Snow whispers, almost reverent, “She was always good at this.”
“Duh.” She tuts. “Took you long enough to realise it.”
We push through another set of doors and cooler air hits my face, tinged with damp earth and something green underneath the chemical tang. Outside. Grounds. Somewhere to put our backs against if things go bad. The sky is a flat, low ceiling of cloud; the facility’s lights cast everything in a washed-out, sickly glow.
Kayla steps into it like a queen leaving a banquet. Blood on her feet, chin tipped up, my girl strolling out of hell she decorated herself.
Ahead, I can see the greenhouse silhouette, glass panels catching reflections from the security lights. Beyond that, the bulk of what looks like it might be the medical wing. She slows for a second, looking toward it, and something shifts in her posture – not fear, exactly, but a kind of sharp, cold focus.
“There,” she says softly. “One last exhibit. Then we go.”
Nightshade follows her gaze, thumbs pressing briefly into her hip, grounding himself or her or both. Ghost’s eyes narrow, already tracking the line between buildings, routes in and out. Honeymonster cracks his neck like he’s getting ready for an encore. Snow wipes his palms on his trousers, breathing a little too fast. Valentine whispers something under his breath that sounds like a prayer and probably won’t help.
Me? I roll my shoulders, shake out my hands, and grin. Because for all the horror in these walls, for all the ways this could still go wrong, there’s one thing I know for sure as we angle toward the greenhouse and the medical wing beyond it: We didn’t find Kayla on a slab. We didn’t find her sedated, cut open, gone. We found her standing in the middle of her own apocalypse, smiling. A fucking queen ruling over her corpse army.
The rest, whatever it is, we can handle.
She leads. We follow.
And if the Director doesn’t get the message from the bodies she left behind, he’s going to understand it very clearly when we come back to finish the job.
A BROKEN MARIONETTE
Thumbs - Sabrina Carpenter
Kookaburra
We pause when we pass the greenhouse. Hatchet stops beside the roses like he’s witnessing a shrine, his fingers grazing a blood-flecked petal. He sighs something reverent and obscene at the same time. I blow him another kiss and a saucy wink this time.
But the real attraction is still waiting in the medical wing.
Bones is the first one to notice the trail. “Uh. Guys? Breadcrumbs.”
“That’s not bread,” Snow snorts derisively.
“Well it’s notnotbread if you think philosophically,” I point out.
Valentine makes a strangled noise and speeds ahead.
The others follow, like they expect the building itself to lunge at me from behind.
Silly boys.
We reach the office doorway.
The smell hits first – copper and disinfectant wrestling for dominance. The room is dim except for the spill of hallway light framing the scene.
And there she is.
Doctor Callaway sits slumped in the chair like a broken marionette.
Breathing shallow.
Sweat cooling on her skin.
Blood puddling under her, slow and faithful.
Her hands tremble. Some nails lifted, the others intact for now. Her thigh wound seeps through the bandage in a patient, rhythmic bloom.
