The morning in Eugene was cold and damp when Kidd parked in front of the hospital entrance. The glass façade reflected the pale winter sky, and inside, fluorescent lights cast a sterile, almost impersonal glow over everything. The air carried the sharp scent of disinfectant mixed with freshly brewed coffee from the machine near reception. People moved quickly through the corridors—nurses in colorful scrubs, doctors with patient charts tucked under their arms, families waiting anxiously beneath walls lined with health-awareness posters.
Thiago walked beside him in silence, still a little pale, though he tried to appear as if everything was fine.
Marco was already waiting near the nurses' station in the diagnostic wing. He was thirty-five, tall and lean, with light blond hair brushed back and a calm, attentive gaze. There was something familiar in his features—Kidd noticed it immediately. The same eyes. The same cool, analytical sharpness he had seen in Ithilien, though in Marco it was tempered by professional composure.
"Thank you for coming so quickly," Marco said, shaking Thiago's hand.
His voice was steady and measured, like someone accustomed to dealing daily with matters far more serious than a young wolf's night-time transformation.
A few minutes later they were in a small treatment room. Marco pulled on gloves with practiced ease and prepared the equipment for drawing blood.
"Your sister can be very… persuasive," Kidd remarked lightly, leaning against the wall as Marco slid the needle into Thiago's vein.
Marco raised an amused eyebrow.
"Oh? Did you meet Tauriel?"
The name struck Kidd unexpectedly hard.
Tauriel.
Adrahil stirred beneath his skin, low and almost pleased. The sound of that name brought a strange, quiet satisfaction. The she-wolf's name was Tauriel. A beautiful, strong name. It carried something ancient and proud in its tone. Nothing specific—yet something undeniably right.
"No," he replied calmly. "More her way of speaking."
Marco let out a quiet laugh.
"Yes. Quite distinctive. Especially when she really wants something."
He sealed the samples with practiced efficiency and placed labels on each vial.
"I'll let you know when I have the results," he added in a completely neutral tone. "For now, let's not panic."
He gave nothing away. Not a single look. Not the slightest shift in his voice. Ithilien had told him everything the night before—about the black veins, the rippling skin, the overly violent reaction. Marco had listened carefully, but now he was only a doctor.
Kidd nodded.
"I appreciate it."
When Kidd and Thiago stepped into the corridor, Marco waited exactly three seconds for the door to close before his expression hardened.
He gathered the samples and headed quickly toward the laboratory.
In the sterile room, beneath the cold glare of overhead lights, he started the analyzer. The machine hummed softly. Time stretched longer than it should have.
When the results appeared on the screen, Marco simply stared for a moment.
The sample contained a virus.
Active.
A mutated carrier of the Fenrir protein.
His heart began to beat faster.
Impossible.
The project had been shut down three years ago. The Council had officially dissolved the experimental division. Documentation had been archived, laboratories secured, samples destroyed. At least, that was what had been claimed.
Marco dragged a hand across his face.
How could this have happened?
Had someone resumed the research? Had samples survived? Was this a new mutation? Or had someone deliberately introduced the virus into Thiago's system?
The thought was too serious to ignore.
That evening, in the house on neutral ground, silence hung in the air—not peaceful silence, but tension stretched thin like a thread ready to snap. Only one lamp burned above the kitchen table, casting warm, focused light across the wooden surface while the rest of the room lay in shadow.
Marco entered without a word and placed the printed test results on the table.
He didn't look at her right away.
He didn't have to.
Ithilien was standing by the sink, a mug of tea in her hands. She turned slowly, as if she already knew what she was about to see. She set the mug down, stepped closer, and ran her fingers over the first page. Her gaze moved quickly across the numbers, sequence markers, and abbreviations that would have meant nothing to an ordinary person.
To her, they meant everything.
Her eyes stopped on one line. Then another.
Confirmation of viral presence.
Active Fenrir protein.
For a moment, nothing happened. It was as if her mind refused to process the information. Only after several seconds did her breath catch in her throat, her fingers tightening around the paper.
"So it is," she said quietly, but her voice was too even. Too controlled.
Marco nodded.
"Fenrir. In active form. Low concentration, but enough to cause destabilization during transformation. This isn't a trace. It isn't a remnant. It's fresh activity."
Ithilien pushed the pages away as if they had suddenly become too hot to touch.
Her heart began to beat faster—not from panic, but from recognition.
"The project was shut down," she said, sharper this time.
"Officially," Marco replied calmly.
She turned to him abruptly. In her eyes flashed something he hadn't seen in three years.
"I was there. I saw the documents. I saw the Council's decision."
"The Council shut down the division," he answered quietly. "I don't know if they shut down all the people who worked in it."
Silence fell between them, heavy and dense.
Ithilien placed both hands on the table and leaned over the printouts, as if searching for an error hidden somewhere between the lines. As if looking at the numbers one more time might force them to change their meaning.
"Why Thiago?" she asked at last, and now there was something personal in her voice. "He's just a kid. An ordinary boy. He has no position. No influence. He isn't part of any faction."
Marco watched her carefully.
"Maybe that's exactly why," he said slowly. "If someone wanted to see how the virus behaves outside a controlled environment, they'd choose someone no one would suspect of being a target. Someone easy to dismiss as a coincidence."
The word coincidence landed like a slap.
Ithilien felt cold spread beneath her skin, starting at the base of her neck and sliding down her spine.
"Or maybe he isn't the target," she said more quietly.
Marco lifted his gaze.
"What do you mean?"
She hesitated. For a fraction of a second, she wanted to keep it to herself. But she couldn't.
"Maybe it's about who calmed him down."
The words lingered in the air between them.
Marco didn't respond immediately. He had already seen the thought in her eyes before she spoke it aloud.
"You think the virus could be reacting to a specific energy?" he asked at last.
"In Montana, that wolf didn't respond to just anyone," she replied softly. "It required a specific configuration. An alpha. A stabilizing presence. It wasn't random."
Her voice began to change—not louder, but edged now with a raw note of anger.
"Thiago wasn't wandering. He wasn't attacking a random target. He went straight to my door. As if something in him knew."
Marco closed his eyes briefly.
"If someone recreated the Fenrir sequence, they could have tried adding a reactive layer. A response trigger. To scent. To energy."
Ithilien straightened slowly.
"That would mean it's not about destabilizing wolves. It's about mapping reactions."
"Or provoking one," Marco added.
She looked at him sharply.
"Provoking whom?"
They didn't need to say the name.
If the virus reacted to her. If something in Thiago's body had been programmed to seek a specific signal.
It wasn't a coincidence.
It was a test.
Ithilien turned and walked to the window. The night outside was calm—almost too calm. The trees swayed lightly in the wind, the streetlamp's glow trembling against the wet asphalt.
"We can't tell Kidd," Marco said quietly. "Not without proof. Without evidence, this will sound like a theory. And a theory rooted in your past might sound like trauma, not fact."
Her jaw tightened.
"I know."
"But if it happens again…"
She turned back slowly.
There was no hesitation left in her eyes now. Only cold understanding.
"Then it means someone hasn't just returned to the project," she said quietly. "It means someone is testing how far they can go."
The wind struck the window harder, as if the night itself wanted to underline her words.
The project was supposed to be dead.