"Cal is there." I say it the way he said it to me earlier, testing whether it holds. "Stone is there."
"Lumi will help him too."
I pull back and look at him.
His jaw is still set. Something in his face he’s holding — not from me. Just held.
The weight of a man who’s been awake since three in the morning. In a cottage at the edge of a campus that swallowed his brother whole nine years ago.
Doing what he could while everything else was out of his hands.
He checked the hot water three times.
I reach up and put my hand on his jaw.
His eyes close for just a second.
When they open, the careful control is still there — but it slips, just enough to show what he’s holding back.
"Tell me everything," I say. "About the facility. What you've found."
"How much do you want."
"All of it."
He pulls out a chair. I take the other one, close enough that our knees almost touch, and he leans forward with his forearms on the table and starts talking. Low and even.
He’s quiet for a second.
Not hesitating. Choosing where to start.
“Tomlinson met with me this morning,” he says. “Off record.”
I don’t interrupt.
“The previous headmaster was running something, years ago before the old council was overthrown.” His jaw tightens slightly. “Not training. Not evaluation.”
A beat.
“Council controlled experiments.”
The word sits there.
“What kind,” I say.
"They were pushing wolves past failure points. Bond interference. Stress induction." His jaw works. "Seeing what broke."
My stomach turns.
“And the ones that did break,” I say.
“Went feral.”
Flat.
Controlled.
The room feels smaller.
