The crunch and rustle of glass and ash underfoot went unnoticed as Wren searched desperately for any intact evidence that any animal had survived in the main room.
He knew he should have been searching for notes for Avery, or clues about the case at large and who was behind it, but Wren couldn’t help but follow his heart.
One, he begged as he and Blu worked in tandem.Just one.
“There’s nothing here but ashes,” Saint called down from the catwalk he had made his way up to check the office. “I found half a log with an inventory of chemicals, but without the full list I couldn’t take a guess at what exactly they were trying to do. One missing ingredient could change the whole reaction.”
“Does it match any of the chemicals you found in the drug remnants, at least?” Teddy called back.
“A few. It definitely has something to do with it. I don’t know if this was the final formula or one of the tests though.”
“Keep searching. That list is better than nothing. Maybe there’s something else they missed that we could send Avery’s way,” Wren said before turning back to his own search. Hefocused on the ground. For whatever reason that felt like the most logical place.
If there was a wounded animal he was to find, that was where it would be. He walked slowly, steps quiet so as to not startle whoever might be hiding in fear and pain.
He didn’t want to be a source of any more of it. He just wanted to help.
Please…
A trail of something at the corner of the room made Wren’s heart leap.
He hurried to it, pausing in his joy for a moment when he realized that the trail was like nothing he had ever seen before. It looked like an oil slick, iridescent and gleaming in winding curves that indicated a snake of some kind.
He frowned. Reaching out a fingertip to touch the liquid and freezing just before he made contact as Blu screeched an alarm, flying down to sit on his shoulder.
Wren curled his fingers back, with Blu so close, able to feel what Blu had noticed before him. Something sticky and unnatural. “Cursed,” he breathed. “No…not even that. This is…twisted and cruel. What were they doing to you here?”
Pushing the tears aside, Wren began to follow the sludgy trail toward a huge grate in the floor just off to the side of the main mechanism. It began to pull as he drew closer, the ache in his eye back. He cursed, knowing there was no way he would be able to get the grate up. It was solid iron and bolted down with screws the size of Wren’s fist.
He pulled out a small torch from his pocket and shined it down. There was a liquid underneath with more of that oily sheen. It was shifting a little, like it was disturbed.
Had whatever this animal was covered in been created by this machine?
He looked back at it, the cold, imposing menace of it dwarfing him and making his hair stand on end. It wasn’t activated or moving, but Wren was terrified of it.
He followed the tubes running from it and his eyes widened when he realized they ended in funnels that were sitting directly over his head, presumably supposed to empty into these grates.
Wren stumbled back just as Blu twittered and flew off. Wren glanced over to see Blu had found another trail from a crack in the floor that seemed to be leading in the direction of the entrance to the cylinder.
Teddy’s phone rang in the silence.
Both he and Wren stiffened, Wren only relaxing when Teddy did. Not Kellan, then.
“Trace?” Teddy answered. “Can it wait? I thought you were called in on a case? We just found something huge.”
Despite not wanting to, Wren stepped closer to the strange trail and the machine.
“Brown eyes. Bald. Tattoos. First name Adam,” Teddy said in the background.
Wren used the flashlight, shining it around the space. More of that oily substance caught the light in rainbow colors. And just over the lip on the floor, two tiny eyes reflected back at him from the coil of its seemingly normal body. Wren wanted to cry with relief.
“There you are, darling. Hello. Don’t worry, I’m going to rescue you from here and fix everything, okay? You don’t have to be afraid.” He inched closer, examining the cylinder.
“Dead?”
Wren turned sharply at the word, dropping the light in his shock only for it to roll away. Wren ignored it.
“That can’t be…” Teddy trailed off, meeting Wren’s questioning gaze. “Are you sure it’s Adam?”
