The word hung in the air. A tremor ran through Reynolds’ thighs beneath the sheet. The monitor chirped, then settled.
Mac moved closer by a fraction, not touching yet. Reynolds’ gaze flicked toward him. The spike settled when Mac shifted half a step closer. Reynolds responded to proximity, not like dependence, but like wiring.
Reynolds’ voice came out thin. “I didn’t even see what it was.”
“You saw enough,” Melvin said. He could still feel the creature’s breath, the calculating pause. “It wasn’t an animal. It wasn’t a stray.”
Reynolds stared at the ceiling like he could find a different reality up there. “So those people… the Stewards… they know.”
“They know,” Mac confirmed.
Reynolds turned his head toward Mac, eyes searching, almost pleading. “Then they can fix it.”
Mac’s expression tightened, strained by the weight of the truth. “They don’t fix,” he said. “They manage.”
Reynolds’ lips parted. “Manage?”
Melvin felt the next part like a pressure behind his ribs. Not the bite. The rules.
“They’ll move you,” Melvin said.
Mac’s head lifted. “Move him where?”
Melvin hesitated, because saying it made it real. “Stateside.”
Mac frowned. “Medical?”
Melvin met his eyes and held them. “Something like that.”
Mac didn’t speak, but Melvin could see him calculating: paperwork, custody, accountability, the way the Army never moved a soldier quietly unless someone higher than the Army was doing the moving. Beneath it, the wolf part of him didn’t like Reynolds being removed from their sight and placed under a system that talked in terms like variables and trials.
“It’s not just medical,” Melvin said. “It’s training. Rules. Control. Learning what you can do and what you can’t. Learning what you’ll have to hide for the rest of your life.”
Reynolds’ eyes locked on him, horrified. “Hide?”
Melvin nodded once. “From your unit. From your family. From the Army.”
Mac’s jaw worked once. “From the world,” he added, and there was something in his tone that suggested he knew that sentence from the inside.
Reynolds swallowed hard. “Why would they… why would anyone,”
“Because people fear what they can’t control,” Melvin said. “And because your body is becoming something that doesn’t fit their categories.”
Reynolds’ gaze dropped to his hands as if he expected claws to be there already. “But I’m still me,” he whispered.
Melvin leaned in, voice quieter, precise. “You are. Right now. And you’re going to have to fight to stay that way while everything else changes.”
Mac stepped closer then and placed his hand lightly over Reynolds’ forearm. Not gripping. Just contact. Reynolds flinched, then his shoulders lowered by a fraction. His breathing steadied. The monitor smoothed out enough to feel like a small victory.
Reynolds stared at Mac’s hand like he didn’t understand why it helped. “Why… why does that,”
“Because you’re in the earliest stage,” Mac said. “Your body is looking for structure. Something stable to align to.”
Melvin watched Reynolds absorb that. Watched his fear shift, still fear, but edged now with purpose. He wasn’t being told he was doomed. He was being told he could learn.
Reynolds’ voice came out hoarse. “So what happens to me before they move me?”
Melvin’s throat tightened. He knew what the Stewards implied. Observation. Instruction. Trials built around governance, not mercy.
