For several long seconds after her words, neither of them moved.
The cold evening air pressed heavily around them, carrying the distant sound of passing cars and the faint rustle of wind through the trees lining the street. Yet to Ithilien the world felt strangely muffled, as if something deep inside her had absorbed every other sound.
Ace's hands were still on her shoulders but his grip had loosened.
Slowly, almost reluctantly, he let her go.
For a moment it looked as if he wanted to say something more. His mouth parted slightly, the muscles in his jaw tightening as if he were forcing back words that refused to come out.
But whatever he had intended to say remained unspoken.
Ithilien turned away first.
"I have work to finish," she said quietly.
Ace did not answer.
She did not look back.
Ithilien sat at the heavy wooden table in what used to be Jeff Martinez's living room, staring at the documents spread out in front of her, though for a long moment she couldn't comprehend a single sentence.
The letters blurred together.
She dragged a hand across her forehead and forced herself to take a deeper breath. She had to focus. There was no choice. These files could determine not only who had restarted the Fenrir project, but also how many young wolves could still be saved. How many boys wouldn't turn into mindless, aggressive monsters before they reached the truth.
And yet her body still remembered the conversation from minutes ago.
Ace.
His scent. His voice. That moment when she said the words she couldn't take back.
I want to break the bond.
She should have felt satisfaction. Relief. Even the faintest trace of triumph.
Instead, it felt like something inside her had split open.
Marco moved around the next room, going through files, pulling out the more important pages into a separate stack. Occasionally he scribbled something down, sometimes muttering under his breath when he came across dense technical jargon. He didn't push her.
Thankfully.
He knew that when Ithilien went quiet like this, it was best to leave her alone with her anger.
On the table lay a thin gray folder with a handwritten note on the margin:
unstable subjects – field reactions
That was the one she returned to.
She opened it again, this time more slowly. One report. Then another. Mentions of violent transformations, distorted sensory perception, spikes of aggression, and loss of ability to recognize members of their own pack. At one point her fingers lingered on a page a little longer.
"Subjects show increased resistance to pain while simultaneously experiencing severe nervous system overload. They react impulsively to the scent of blood, cortisol, and adrenaline."
Her jaw tightened instinctively.
It sounded familiar.
Too familiar.
Mount Hood.
Dark forest. Torn tree trunks. Snow soaked with the sharp scent of fear and blood. That mutant hadn't fought like a wolf. It hadn't moved like a human either. It was something in between — a body torn apart from within, yet still functional enough to hunt. Its movements were erratic, too fast, as if the muscles were receiving conflicting signals but responding with brutal intensity anyway.
Her phone vibrated on the table.
Ithilien flinched so sharply her nails scraped against the paper.
She glanced at the screen.
Unknown number.
For a split second she thought it might be Ace. That he couldn't let it go. Her heart hit once, hard and heavy, then dropped just as quickly when she realized how stupid that reflex was.
She answered before she could hesitate.
"Hello?"
For a moment, there was silence on the other end. Not long — maybe a second — but enough to tighten something inside her.
Then she heard his voice.
"Ithilien."
She froze.
Kidd.
For one absurd moment, relief hit her so sharply it made her angry. As if the sound of his voice alone steadied her, as if her body recognized something safe before her mind could object.
She cleared her throat softly, reaching for composure.
"Where did you get this number?"
A faint rustle on the other end, like he was adjusting his grip on the phone.
"That's the first thing you want to ask?"
His tone was even, almost neutral. But she knew his voice well enough now to catch the slight shift underneath. As if the fact that she'd answered meant more than he intended to show.
"It's the only question that came to mind," she replied dryly.
"Marco gave it to me."
She leaned her elbow against the table, turning slightly away from the room, instinctively separating this conversation from everything else.
"Are you calling about something specific, or just checking if I'm still alive?"
"One doesn't exclude the other," he said.
Her fingers tightened on the edge of the table.
Kidd rarely said anything outright. Almost never. Everything important stayed between the lines — and, to her growing annoyance, she was getting better at reading them.
"Talk," she said more quietly.
This time he got straight to it.
"Something showed up near the boundary. We don't know exactly what it is yet, but the guys smelled it before they saw anything. The scent is… wrong. Aggressive. Not natural."
The room seemed to fall quieter. Even the sound of Marco flipping through pages faded into the background.
"Where exactly?" she asked.
"North edge of the forest. Near the old pass beyond the river. It hasn't moved deeper in yet, but it's too close."
"How many of you are there?"
"Enough."
That wasn't an answer, and they both knew it.
Ithilien closed her eyes briefly.
"Kidd."
It was the first time she said his name like that in hours — without sharpness, without defense.
Silence followed, but not an awkward one. Something more attentive.
"Tell me again about the one from Mount Hood," he said. "Everything. What it looked like, how it moved, how it smelled. Anything that helps."
She looked at the open folder but no longer saw the documents. She saw snow torn by claws. Dark veins under skin. Eyes too bright and somehow empty.
"It was bigger than a normal wolf," she began evenly. "But not in a natural way. Like something stretched its body and didn't finish the job. The bones were too long for the muscles. Front overloaded. Legs too long, shoulders too high, like it was always about to lunge."
He didn't interrupt.
"Fur patchy in places. I could see skin underneath — darker, irritated. Like fever, or something burning it from the inside. The muzzle…" she hesitated briefly, "was distorted. Not fully wolf. Teeth too exposed, like the lips didn't close properly."
"Eyes?"
"Bright. Too bright. Not glazed like a sick animal. Alert, but empty. Like something was looking through it, not from it."
A quiet breath on the other end.
"Movement?"
She traced her thumb along the edge of her phone.
"The worst part. It didn't move smoothly. It had moments of stillness — dead seconds — and then it would launch with full force. No warning. No natural muscle tension before attack. Like a spring snapping too early or too late."
"So unpredictable."
"No. Predictable, if you know what to look for." She frowned slightly. "Before it jumped, the right hind leg twitched. Brief. Almost invisible. Like nerve overload. If it's the same mutation, you'll have a fraction of a second."
Silence again.
"Scent?" he asked.
That one went deeper.
"Blood — but not fresh. More metallic, stale. Like it's circulating too fast and breaking down. Chemicals too. Not clean, not like a lab. More acidic. Burnt. And adrenaline. Constant. Like its body can't shut off the fight response."
"Does it react to fear?"
"Yes. Fear, pain, blood. The more emotion around it, the more it escalates. Don't provoke it with noise. Don't split up. If it targets one, the rest stay close. A lone target is the easiest kill."
Kidd exhaled slowly.
"How do we stop it?"
She looked toward the window, where evening shadows thickened across the old property.
"Don't meet force with force. That's what it wants. Or what it was made for. Slow it down. Break its rhythm. Joints, not shoulders. Knees, hind legs, side of the neck if you get close enough. And don't let it drag you into dense trees. It'll use chaos there."
"So open ground."
"If you can force it there."
The silence stretched.
She realized her breathing had gone shallow. That she wasn't just listening to his questions — but to the fact that he was still there. On the line. Alive. Focused.
That was dangerous.
"We're going to hunt it," he said finally.
She pressed her lips together.
"Don't underestimate it."
"I don't."
"Kidd—"
He cut in quietly.
"We'll handle it."
That tone again. Calm. Solid.
"I didn't say you wouldn't."
A faint hint of a smile in his voice.
"I know."
It hit harder than it should have.
"Call me if it's different from Mount Hood. Any detail matters."
"I will."
"And Kidd—" This time she didn't stop. "Don't let the younger ones get too close. If the mutation is unstable, it'll lash out unpredictably. It won't think like a wolf."
"I hear you, Ithilien."
Something in her softened despite herself.
"That's all," she said coolly.
"Yeah."
But neither of them hung up.
A second.
Another.
Like they were both waiting. Finally, Kidd spoke, quieter:
"It's good to hear your voice."
Her chest tightened painfully.
"Good luck with the hunt."
She ended the call before he could respond.
The phone dropped softly onto the table. Ithilien sat still for a few seconds, staring at the dark screen. Only then did she notice the tension in her shoulders had eased — just slightly. As if his voice, his questions, his presence on the other end had steadied something she couldn't name.
That angered her almost as much as it relieved her.
"Who was that?" Marco called from the other room.
Ithilien reached for the nearest paper.
"Kidd."
Marco raised an eyebrow but didn't comment.
Good.
Because she wasn't ready to explain why, after a conversation about a mutant, a hunt, and possible death… for the first time since seeing Ace, she could finally breathe again.