I try to pull free. Pointless. My body has exactly zero fight left in it, and his grip doesn’t even budge. My legs are shaking so badly that I think the only reason I’m still upright is because he’s holding onto me.
He walks me back. I don’t really have a say in it. The living room comes at me in pieces: lamp light too bright, hurting my eyes. People standing now, though they look rough. The one by the door is looking at me with an expression that I can read perfectly through the fog in my head. He hates me. Really specifically hates me.
“Tie her up.” His voice is hard and flat. “We don’t know what she’s capable of. She’s probably got tricks like her father.”
My stomach drops, and for a second, I think I’m going to be sick. Whether that’s the fear or the infusion, I honestly can’t tell anymore. Everything’s blurring together.
“She’s not a threat.” The one holding me says it as if it’s obvious. “Look at her, Zeke. She can barely stand.”
He’s not wrong. I really, really can’t.
“I don’t care, Declan.” Zeke spits out every word. “Her father gassed us and walked out. We don’t know what she knows. She could have a phone; she could’ve already?—”
“I don’t have a phone,” I tell them, and my voice comes out weird and slurred. I immediately wish I hadn’t said anything because now they’re all looking at me, and the attention feels like being under a heat lamp.
Zeke takes a step forward. Declan moves between us, facing him. “She doesn’t get tied up,” he grunts.
“Then what? We just sit here and wait for Daddy to send his goons?”
“I said no.”
They stare at each other and something’s happening between them that I can’t follow. I’m having trouble keeping up with any of it. My brain feels like it’s running on half power, thoughtsarriving late and fuzzy. I keep losing the thread of what they’re saying and then picking it back up a few words later. Zeke backs off, eventually. I think.
Declan turns to me. His hand is still on my arm, which is good because I’m pretty sure I’d be on the floor without it. This close, his eyes are really green. Weirdly green. And the way he’s looking at me doesn’t match anything else that’s happening right now.
“What does he do at the facility?” he asks. Quiet. “The experiments. What’s he doing in there?”
And here’s the weird thing. Even through the fog, even with my head full of cotton, and my body trying to shut down, I want to tell him. Not like a decision. Like a pull. Like the words are already there and all I have to do is let go and they’ll just… come out. Everything about the infusions and the serum and why Dad started all of this.
I catch myself. Bite the inside of my cheek hard enough that the pain cuts through the haze for a second.
No. These are the people who destroyed the other location. They must be. If I say anything, I could ruin everything. Dad’s work. My one chance at having my body actually work the way it’s supposed to.
So I don’t say a word. I stare past his shoulder, and I keep my mouth shut, even though it feels like fighting a current.
He watches me. I can feel it, warm and heavy, and I really, really need to not look at him because being this close to him is doing that thing again. That pull, that scent from the car, warm and clean and something else underneath. It’s so much stronger now and it makes me want to lean toward him, which is—no. That’s the infusion messing with my head.
“She’s not talking,” the big one says. He’s upright now. “We need to move. He’ll have called somebody.”
“She comes with us,” Declan decides.
“What?” I ask. It comes out like a croak.
“You can’t stay here.” Simple. Done. Letting me know my input isn’t part of this equation. “Your father will send people. If you’re here, you’re a bargaining chip. With us, you’re leverage.”
I want to argue, but my brain can’t assemble the argument fast enough. Leverage. A minute ago, he was standing between me and somebody who wants me dead, and now I’m leverage.
Things move fast now. Or I think they do. It’s hard to tell because time keeps doing this thing where minutes compress and stretch, and I can’t track it. One second, we’re in the living room, and the next, we’re outside, where the cold hits me like a wall. I stumble and someone steadies me. Not Declan. One of the others. The air is sharp and crisp, and it clears my head a little, but not enough.
Two cars. Trees. Zeke says something about a trunk, and my stomach lurches.
“No,” Declan declares. No hesitation.
“You can’t let her sit in the car with us.”
“She can barely walk.”
“She almost made it out the back door?—”
