or die.
I moved to the door and tested it. Still locked. Of course.
But the room had a vent. Small, high up near the ceiling, the kind used for climate control. I'd
noticed it days ago but dismissed it as too small to escape through.
Now it was my only option.
I grabbed the single chair in the room and positioned it under the vent. Stood on it carefully, my
depleted body protesting. The vent cover was secured with screws, but they were old, slightly
corroded.
I shifted my right hand to partial Primal form. Claws extended, stronger than human fingers. I
dug into the screw heads and twisted, metal shrieking against metal.
The first screw came loose.
The second.
The third.
The fourth.
The vent cover fell, clattering on the floor. The opening was small—barely eighteen inches
square—but I was thin from days of minimal food and maximum stress.
I pulled myself up, my muscles screaming, and forced my body through the opening.
The ventilation shaft was dark, narrow, claustrophobic. I couldn't stand, could barely crawl. But I
could move forward. Away from the white room. Away from captivity.
I navigated by sound and instinct. The alarm was louder in some directions, muffled in others. I
followed the loudness, reasoning it would lead toward main corridors, toward exits, toward
freedom.
The shaft split. I chose left, based on nothing but gut feeling.
Twenty feet. Thirty. My shoulders scraped against metal. My breathing echoed in the enclosed
space.
Then I heard voices below me. Shouting. Running.
I found another vent and looked through the slats.
The corridor below was chaos. Guards ran past with weapons. Someone was screaming.
Something crashed with the sound of breaking glass.
And then I saw them.
Subjects. Dozens of them. Some fully human, some partially transformed into states that made
my stomach turn. These were the failed experiments, the ones like me but worse. The ones
Xiang had broken completely.
Among them, I saw a woman with Charles's eyes.
His sister.
She was transformed into something between human and wolf, her body stuck in a permanent
state of half-shift. Her eyes held intelligence but also pain, years of it, compacted into a gaze
that had seen too much.
Charles appeared from a side corridor, calling her name. "Grace! Grace, it's me! Come on, we
have to go”.
She turned toward his voice, recognition flickering across her twisted features. She tried to
speak but only managed a growl that sounded heartbreakingly human.
Guards closed in from both sides.
I didn't think. I just moved.
I kicked out the vent cover and dropped into the corridor. Ten feet down. I landed in a crouch,
my transformed legs absorbing the impact.
"Charles!" I shouted. "Behind you!"
He spun just as a guard raised a weapon. Charles was fast—former pack hunter fast—and he
disarmed the guard with brutal efficiency. But there were more coming.
"This way!" I called, spotting a service corridor that the other subjects hadn't discovered yet. "I
came through the vents. There's a path—"
An explosion rocked the facility.
Not a metaphorical explosion—an actual detonation somewhere below us. The floor buckled.
Alarms changed pitch, becoming more urgent.
"What did you do?" I shouted at Charles over the noise.
"Whatever it took!" he shouted back, pulling his sister toward me. "The facility can't stand if the
lower support structure is compromised. We have maybe five minutes before the whole thing
starts collapsing."
"Five minutes to get everyone out," I said, looking at the subjects stumbling through the corridor.
At least thirty people. Some could barely walk.
"We can't save everyone," Charles said, and the pain in his voice was raw. "I'm sorry, but we
can't. We have to get out now."
He was right. Logically, rationally, he was absolutely right.
But I looked at those people—at Grace with her permanent half-transformation, at others whose
bodies had been so damaged by experimentation they could barely function—and I couldn't just
leave them.
"Go," I told Charles. "Get Grace out. Get yourself out. I'll guide as many as I can to the service
corridor."
"Mia, don't be stupid—"
"Three days ago, you said trust me," I---