Heavy steps echoed behind me, fast ones too. My fear propelled me forward, and as my eyes adjusted, I noticed the cobweb covered opening in the corner.
Without a second thought, I dashed into it, and, as promised, Ronan couldn’t fit.
His arm swiped wildly into the hole, cursing me, threatening that my death would be worse if I continued to run. But, I didn’t listen. Instead, I inched toward the library and hoped to God that Cassian wasn’t just setting me up.
The library of Red Lace Manor looked more like it belonged in a storybook and not real life—especially in a place like this. The floor to ceiling windows were uncovered, leaving moon light to spill in, illuminating the plethora of book shelves covering the walls. Each one was stocked with different genres of books, classics, sci-fi, horror, even a few modern romances I recognized by the cover alone. And, if that wasn’t enough to make this room feel out of place in the ancient mansion, the computer on the desk would have done it.
My first instinct was to turn it on, but when I tried, nothing happened. This caused me to wonder if someone in the house cut the power for this event, but I didn’t have time to think about that, not with Ronan potentially closing in on me any second. So, I focused on looking for the answers Cassian promised were hidden up here.
But, the only problem was I had no idea what to even look for. If they were on the computer, I was shit out of luck.
Water audibly trickled through the pipes, and the ceiling crackled above me. I jumped on instinct before looking aroundthe room. Blowing out a breath, I took comfort in the closed doors around me. There was one nestled between two bookshelves, that had been the one I came in through, and just outside of it laid a narrow hallway.
It was larger than the tunnel I’d crawled through to get there, but not by much. Then, directly across from me was another. I wasn’t sure what laid behind the redwood, but I wasn’t exactly eager to figure it out.
I reminded myself that, for now, I was safe before scanning the room again. At first, nothing new popped out, but as I turned toward the wall behind me, I noticed another portrait like the ones I’d seen earlier in the night. But, where the other ones had been perfectly straight, this one was just crooked enough to catch my attention.
Holding my breath, I reached forward and lifted the frame ever so slightly. Behind it was a hidden compartment lined with large envelopes and exactly one leather-bound journal. I glanced over my shoulders once more before grabbing the papers with shaky hands.
Carefully, I laid them out one by one on the desk. There was no way to tell how much time I had, so I made it my mission to leaf through all of them as quickly as possible. I bent back the metal clasp on the first one and pulled out the papers.
In big, bold letters, the first page readProject WRAITH–final phase candidates.
My eyes widened slightly as I moved to the next sheet, what looked like a mug shot of Cassian greeted me. He looked younger and bore none of the scars I’d seen just moments prior.
Enhanced auditory tracking. Neural rewiring successful. Subject capable of tracking prey in complete darkness.
Under that was charts and a bunch of numbers that made zero sense to me, but, on the bottom, stamped in red ink were the wordsPUBLIC SAFETY THREAT/ DO NOT RELEASE.
I continued to flip through the papers, finding similar ones for Solomon and Ronan. The only difference was that their notes dealt with sight and smell, respectively.
Then, I got to Seth.
I hadn’t seen his face until that moment, but he wasprettierthan I expected. Strong jaw, pouty lips, andimpossiblyblue eyes. Dark tattoos snaking up his neck topped all that off. My stomach did a strange flip, and I reminded myself that he was likely the mastermind behind all of this.
I reminded myselfnotto drool over a psychopath and instead focused on reading his notes.
Enhanced sensitivity. Extreme responses to physical stimulation, pain threshold drastically reduced. Do not sedate. Last attempt resulted in the deaths of four medical staff.
The house creaked again, and it was all I could do to not fly out of my seat. I shuffled the papers back into order before slipping them into the envelope and moving onto the next.
These documents detailed the experiments performed on the men inbrutal detail–it even listed the surgical procedures performed on each of them and the varying levels of success. They’d sharpened Ronan’s teeth to make him more lethal without a weapon, but they couldn’t do the same to Seth. They tried, but the sedation didn’t work, and I assumedthatwas the incident that killed medical staff.
These men had been throughhell. Treated like they were never human to begin with. Isolation chambers, physical punishments, even a month-long period where each had every sense except the altered one taken. A shiver ran down my spine as I tried to imagineonlybeing able to hear. No sight, no touch, no smell.
My eyes started to burn with sympathy that had no right to exist. I swallowed the lump in my throat and put the documentsaway. It was probably for the best that I left the envelopes alone… but, my curiosity got the better of me with the journal.
The book felt heavy in my hands, and I turned it over. At one point in time, it was probably expensive, but years of wear and tear had left the leather dull and the spine cracked.
I opened the first page to find:property of Seth Kline.Part of me hesitated, and I wasn’t sure if I was silently opposed to invading his privacy, or if I was afraid of what Imightfind. Against my better judgement, I flipped the page.
The first few entries were fine. He was bored and unsure what he’d signed up for. And then, everything shifted.
My skin is on fire. It hurts when air moves too fast. I can’t feel my fingers.
I pressed my fingers to my lips but continued to read on. The following pages were no less grotesque. Seth wrote about being able to feel his blood flow through his veins, about how they’d dropped the four of them off in a random desert with nothing but the clothes on their back and essentially saidgood luck.
Somehow, they all survived. They worked together to hunt and watched each other’s backs while they slept. After those pages, everything turned completely illegible. The letters were too sharp, too crooked, and the few places I could decipher made absolutely no sense, that was, until I got to the last page.
