Eli looked down at Henry, who was pressed against the floor in front of him.
"What are you doing?" Eli asked. "Weren't you so keen on following me yesterday? Why are you running now?"
He was genuinely confused. If anything, shouldn't he be the one afraid?
"That f—ing changed when you ripped out my throat!" Henry snapped.
Eli frowned. "I… don't think that happened. You'd probably be dead if I did."
He studied him for a moment, then sighed inwardly.
The hunger. That had to be it.
Whatever this thing was, it had fried his brain.
Henry's breathing began to slow.
Eli wasn't a monster. That much was clear. He had only defended himself.
So maybe calling him one had been a bit much, especially since Henry had been the one to attack first.
He was just so damn hungry.
"Pfft." Eli let out a short laugh. "Oh, so you were just lying about being a vegetarian. And calling me a monster was just projection?"
"What? No!" Henry shook his head quickly. "I didn't mean to attack you. It just… happened. My hunger got too strong. It felt like someone was nudging it."
He hesitated.
"And stop messing with my head."
"I see," Eli said. "So you took a bite out of me, I passed out from the pain, and then you felt guilty. Because you're clearly a pig who can't resist flesh."
He tilted his head slightly, voice settling into an irritating finality.
"You took my phone, texted my mother that my friends were taking me home, and then brought me back yourself."
He paused.
"That does make things simpler."
If that were true, then he didn't need to worry about whoever had sent that message.
"I didn't touch your damn phone!" Henry shouted.
He lunged.
His eyes flashed white.
Eli stepped aside.
A syringe slipped from his bag, almost casually, and drove into Henry's neck.
A second later, Henry staggered.
Then collapsed against a bookshelf.
Eli watched him fall.
"…Okay," he muttered. "Maybe I went a bit too far."
He glanced down at him.
Henry wasn't lying about that part.
So who had sent the message?
And what did he mean about his hunger being nudged?
Henry had eventually woken up and explained everything that had happened.
From what he said, it seemed like the ring might have awakened an ability. Either that, or Harley was some kind of shapeshifter.
Thinking back on the ring, if it had a power, it should have been related to fire, not the mind. Henry said his hunger had been nudged, and he couldn't remember anything from yesterday.
So the ring likely had some capacity to affect people mentally.
But how did a fire-based attribute lead to something that interfered with the mind?
Was it because of what happened when it was upgraded?
He needed to think about that more carefully.
"Damn. Why are these ropes so strong? Are they made of metal or something?"
Eli looked over.
Henry was tied to a library chair, testing the restraints with an expression caught between offended and impressed.
"I try to help you understand being supernatural, and this is how you repay me?" Henry said. He paused, then added, almost to himself, "Actually, it fits. You're not a mutt. You're a damn snake."
Eli glanced at him.
Not entirely wrong.
Still, Eli felt considerably safer with a potential carnivore restrained, especially in level-two bindings. He would release him when the bell rang.
He still had questions.
Just one, for now.
"What kind of shapeshifter is a snake?" Eli asked. "And why am I one? I was never bitten."
Henry looked at him.
He said nothing.
He had answered earlier out of guilt. That debt was paid. He wasn't saying anything else while tied up.
Eli didn't like that, but considering he was the one asking for help, he adjusted.
The ropes binding Henry suddenly took on a faint blue glow.
Then they slipped loose and fell away.
At the same time, two syringes lifted into the air.
"Now can you answer?" Eli asked, raising an eyebrow. "I did what was asked."
He smiled, annoyingly.
Henry huffed.
"Do you know what a kanima is?"
Henry turned the laptop toward him.
Eli leaned forward and read.
The Kanima is believed to originate from South American mythology. In the belief systems of certain Carib tribes, the Kanaima is an evil spirit that possesses people, causing them to become deadly creatures or enter a murderous rage. Those seeking revenge for a slain relative would sometimes invite the spirit into themselves through ritual or medicine.
Other accounts describe the Kanima as a weapon of vengeance, bound to a master. The bond grows stronger over time, until the will of the master becomes the will of the Kanima entirely.
Eli sat back.
"So I'm… a weapon of vengeance?" he said. "That doesn't make sense. I don't feel particularly angry."
He looked back at Henry.
"And I was never bitten. I've never performed any ritual. So either this is wrong, or something was forced onto me without my consent."
"Then you might be right," Henry said. "You were in a coma for four years. An alpha could have bitten you at any point during that time, and you wouldn't know."
Henry noticed the flinch.
Then it clicked.
"It's not mentioned there," he continued, "but the kanima is often considered a mutation of a werewolf, a victim of the bite who can't fully transform because of emotional turmoil."
Eli's head snapped toward him, the orange hue of his eyes bleeding through his shades.
"I AM NOT IN TURMOIL!"
Henry immediately raised his hands.
Eli turned away.
Neither option was comforting.
And the worst part?
He qualified for both.
Whatever that young, old fool had done before forcing him into a coma, it had been some kind of ritual.
And the red footprint outside his hospital door, that hadn't been human.
At some point, one of those things had turned him into a werewolf.
His only hope was that he was somehow a kanima that didn't need a master.
He hoped, desperately, that he didn't.
Lorraine absentmindedly ran her fingers over her new necklace in the quiet pharmaceutical room. She could only do this because her new position kept her separated from the patients.
She was technically a Pharmacy Technician, responsible for monitoring and reporting the hospital's pharmaceutical needs to the Pharmacy Director, the position she was actually qualified for. But someone already held that role, and truthfully, they didn't even need her. The guy was just someone she knew from her school days who was helping her out.
She was grateful for that.
"Hey, Doc, I need an extra dose of the good stuff."
Lorraine frowned and looked up. It was Nurse Cross, one of her better coworkers, and that was only because she was a woman. The other two were… unsettling.
Lorraine refocused on her ledger.
"This is your tenth request today," she said. "Is everything okay out there?"
Cross looked irritated, but she answered.
"Yeah. The patients are just a bit active today."
"Mm." Lorraine flipped a page. "Who is it for?"
Cross scoffed. "Why do you want to know? Until recently, we could just come in and take whatever we needed. Everything's been fine."
Lorraine didn't respond immediately.
Patients committing suicide was not what she would consider "fine."
She held her ground.
Eventually, Cross gave in with a snort. "It's for Crazy Oliver."
She rolled her eyes. "I just need him to calm down. In case he doesn't listen."
Lorraine noted it down. She didn't want to hand it over, not really. But if she refused and something went wrong, the responsibility would fall on her.
Reluctantly, she filled the syringe and passed it to Cross.
Cross huffed and walked off.
Once she was gone, Lorraine opened her laptop and entered the data into an Excel sheet. A chart began to form.
She frowned.
"At this rate… most of the patients might suffer from overdoses rather than be helped by the medication."
She hesitated.
Should she report this to Conrad?
Biting her lip, she picked up her phone and called.
It rang.
"Hello?"
Lorraine paused.
That wasn't Conrad.
"Ah… Brunski? I was trying to reach Dr. Conrad."
His tone was light, almost cheerful, but it made her uneasy.
"Dr. Conrad is unavailable right now," he said. "He's busy in the sealed ward."
"Ah… I see. Could you—"
Beep.
Lorraine slowly lowered the phone.
"Did he just hang up on me?"
She exhaled.
"I really hate my coworkers."
Her hand was trembling slightly.
She exhaled and reached for her necklace, her fingers tracing the edge of it absently. The shaking slowed, then stopped.
"Don't stress, Lorraine. Eli is back," she comforted herself. "Eli is back."
The black-blue dust inside it glowed faintly.
"The sealed ward…" she murmured. "What's even down there?"
This wasn't the first time Conrad had been unreachable.
Lorraine hesitated, her thumb hovering over her phone.
Ding.
A message came in.
I finished analyzing that plant sample you sent me and… wow. Where the hell did you get this?
An Excel file was attached.
She didn't reply.
Instead, she downloaded the file and fed the data into a pre-existing Python script. Within seconds, her screen filled with tables and graphs.
Her eyes narrowed.
Elevated heart rate response.
Accelerated cellular regeneration.
Telomere recomposition.
She froze.
"That's… not possible."
The data didn't just suggest enhancement, it suggested reversal. Cellular aging mechanisms were being actively rewritten.
Her pulse quickened.
What the hell is that plant?
If she could isolate the active compound, reverse engineer it, she wouldn't need this job anymore. She wouldn't need anyone.
But as she pulled up the spectrometry data, her momentum stalled.
No matches.
No known organic signatures. No recognizable structure.
It wasn't just rare.
It was… unclassified.
"How am I supposed to work with this?"
She leaned back, thinking.
Then—
The idea hit her like a sniper's bullet, unseen, unstoppable.
"If I can't identify the molecule…" she murmured, "…then I model the electron cloud."
Her eyes sharpened.
Electron density distributions could be approximated from the spectral data. From there, she could simulate candidate molecular structures that reproduced the same field characteristics.
They didn't have to be identical.
They just had to behave the same way.
A slow smile formed.
"That's enough."
But the moment the thought settled, doubt followed.
Simulation at that level wasn't trivial. Not with her current setup. Not alone.
She would need to outsource it.
And that meant risk.
Lorraine stared at the screen.
Could she trust anyone with this?
Silence stretched.
Then another thought surfaced.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Wait…
Her gaze shifted, unfocusing slightly as the idea unfolded.
"…Could I just…?"
She leaned forward again, fingers hovering over the keyboard.
One line.
That was all it would take to test it.
And once the first idea clicked,
the rest came in a cascade.