The Taint of Wolves

Suspicion.

Chapter 14: Suspicion.

I woke with the lingering memory of lightening ruining my sleep. Only the soft touches of orange touched the horizon but I couldn't stay in the net of blankets. I traced the art along the walls very softly, afraid that my finger-tips would ruin it.

The house was silent as I walked downstairs, dressed in just a pair of shorts, a tank-top and a thin floral dressing gown that trailed behind me like a cape. It was warm and I basked in the house's silent and echoing space. Muffin appeared from nowhere, slinking around my legs with a deep purr.

I heard them when I reached the kitchen. The low murmur of voices that would have been too low for a human to hear. Up so early? I changed direction, curious. I moved like I was in the Mad-Maze, achingly soft and silent. Even Muffin seemed to sense that I was sneaking and hung back, ears perked towards the door. I took the hallway beside the stairs, down a darker hall. At the end, a dark wood door was open just a crack.

I stopped to listen.

"Damned Ravi," I recognised Blav's voice. "They had enough time to burn most of the files, but not their management files. They really tortured this poor bastard didn't they?"

"To the point of insanity." Easton's voice was low. Rough with sleep. "But are we sure they didn't take the Omega with them when they fled the facility? Someone whose undergone all of that couldn't just slip back into society without a hitch."

I glanced down at my toes. Maybe I could paint them? Yellow, like the summer sun.

"We've the metal to contain it." There was a shuffling of papers as Blav explained, "Something strong enough to keep it down if we do manage to find this Omega. Enough juice to stop it's heart too if it fights too hard."

I inched closer, a whisper of a shadow.

Easton sighed. "The Omega was once someone."

"And is now an engineered monster," Blav reminded him. "We made a promise, you and I. To destroy the Ravi. Every brick. Every experiment. Gone."

"I know what promise I made," Easton's voice was curt. "I made a promise to do a lot of things and they've taken time, but I'm doing them. The Ravi must go, but how do we know when their victims are no longer victims, but monsters too?"

"You know there is someone you can ask?" Blav's voice dipped, so low now that even I struggled to hear it. "She might know something."

"No." Easton snarled. "No. Never."

"She was a Ravi prisoner, East. She might know something about what happened in that facility."

"Darren tested her blood." There was leashed aggression in Easton's voice. His shadow passed the door and I tensed, but he did not notice me lingering in the middle of the hall. "There are anomalies, but not enough to make her something else. Darren ran an extensive test, and her blood suggests she had been tampered with but Darren is convinced she was a dud and was dumped in the Mad-Maze like all the others."

"We should be thankful for that," Blav said lowly. "Darren and Sunny say she is the only reason they survived in there."

"And both of them still can't really talk about their time there, however fleeting it was. I can't imagine years locked in that hell-hole." Easton released a breath.

That couldn't be. I was a patchwork quilt of different species. 'Darren lied,' I realized. He must have. But why? Only then did I begin easing back on the slick floors, holding my breath as if they could possibly sense me.