Page 89 of Deadly Wolf Bite

It’s not a request.

My spine prickles with unease as I round the couch and sit on its edge. Now there’s nothing between us but the coffee table. I try not to make my pain obvious because something tells me showing this man any weakness only makes it worse. But he zeroes in on it immediately.

“How’s your arm feeling?” he asks.

“Broken,” I say flatly.

“The doctor’s on his way.”

Liar. I don’t bother to point out that Charlie promised me a doctor last night.

“If you’re here for my grocery list, it’s on the fridge,” I say.

He tosses a file onto the coffee table. “I’m here to talk about this.”

My breath catches at the sight of a manila folder with my name scrawled on the label. “What’s that?”

“Don’t play games. We both know this is what you were after last night.”

I don’t answer.

He leans back on the couch, draping his arm over the top. “Go ahead. Read it.”

I hesitate, but curiosity wins out over fear. Easing forward, I reach for the file and slide it over to me. When he doesn’t yank it away, I flip it open.

On top of the stack is some kind of lab test. I don’t understand the list of what was tested, but my name’s printed along the top. The date is one year ago. I think back, vaguely remembering an appointment I had for birth control at the free clinic in Lakeland. They took blood… Just routine, they said.

I move it aside and look at the next sheet. More lab tests. More dates that correlate with various doctor appointments in the life I had before coming to Indigo Hills. After flipping through a few, I see that all of them test something called LAG, though I have zero clue what the letters mean.

Anger, fear, suspicion—all the emotions that spin through me as I look at these tests overwhelm me.

“What is all this?” I ask, flipping faster now. Maybe there’s something here that will make it all make sense.

Vincenzo just waits, more patient than I’ve ever seen him.

At the very bottom of the stack is another lab test. The name at the top is different this time. My breath catches. Monte Giovanni.

My dad.

Once again, the tests are all foreign to me, but LAG is at the very top. Beside it, the result reads Negative.

“What is LAG?” I ask, finally looking up at Vincenzo again.

“It’s a gene. Discovered in a lab after decades of research on our kind. It stands for Lupin Alpha Gene.”

“What does it do?”

“All alphas and their descendants have the gene. It determines how strong or dominant we are once we come into our power. Years ago, Franco decided to alter the gene for his own gain.”

“Alter it how?”

“Successfully mutated, the gene would provide alpha power to a wolf far beyond what we’re capable of on our own. Unparalleled physical strength, mental acuity including stronger compulsion and control over other wolves, even those not in our packs, and anti-aging benefits that border on immortality.”

I blink, letting his words sink in. “Are you telling me Franco’s immortal?”

He shakes his head. “Not quite. As far as he knows, his experiment failed.”

My surprise turns to wariness. Dom used those same words to describe me just last night: a failed experiment. “What does this have to do with me?” I ask, my stomach tightening.

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