Page 17 of A Dawn Of Blood

That’s the last entry. No. He finished it. Goddamn it.

And the others look just as devastated as I am.

Now what?

“Since we’re already here,” Nuala says, “we might as well still burn the papers and find the man.”

We start searching the lab for documentation, burning it along the way.

I take the opportunity to skim the contents. It’s all scientific, none of it telling me anything, until I stumble on the folderseemingly containing the information on the subjects the scientist has been experimenting on.

This didn’t even cross my mind, that he’d use actual people, but of course he would. Horrified, I start skimming through the names, until my wolf reacts to one of them. A man by the name of Phinelis, held in cell number twelve.

“We need to get going,” Nuala comes to tell me, snapping me out of it.

When I look up, I see that the rest of them have already finished burning the materials.

I nod, put the folder down and start following them out, but my mind is still on the subjects.

No, I think with a frown, the experiment seems to be fully wrapped up, they’ve probably already gotten rid of them.

But right as we step out the door and I turn around to close it, I hear a sound coming from behind my back. I freeze in place, listening.

There are more rooms to the back. The people could still be there — thevictimsof all this, including that Phinelis person.

“Anna,” Jaeger hisses.

I turn to look at Nuala. “Five minutes,” I ask, motioning at the rooms.

“No.”

And I can see how determined they all are, but there could be people in dire need of saving back there. And I have a feeling — based on my wolf’s reaction mostly — that this is not something I should be walking away from, no matter how dangerous it might be.

Then again, the last thing I want is to force Jaeger, Nuala and Dryden to risk their lives for me. “Don’t worry about me,” I tell them all, and before they can protest, let alone do anything to stop me, I step back into the room and shut the door, locking it so they have no choice but to leave me here.

Chapter 12

Ithink I hear Jaeger let out a muffled curse, but I’m already rushing into the back rooms, determination in my every move. There, just as I suspected, I find actual, living people.

In cages.

Bile rises up my throat.

“I hear them trying to break in, Anna,” my wolf tells me, referring to my team.

Why didn’t they just… Shaking my head, I blow out a frustrated breath, but I end up choosing to force myself to ignore that for a moment longer.

Gritting my teeth, I start approaching the cages, slowly for fear of scaring the subjects, but they all look too drugged to even register my presence.

Quickly, I locate the ‘cell’ number twelve, in which I find an elderly fae man in that same drugged haze as the rest of them.

Great, now what? I lower myself into a crouch and frown. How do you address a drugged, caged, elderly man without giving him a heart attack? “Um, excuse me?”

Nothing.

“Phinelis?”

The man opens his eyes and it breaks my heart, how much fear I see in them.

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