Chapter 292 Book 2 ~ Chapter 57

Chapter 292 Book 2 ~ Chapter 57
Poppy’s POV

The room feels too small and too hot.

I swallow. “Not the same how?”

Jake exhales slowly, reaching for another sheet. “Paige’s blood showed abnormal energy markers, mostly consistent with what Ronnie later connected to Dawn energy, cleansing, regenerative and life-based.”

“Sounds lovely,” I say weakly. “Very her.”

“It is,” Ronnie smiles.

Jake taps the second page, his brow furrowing. “Yours has a similar abnormality in the sense that your cells are carrying energy they shouldn’t be carrying. But the behaviour is different.”

My mouth goes dry. “Behaviour?”

Jake hesitates, which is never good. “The sample reacted.”

I stare at him. “Reacted how?”

Ronnie leans forward slightly, splaying his hands on the table. “When Hiro ran the comparison, your blood didn’t stabilise under the same conditions Paige’s did.”

“Okay…”

Jake’s frown deepens as he reads over the results. Then he looks at me, and something in his expression makes my spine straighten.

“He says it darkened.”

For a second, I think I’ve misheard him.

“What?”

He moves to his laptop, opening the attached file Hiro sent over. The glow of the screen reflects across his face as the video begins to play, his expression tightening almost immediately.

I don’t look at the screen; I watch him instead. Because Jake’s face tells me far more than a microscope ever could. His jaw slowly locks, his shoulders stiffen, and then, very quietly, he swears under his breath. Cold dread rolls through my stomach.

“Jake…” I whisper.

His eyes flick to mine briefly before returning to the screen, as if he’s hoping if he watches it again, the result might somehow change.

“Hiro was right. It’s subtle, and I’d not have believed it if I hadn’t watched it happen. But under the lens, the cells shifted. Like something passed through them.”

I grip the edge of his desk so hard that my knuckles whiten and my fingers ache.

“What exactly do you mean by something?”

Jake lets out a quick breath. “Shadowing is probably the best way to describe it.”

Shadowing… memories flick through my mind: the figure in the trees. The rain. The voice. The strange dark pressure inside me when the room shattered.

Ronnie slowly picks up a printed image I hadn’t noticed before. He slides it across the desk to me. I don’t want to look, but obviously I do because curiosity gets the better of me.

The image is grainy and magnified, a cluster of cells enlarged until they barely look like anything recognisable. Around the edges, there’s a strange smudging. Not black exactly, it’s more like ink dripped into water. Or smoke caught inside glass.

“That’s inside me?”

Jake’s face softens. “It’s a sample, Poppy. It doesn’t mean your whole body is...”

“Haunted?” I offer.

He shrugs, and Ronnie sighs. Great. Haunted cells. I love that for me.

“It does not mean haunted,” Jake says eventually.

“Possessed, then?”

“No.”

“Cursed?”

His mouth flattens. “You’re not helping.”

“I’m coping,” I say, forcing a grin that I know is fooling no one.

“If you say so.”

“Yep, I do, so it still counts.”

For half a second, I think he might smile, but then Ronnie speaks, and whatever fragile humour existed between us evaporates.

“This isn’t Dawn energy.”

Jake snaps his head towards him. “You’re sure? We never tested Paige at this stage, did we?”

Ronnie’s eyes remain on the image in my hands. “As sure as I can be without more research. Paige’s cells were similar. But where yours are dark, hers were light. Even when they were unstable.”

My hand tightens around the paper, and the crinkling sounds too loud.

“What does that mean?”

Ronnie looks up at me, and something in his eyes makes the room feel like ice.

“Yours don’t push outward in the same way,” he says. “They gather, absorb, and hold.”

My heartbeat thuds once, hard.

“That sounds bad.”

“No. It sounds different,” Jake says immediately.

Ronnie doesn’t correct him, which is not as comforting as I expected.

The office falls silent except for the rain. I stare down at the image again, at the strange darkness threaded between cells as if it’s waiting for something.

Of course, the voice remains completely silent. Coward.

“So what am I?” I ask.

No one answers quickly enough. Jake steps closer, crouching in front of me so I have to look at him and not the horror show printed on the paper in my hands.

“We don’t know yet,” he says. “But we will.”

I want to believe him. I do. But his eyes flick to Ronnie for half a second, and that tiny movement tells me the truth. He’s worried. Not just as my mate, but as my doctor too.

Ronnie moves back to the desk, flipping through the folder again with quick, focused movements. “I need to check something in the older texts. Not the First Light references. Something before that.”

“Before First Light?” Jake asks.

His mouth presses into a thin line. “Possibly.”

That sounds ominous, which is honestly very on-brand for my life lately. I rub my thumb over the edge of the paper, unable to stop looking at the dark smear in the image. 

“This started before I came back, didn’t it?”

Neither of them answers.

“The crash,” I whisper. “The voice. Whatever happened to me… it wasn’t new, it was always there, wasn’t it?”

Ronnie’s face softens into a sympathetic smile. “Just like wolves, it’s something you are born with. When you are ready, it wakes up.”

A strange calm settles over me, but it’s not peace or acceptance; it’s something much colder. Something as dark as the shadows around my cells.

Because if the voice was there when I was a child, if this darkness was already inside me back then, then every single thing I thought I understood about myself just shattered into a million pieces.

Jake’s hand closes over mine, carefully taking the paper away before I can crumple it into a small ball.

“Poppy,” he says softly, and I look at him.

“Whatever this is, it’s still you.”

I want that to be true. God, I want that so badly. But from somewhere deep inside me, so subtle I almost think I imagine it, the presence inside me finally stirs with awareness.

“Is he right?” I ask it.

The voice doesn’t speak, it just laughs.

My blood turns to ice, and the lights above us flicker once. Jake goes completely still. Ronnie slowly lowers the folder; his face going pale.

Jake’s grip tightens around my hand. “Did you hear that?” he asks, voice low.

I can barely breathe. Because he shouldn’t have heard that. The voice is in my mind; there’s no way anyone should hear it but me.

“Ask a better question,” it says, amusement in its tone.

My words come out before I can stop them.

“What question?” I whisper.

Ronnie looks between me and Jake, horror and recognition slowly dawning on his expression. Then his attention shifts back to me completely, his eyes locking onto mine as if he can see through them.

A chill crawls over my skin. Jake must feel it too, because his hand tightens around mine.

“Ronnie,” he says carefully. “What the hell is going on?”

Ronnie doesn’t answer straight away as he studies me.

“That wasn’t her,” he says very quietly, as if he’s afraid saying it too loudly will make it real.

Every muscle in my body locks.

Jake’s eyes snap to mine instantly. “Poppy?”

“I didn’t…” My voice breaks. “I swear I didn’t mean to…”

“You’re not understanding me,” Ronnie cuts in, sharper this time.

Fear twists violently in my stomach, and I have to fight off the urge to turn and run.

Ronnie takes a slow step back from the desk, his expression unreadable now in a way that terrifies me far more than panic would. Because Ronnie looks as if he’s recognising something.

“What is it?” Jake demands.

Ronnie’s gaze stays fixed on me, and the presence inside me laughs again, softer this time, as if pleased. Ronnie’s face drains of what little colour it had left.

“Whatever this is,” he whispers. “It clearly wants to be known now.”

And somewhere deep inside me, the voice laughs harder.