Page 27 of Reckless: Corruption

His eyes flick to mine—green, like Alexander’s, like mine. But where Alexander’s hold ice and mine hold fire, Roman’s are empty. Like looking into a beautiful void.

“Fascinating.” He makes a note on his tablet. “Even with a severe infection, you maintain that particular spirit. The beta drive to challenge authority persists despite clear disadvantage.”

“Maybe I just don’t like you.”

“Your personal feelings are irrelevant to the larger work.” He sets the tablet aside, pulling on latex gloves with clinical precision. “Though I admit, I’d hoped for better from my own genetic material.”

The needle he produces catches light like a threat. I try to move, but my fever-weak muscles betray me.

“Your mother had such potential,” he continues, swabbing my arm with alcohol. “Brilliant mind. Exceptional musical talent. But she lacked...vision.” The needle slides home. “She couldn’t understand that sometimes progress requires sacrifice.”

“Is that what you tell yourself?” The words come out slurred as whatever he’s injecting burns through my veins. “That kidnapping and torture is just... progress?”

“Science requires data.” He watches my reaction with the same interest someone might show a particularly engaging chess match. “And you, my dear mistake, are going to provide exactly the data I need.”

Through the haze of whatever he’s injected, I study his face—looking for anything familiar, any hint of the man who must have once charmed my mother. The one she wrote about in her letter, the pages I found hidden in my music box after her death, warning me about the man who would seek the perfect designation formula at any cost.

There’s nothing there but calculation, as though he’s carved away every part of himself that might feel regret or remorse oranything human at all. I wonder if he sees himself as a monster, or if he truly believes his own lies. If he goes home at night and sleeps soundly, convinced that his crimes are justified by some greater purpose.

The scariest part isn’t that he’s a monster—it’s that he’s convinced himself he’s a visionary.

Through rapidly blurring vision, I see him remove a second syringe. This one glows faintly green, like toxic promise.

“The virus responds best to elevated body temperature,” he explains, as though discussing the weather. “Your infection is actually quite fortuitous. Alexander’s violence serves a purpose after all.”

The second needle bites deep. Fire floods my system, worse than fever, worse than Alexander’s knife. Someone is screaming. It might be me. Definitely me.

“Fascinating,” I hear him murmur, his voice growing distant. “The cellular response is almost immediate.”

Darkness creeps in at the edges of my vision, but not before I catch a glimpse of movement behind Roman’s shoulder—a shadow that might be Mona, watching with unreadable eyes as our father tries to rewrite my genetic code.

The virus progresses in waves, each one more intense than the last.

First comes the burning, like acid racing through every vessel. Then the pressure builds behind my eyes until colors fracture and blur. By the third wave, my skin feels too tight, stretched over bones that seem to be attempting to reshape themselves. My muscles spasm randomly, fingers curling into claws before suddenly releasing.

The most terrifying sensation isn’t the pain—it’s the subtle shifting beneath my skin, as though my beta designation markers are being forcibly rewritten at the cellular level, mybiology rebelling against what Roman’s virus is trying to transform it into.

Through it all, the fever climbs steadily, turning my thoughts to steam and memory to molten metal.

In a moment of clarity between waves, I reach desperately through the pack bond, searching for that thread of connection that has become as vital as my own heartbeat. Through the haze of fever and Roman’s virus, I feel them—distant but undeniable, each presence distinct despite the miles between us.

Ryker’s unwavering resolve, steady as mountain stone.

Jinx’s feral energy, coiled and ready to unleash.

Finn’s analytical focus, already calculating paths of approach.

Theo’s artistic warmth, a beacon promising safety despite the strange undercurrent I’d sensed in him before I left—that tension I couldn’t quite place that made his scent shift subtly, like he was fighting something within himself.

The connection steadies me even as the next wave of fire claims me, my body instinctively yearning toward the safety of pack as my designation biology fights Roman’s intrusion.

The last thing I hear before consciousness fails is Roman’s clinical observation: “Begin recording test subject’s response to Protocol Seven. Beta designation subject shows promising initial reaction...”

Then there’s nothing but green fire in my blood, memories melting like wax?—

My mother at her piano, fingers dancing across keys as she teaches me about patterns.“Music is mathematics with soul,”she says, not knowing her daughter would one day use those patterns to break into systems instead of creating art.

The first time I wrote code, watching numbers become power, become freedom. The screen’s glow replacing the warmth I couldn’t find anywhere else.

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