Luckily, there mustn’t have been anything on the other side of the wall. Blue torches around the cavern flared to life at my presence, and I let out a shaky breath when I saw no one else was in there. Glancing cautiously around, I took in the space. The small cavern, which wasn’t much bigger than Kade’s bedroom, had a simple design. Against the far wall, a wide, stained oak desk was the largest piece of furniture in the room. Sheets of loose paper covered the desk, and I couldn’t read the writing from where I was. More papers covered the walls, all of them with scribbled writing and charcoal drawings of monsters I hadn’t seen before.
Holy Goddess.Swallowing, I walked along the walls, scanning the pictures. There were beasts with crowns of horns, and others with massive fiery talons. The writing itself didn’t mean much to me, but a chill raced over my skin as I stared at the illustrations.All righty, some decorate their rooms with beautiful paintings, and others with horrifying illustrations of monsters. It’s no big deal.
Turning away, I moved over to the desk and instantly recognized the reports I had found in Kade’s room nights ago, though there was more written on them now. Inked in black cursive were detailed observations regarding how each of the newbloods fought during the Week of Orash and who they fought against. My gaze fell on the report labeledSubject 12. A picture of me passed out on a cot and still in my tattered dress from the selection was at the bottom of the page. I scanned the writing.
My report was nowhere near as fleshed out as the other newbloods’, but aside from a few question marks next to comments about what type of shifter I was and how powerful I was, there wasn’t anything to indicate Warrick suspected I was still human.
I rifled through the other papers on the desk, but only the reports of the newbloods for the current round were there. Conscious that my time was running out, I turned my gaze back to the rest of the room.
Against the right wall sat a steel cabinet with multiple drawers, and I went over to it. Relief coursed through me when I found it wasn’t locked, and I guessed Warrick wasn’t usually worried about monsters breaking into his office.Yeah, he’s going to be rethinking that after finding the hole I’ve opened in the wall.
Stealing another cautious glance through my makeshift door, I crouched and searched through the bottom drawer. Papers were filed neatly in separate folders, and I quickly flicked through them.Are these reports of newbloods from previous years?I frowned at the report I’d pulled out, and my throat went dry when I read the inked script.Rory Finall. Aged 5 years.Beneath the writing was the picture of a young boy with scraggly hair and small brown eyes. A childish grin stretched across the boy’s face, and there was a twig in his hair as if he’d just been climbing a tree. Below the picture was the note:Subject turned into a wendigo when the curse was created. Unlike a shifter, his antlers, claws, and teeth remain present at all times.
My gaze trailed down then, jumping past the notes to where there was another drawing. This time, the picture was of a monster with an animal skull as a head and large deer antlers. Instead of warm brown eyes, empty sockets showed nothing but darkness. I shivered, knowing that I was looking at the same 5-year-old boy from the above picture.
My stomach also roiled at the thought that Warrick had observed the children who turned when the curse first happened.Did he experiment on them as well?Bile rose in my throat, and I slid the report back with the others. I couldn’t imagine a child going through the ordeals I’d been through or worse.
My fingers trembled as I picked through more of the papers. There were dozens of them. Dozens of reports written for children aged between four and ten. When I came to the last two reports in the drawer, my heart nearly stopped. My gaze snagged on Locke’s name, and my breath caught in my chest as I read.Locke Hanmar. Aged 9 years.
I stared disbelieving at the picture of a young boy with Locke’s sharp jaw and sleek black hair. He wasn’t smiling in the first picture, but his chin was held high, and a proud gleam shone in his eyes. My gaze slid to the second picture on the page. Membranous wings flared behind the young boy now, and his skin was a deathly pale white. Fangs protruded from his lips, and trails of blood dribbled from the sides of his mouth.
I forced myself to read sections of the report and tried to control my erratic breathing.No.My mind wanted to rebel as I read about the various trials Locke had been put through. All the words were written in a purely clinical way as if Locke had been nothing but another subject Warrick was determined to examine.
The report detailed how Locke was put through a multitude of tests that were designed to determine his pain threshold, instincts, the limits of his mortality, and the extent of his bloodlust. Locke’s bones had been broken, he’d been starved, and he’d been drained of large amounts of blood.
There were also notes detailing emotional and mental tests placed upon him. Locke had been made to participate in a range of horrendous acts all so Warrick could measure his emotional and physical responses. After being starved of blood for nights, Warrick would place Locke in a room with other children to see how he would behave.
Goddess, I felt sick. In light of the report, everything Locke and the others had done to me seemed mild. I could see then why Locke was the way he was. The idea that his own father tested him in that way was unthinkable.
The next report was of a child called Garan, who had turned into a gargoyle. I didn’t read any more of that report and slid it back with Locke’s into the drawer. It occurred to me then that if Warrick was willing to do all that to his own son, I could only imagine what he would do to me if he found me trespassing in his space.
Self-preservation allowed me to mentally push the thought of the children from my mind, and I hastily searched through the next two drawers. Both of these contained reports of newbloods—girls who had been taken from my island—but Cara’s report wasn’t there. I even found all the reports for the newbloods of the previous round, and all twelve females were accounted for. There was no report of a girl with mousy brown hair and wide brown eyes.
I was about to close the cabinet when a handful of papers hidden at the far back of the top drawer snagged my attention. With shaking hands, I pulled them out.
As I stared at the first paper, I nearly dropped the stack. A nightmarish creature with thousands of beady eyes, a misshapen head, and six legs snarled at me. The charcoal drawing had been created with such detail that it almost looked lifelike, and I quickly moved onto the next page. This drawing was of a monster with a skeletal body and pieces of flesh falling from its bones.
Each of the papers in the stack contained a drawing of a monster that was just as terrifying as the last, and I scanned them hastily.They can’t possibly be real. As if in answer to my thought, my heart stuttered when I peered at the last drawing. It was the sea monster Darian, Locke, and I had faced when we were in the ocean. The beast was drawn in precise detail from the creature’s spined back and fins jutting from its sides to its grotesque head with five bulging eyes and massive maw filled with needlelike teeth.The outlier.I took a step back, my gaze flitting from the papers in my hand to the charcoal drawings on the walls.
Are theyalloutliers?I swallowed as I stared at them all. If they were outliers, the monsters had once been animals. Animals that had been warped by the curse and transformed into horrifying creatures. All of a sudden, I felt uncomfortably warm, and I rubbed my sweaty palms on my dress. The words Locke had said not too long ago echoed in my head.If all our animals start to turn, they will be like an army descending upon Katakin.
If an army of the monsters swept through the city, I didn’t think there would be any stopping them. I remembered the stench of rotting flesh from when I’d been in the sea creature’s mouth, and I shuddered.
Hastily tucking the handful of drawings back into the drawer, I closed the cabinet. Seeing the drawing of the outlier was just another reminder that I needed to find Cara, but once again, I was empty-handed.Her report isn’t there because she’s dead, said a dark voice in my mind, but I pushed the thought away. I wouldn’t believe it. Not unless I had proof.
Determined to keep searching, I left the office, climbing through the hole in the wall and striding to the room beside the one I was in. This time, I didn’t hesitate to place my hand on the wall near the door and summon the energy that dwelled within me. Again, the rock dissolved into sand, creating an opening for me to walk through.
This time, the torches were already burning high up on the walls before I even crept through my new entrance. Clenching my jaw, I poked my head through the hole and gasped. In the middle of the room, a long form was spread out on a stone slab. Deep cuts and angry-purple bruises covered the male’s naked body from his feet to his pointed ears, and his short azure-colored hair was coated in grime.Pointed ears. He’s one of the fae.I thought about leaving. About pretending that I hadn’t seen the captured male, but I knew my odds of ever being able to search Warrick’s lab again would all but disappear once he realized someone had broken into them. He’d probably get monsters to guard his rooms from then on.
Slowly, I stepped closer to the male on the stone slab. The fae’s long arms and legs were spread out, and iron cuffs were clasped around his wrists and ankles. With the treatment of his body, I would have guessed he was dead except for the almost imperceptible rise and fall of his chest.
A tube ran from one of the male’s wrists, and my gaze followed it to where blue blood dripped from the tube into a steel tub on the ground. The tub was already half-filled, and nausea made me gag. Beside the stone slab, a small steel table held numerous knives and other medical instruments that were covered with black blood.
Goddess. How long has he been here?The male’s eyes were closed, and he looked close to death. From what Kade had told me, the fae were as evil as Warrick was, but I still felt sympathy for him. From what I could see, Warrick had likely inflicted unimaginable pain on the male, and he had been tortured for a long while.
I tried not to give the fae my back as I picked my way through the room. Hundreds of glass vials covered the walls, most with black blood but some with blood that was different shades of red. There were also more charcoal drawings high up on the walls, depicting what I assumed were more outlier monsters.
I searched for anything that would give me some clue as to what had happened to my sister. There weren’t any cabinets like the one I’d found in the previous room, but there was another, smaller table against one wall with a selection of papers on it. Again, I frantically rifled through them, hoping to find useful information, but the papers just held more notes on different outliers.
