Chapter 91 Ghost Protocol
ZARA’S POV
The academy didn’t glitch all at once.
It stuttered.
Like reality itself was hesitating, unsure whether to keep pretending or finally tell the truth.
Kai and I stepped into the east corridor just as the lights dimmed to that familiar low glow, the kind that usually signaled curfew or surveillance escalation. Only this time, the hum beneath the floor didn’t stabilize. It fractured. The sound bent, warped, split into overlapping echoes that made my teeth ache.
And then Dr. Voss walked straight through us.
Not past us. Through.
Her shoulder cut through my chest like mist, cold and electric, leaving a hollow pressure behind that stole my breath for half a second. She didn’t flinch. Didn’t slow. Her heels clicked against the floor, precise and sharp, as if she hadn’t just phased through two very real bodies.
I twisted around, heart hammering.
“Kai… tell me you saw that.”
“I did,” he said, voice tight.
“Please tell me you felt it too.”
“I felt… empty.” I pressed a hand to my sternum.
The bond flickered, like a light struggling to stay on.
“She didn’t see us.”
Kai took a step forward, calling her name. No response. Voss turned the corner and vanished, the corridor swallowing her whole.
The academy exhaled.
That was the only way I could describe it. The walls seemed to relax, like they’d been holding their breath for centuries and finally let go. The ward lines etched faintly along the floor shimmered, then misaligned, slipping half an inch to the left like someone had nudged the world sideways.
Something was wrong.
Not broken. Not attacked.
Resetting.
“Kai,” I said quietly.
“We need to stop moving.”
He nodded, already rubbing at his temple. His breathing had gone shallow, pupils blown wide like he was staring at something I couldn’t see.
“Talk to me,” I urged.
“What’s happening?”
“My system is… lagging.” He gave a humorless huff.
“I hate that I know how to describe it like that.”
The bond trembled, sharp and irregular. I could feel his thoughts skipping, memories trying to load all at once and crashing into each other instead. Images bled through. Silver cities burning. A sky torn open like fabric. A white shape beneath a full moon.
Then Kai stumbled.
I caught him before he hit the wall, his weight heavy and unfamiliar in my arms. It terrified me how wrong it felt, like holding someone whose gravity had suddenly changed.
“Kai?” I whispered.
“Hey. Stay with me.”
“I’m… fine.” He tried to straighten, failed.
“Just need a second to revitalize myself.”
That word again. Revitalize.
My chest tightened.
“You’re not a machine.”
He looked at me then, really looked, and for half a heartbeat there was confusion in his eyes so stark it sliced through me.
“I know,” he said.
“I think.”
The hallway rippled.
Not visually. Spatially. Like the distance between doors stretched and compressed at random. A student walked past us, laughing with her friend, completely oblivious. When she brushed Kai’s shoulder, her form fuzzed, then snapped back into place.
She never noticed.
We did.
“Zara,” Kai murmured, suddenly gripping my wrist.
“Something’s overwriting priority access. I can feel it.”
Before I could ask what that meant, his knees buckled.
“Kai!” I hauled him upright, my back slamming into the wall with the impact.
His head lolled forward, breath shuddering. The bond spasmed, then went eerily quiet.
Too quiet.
“Kai, are you good?” I asked, hating how small my voice sounded.
He nodded once, unconvincing. His gaze slid past me, unfocused.
“Just… memories. Too many.”
A spiderweb sensation crept across my skull, like invisible threads tightening. The air thickened. The lights flickered, then cut out entirely.
Darkness.
Then voices.
“Kai…”
The word echoed, distorted, layered with concern that didn’t belong to me.
I felt hands on him. On us.
“Don’t touch him,” I snapped, spinning, only to freeze.
We weren’t alone.
A woman in pale scrubs knelt beside Kai, her brow creased with professional worry. She glanced up at me, eyes sharp.
“What happened?” she asked, like I was the one who’d failed.
“He collapsed,” I said.
“What’s wrong with him?”
Before she could answer, a door slid open down the hall. An old man stepped out, scruffy, hunched, his lab coat stained with ink and something darker. His eyes were sharp though. Too sharp.
“He’s experiencing minor dementia,” the man said calmly.
The word hit me like a slap.
“That’s not possible.”
“Oh, it is,” he replied mildly.
“In cases of layered consciousness interference.”
My blood ran cold.
“What does that mean?” I demanded.
“He needs to be taken down while I reset a few things,” the man said, already reaching for Kai.
I shoved his hand away without thinking. Power crackled under my skin, instinctive and dangerous.
“You’re not touching him.”
The woman’s eye twitched. Just once. Like she’d been waiting for that reaction.
The corridor tilted.
And suddenly I wasn’t there anymore.
I was somewhere else.
Silver cities burned under a torn sky. Towers folded in on themselves like dying stars. Wolves screamed, not in pain, but in recognition. I saw Kai on his knees, younger, unbroken, bowing before a massive white wolf seated beneath a perfect, unforgiving full moon.
“I’m yours to do with as you please,” Kai said, voice steady, reverent.
The white wolf’s eyes glowed with ancient light.
Creator light.
The vision shattered.
I gasped, reality slamming back into place so hard my knees nearly gave out.
The old man was still there.
But now I saw him.
Not the wrinkles. Not the slouch.
The truth beneath.
“You,” I whispered.
He smiled gently.
Moonlight pooled at his feet where there shouldn’t have been any.
Kai jerked upright with a sharp inhale, eyes blazing back to awareness like a system reboot snapping into place.
“I remember,” he said hoarsely.
His gaze locked onto the old man.
“Everything.”
The woman stepped back, fear finally cracking her composure.
“Apparently Prof Ajax isn’t who he appeared to be,” Kai continued, voice low and dangerous.
“And neither are you.”
The old man inclined his head.
“Not all truths are meant to arrive gently.”
“Did you want to harm us?” I asked, my voice trembling despite myself.
“No,” he said.
“I wanted to see what you would do when harmed.”
Rage flared white-hot in my chest.
Kai staggered to his feet, then turned to me. His expression shifted, guilt flooding through the bond so fast it hurt.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.
“For pushing you away. For not holding on when it got loud in my head.”
I swallowed hard. My legs felt rooted to the floor, distance suddenly necessary even though every part of me wanted to close it.
“It’s fine,” I said, because I didn’t know what else to say.
He looked up.
And saw the truth anyway.
Tears clung to my lashes, unshed but trembling. Fear curled tight in my stomach, not of him, but for him. For what they were doing to him. To us.
His wolf stirred, a low purr of recognition and protectiveness brushing against my mind.
I was scared.
And so was he.
The academy lights surged back on all at once, too bright, too clean. Students passed by again, laughing, talking, unaware they’d just walked through a fracture in reality.
The old man stepped back into the room, the door sliding shut behind him.
“Ghost protocol has begun,” his voice echoed faintly through the walls.
“Let us see if love survives iteration.”
Kai reached for my hand.
This time, I didn’t pull away.
But somewhere deep beneath the academy, something ancient shifted its attention fully toward us.
And for the first time, I knew with terrifying certainty that we were no longer part of the experiment.
We were the variable they couldn’t control.