A loud chime rang through a small beige split-level house in the city of Noblesville, Indiana. A man and a woman stood waiting on the other side of the door, their shoulders squared and their hands folded in front of them. Their clothes were neatly pressed and their shoes were freshly polished; the man with slick, brown hair, and the woman with limp blonde hair that hung to her chin.

"Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Singer," the woman who opened the door greeted them with a warm smile. "Please, come inside. She's very eager to meet you!"

"Thank you," Mr. Singer replied, though this was not his real name. Nor was Mrs. Singer's the woman's.

Mr. and Mrs. Singer followed the woman through the door and into the living room, careful to step over the various toys that were scattered across the stained carpet. The woman directed them to a saggy maroon couch where they slowly sat after inspecting the surface.

"Sorry," the woman apologized. "The kids aren't always the best about picking up after themselves."

"How many do you currently have in your care?" Mrs. Singer asked, a fake smile plastered to her cheeks.

"Right now, there's four foster children living here," the woman answered. "Ranging in ages from five to fifteen. Plus my two children, who are ten and twelve."

"Oh," Mrs. Singer said with raised brows. "How delightful."

"Yes, some days are more difficult than others but it truly is a blessing!"

A silence filled the room and Mr. Singer cleared his throat to break it.

"She seems to be a little pokey today, I'll go check to see if she's ready." A jolt ran through the woman as she rushed out of the living room. "Quinn, dear!" she called up the stairs. "Your adoptive parents are here, come down and meet them!"

A six-year old girl appeared at the top of the stairs, her curly, dark hair pulled into two tight buns atop her head. Her little hands gripped the hem of her pink corduroy dress, her brown eyes glistening with fresh tears. "I don't wanna go," she said quietly. "I don't like these people. They're bad people."

"Oh, honey," the woman said, climbing the steps to meet Quinn. "How do you know that if you don't meet them?"

"I know," Quinn said without blinking, a serious tone underlying her small voice.

The woman gently grabbed Quinn's hand and led her down the stairs to the living room, Quinn's feet becoming heavier with each step. When she finally reached the living room she found it difficult to meet the curious gaze of the couple sitting on the couch.

"Hello, Quinn," Mr. Singer greeted her. A smile grew on his face and his eyes glistened with excitement. Quinn remained silent, her eyes glued to the pink socks on her feet.

The woman lightly nudged Quinn and whispered, "Remember your manners."

Quinn fought back the tears that were brimming in her eyes. She wanted nothing more than to run back up those stairs and lock herself in her closet, but she knew that wouldn't stop them from taking her away. Nothing would stop them. How she knew, she wasn't sure, but the feeling was strong.

"Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Singer," Quinn said softly, her eyes slowly panning up from the floor to the man and the woman before her. Once she reached their eyes, she suddenly became aware that these were not actually their names.

Their real names were Martin Brenner and Connie Frazier.

Quinn's eyes followed the bead of sweat as it rolled from the hairline, down the forehead, along the cheek, and finally to the chin where it hung on for a split second before dropping to the floor in a splat. The source of the sweat was a middle-aged white man in a gray suit that sat across the table from her in a metal chair. His hands were cuffed behind him and she could hear the chains rattle every couple minutes as he readjusted in his seat.

"Delve deep, Two," Dr. Brenner said. His hands gripped onto the back of her chair, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

"Yes, Papa," Quinn replied, her voice small and her eyes dull. The adoption ruse had fallen away the second she had stepped foot in Hawkins Lab, though she knew as much on the ride over. Every time she caught their eyes in the rearview mirror, a new truth was exposed. She tried to escape, but she was small and they were big; she was scared and they were scary.

And now she was no longer Quinn, but Two. No longer a child, but a subject. It hadn't taken long for her to break. Her father had died before she had gotten a chance to know him and her mother had given her away almost immediately after so there were already cracks. All it took was a little pressure.

"Please, I don't know anything!" the man pleaded, his words thick with a Russian accent. Another bead of sweat had formed on his forehead, retracing the path its predecessor had left.

"Let's try this again," Dr. Brenner said coolly, his brows creased. "Who is your handler?"

"I don't have a handler!" the man cried. "I'm not a spy! I came here twenty years ago for work opportunity! I have wife and children! I am American citizen!"

"Who. Is. Your. Handler," Dr. Brenner repeated himself.

The man's cheeks glowed red as he grit his teeth, refusing to answer. A gentle tap on Quinn's shoulder informed her that it was time. It took a few moments to lock eyes with the man because he refused to look at her, but eventually her eyes pulled him in and she knew. Everything.

"He's lying," Quinn announced. "He is a spy. His wife is a spy too."

"And his handler?" Dr. Brenner asked.

Quinn squinted her eyes as she locked in again. "He's trying to hide it. Dav--no, Damien...Brown...Damien Brown."

The man tried to keep his expression neutral but his eyebrows rippled in surprise.

"Good job, Two." Dr. Brenner looked down upon Quinn with a smile, giving her shoulder a small squeeze. A small smile flickered across her face in response.

"No--she, that's not--" the man stammered. His eyes followed Dr. Brenner as he took Quinn by the hand and led her out of the room.

Connie, or Mrs. Singer, as she had once called herself, entered as Dr. Brenner and Quinn exited, and Quinn caught sight of something blocky and black strapped to her waist when her jacket moved as she reached to shut the door. Quinn was about halfway down the hallway when a shout came from the room she had left, followed by a loud bang.

"Come on, Two," Dr. Brenner urged Quinn, a severity underlying his tone. He sat across the metal table from her, his hands folded in front of him and his torso leaning forward. "Focus."

"I'm trying," Quinn whined, her big brown eyes brimming with tears. The wooden block sitting before her on the table was still that, a wooden block, and not the stack of dollar bills that Dr. Brenner had instructed her to change it into. It had remained that way since she had entered the room three hours previous, despite how many times she tried or how intensely she stared at it. "I've been trying! I've been trying for months, it won't work!"

"Stop lying," Dr. Brenner snapped. He slapped his hand against the table, the echo reverberating around the room. "I know you can do it, how do you think we found you? Hmm? You turned your class pet into a fucking tree!"

Quinn winced, pushing herself as far back against her chair as she could. Tears began to leak from the corners of her eyes, a trickle at first, then a steady stream, and finally a roaring river.

Dr. Brenner sighed in response, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Ridiculous," he muttered.

"I--I'm sorry," Quinn choked out between tears. "I really want to, I promise, but I can't. Please, Papa."

"I'm done with you," Dr. Brenner said coolly, waving his hand. Within seconds, the door had opened and two guards entered. Quinn remained stock-still as they approached her, her limbs melting at their touch. She followed along without a fight, only turning back to glance at Dr. Brenner one last time.

His eyes confirmed her worst fears: he meant it.

"I want to see Papa," Quinn demanded, her feet planted, her knees locked, and her firsts curled tightly at her sides. She wore an expression so intense, it threatened to hang on forever; permanently carved into her face.

"I told you, he's busy," Joey, the lab assistant, replied irritably. "Now take your damn food or the floor gets it. I've got rounds to do."

"Papa. Now," Quinn hissed through gritted teeth. It had been almost a year since she had last been face-to-face with Dr. Brenner. He had left her to rot in her cell after her failed attempts to manipulate matter. At first, she was sad. Now, she was angry. Yet another person had abandoned her and her tears were spent. All that was left was rage.

"The only thing that will get him down here is an emergency," Joey said. "And if you keep this up, I'm happy to make an emergency." To prove his point, his hand settled on top of the baton at his side.

Quinn flinched, her hand instinctively reaching for the bump on the back of her head from when he had last used it. But he was right. She could see the truth behind his eyes. The only way she'd be able to see Dr. Brenner again, to plead her way back into his graces, was an emergency. With a deep breath, she took a step forward.

"Fuck you," Quinn said, her nails digging into her palms to keep her voice steady.

"What did you say to me?" Joey snapped. He tilted his head and narrowed his eyes as he took a step closer to her, dropping the tray of food to the floor in a clatter.

One more deep breath. One more reminder. "FUCK YOU!" she shouted, her lungs expelling every ounce of breath they could hold.

The hit came quicker than she was expecting. It caught her right across the cheek, snapping her head to the side. She stumbled backwards as the taste of blood filled her mouth. Her vision was blurry, but she could see Joey smiling in satisfaction as he strapped the baton back to his waist.

No, that wasn't enough, she thought. A single smack with the baton was a normal occurrence, it would take more than that to draw Dr. Brenner's attention.

Quinn panicked as she watched Joey turn towards the door. She had to keep him there, to get him angry again. But how?

"Your girlfriend is right, you are a fat, lazy slob with a dick so small it could barely pleasure an ant!" Quinn didn't really understand the words she was saying, she was simply repeating what she saw in Joey's mind, but the words had an immediate affect. Within seconds, she was flat on her back on the floor, blood streaming down her forehead.

Quinn quickly lost count of how many times Joey struck her. The pain spread across her like a blanket until she could no longer tell where he was hitting her because everything was on fire. Another blow to the head brought about the startling realization that he was going to kill her if she didn't do something.

Quinn tried to scream but nothing broke through her busted jaw. Darkness swam at the edges of her vision, pulling her deeper into the depths with every blink. She wouldn't last much longer, and the silence behind the sound of the baton hitting flesh made it clear that Dr. Brenner wasn't coming. She had been alone in life and she would be alone in death.

But then something happened.

At first she thought that she had gone completely numb, but she soon realized that Joey had stopped hitting her. Quinn used all her strength to push herself up onto her elbows and opened her eyes as wide as they could go. For a moment she thought that what she was seeing was a hallucination, a result of the multiple blows to her head, but what she heard proved her otherwise.

An inhuman scream came from Joey, a scream so chilling that Quinn's arms and legs were instantly coated in goosebumps. But the strange thing was that Quinn couldn't see a mouth. All she could see was a blob of distorted flesh, stretched taut by the bones moving underneath. Joey fell forward onto what used to be his hands, but now looked more like paws, and long, golden hair sprouted from every inch of his skin. The transformation was completed by a low whine that pierced Quinn's ears.

Where Joey once stood, a golden retriever that looked eerily similar to the one her previous foster family had owned, stared at Quinn through big, black eyes, its tail tucked beneath its hind legs.

Something warm and wet dripped down Quinn's nose, the back of her hand smeared red after she wiped it away. Blood. She had done this. She had turned Joey into a dog.

Quinn stumbled to her feet, ignoring the sharp pain that shot through her body. Her eyes locked onto the floor beneath the dog, where Joey's shirt, pants, boxers, socks, shoes, baton, and utility belt laid. Strapped to the utility belt was Quinn's saving grace: a radio.

As she approached dog-Joey, he gave out a low growl in warning, but ultimately backed away. She unlatched the radio and brought it to her mouth, like she had seen Joey do countless times, pressing the button down as hard as she could. A loud beep signaled her to speak.

"Papa," Quinn's voice crackled, the word echoing around the room.

Moments later, a voice came through. A voice that she recognized to be Dr. Brenner's. "Who is this?"

"Two," Quinn answered after pressing the button down again.

"How did you get a radio?" he asked. His voice duplicated, coming not only from the radio but also from farther down the hall. He was on his way. "Where is Joey?"

Quinn pressed the button but she didn't speak, instead letting dog-Joey answer with a loud bark. The footsteps down the hall immediately became louder and more frequent. Within seconds, a shape emerged in the open doorway, their shadow covering Quinn in darkness.

"Papa," Quinn said, nearly choking on the word. She forced a smile, the muscles in her face screaming in pain.

Dr. Brenner's eyes traced the air between Quinn and dog-Joey, his features falling slack when they landed on the former lab assistant. Quinn eagerly searched his mind for pride, but the only thing she could find was fear. 

"Papa?" Quinn asked weakly, her eyes beginning to water as she watched Dr. Brenner shut the door between them. The sudden slam startled her out of her tears, back into the reality she had actively been trying to avoid, back to the anger that had brought her to this moment in the first place.

Another drop of blood rolled over her lip, an iron taste filling her mouth as the door began to violently shake, straining against its hinges. The solid iron began to sweat until it was completely transparent, replaced by a sheet of water that stood for a couple seconds before dropping to the floor like a waterfall. The puddle of water expanded into the room and out into the hallway until it reached Quinn's bare toes and the polished shoes of Dr. Brenner, who had been waiting on the other side.

His pale lips uttered a single question, "What have you done?"

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