After yesterday's fake-out visit to the pharmaceutical research lab, I was less nervous when Wilms drove me, Rose, Elena, and Meredith there. After some teary-eyed and lingering kisses goodbye between my friends with actual mates, Cole and Idris left with Raina, Tobias, and a few other Western pack members for the North border.

Based on the amount of food and supplies they took with them, they expected to be up there at least a week. With a weak wave, Elena sniffed and I wrapped an arm around her shoulder. Another sniffle showed Rose's eyes were also glossed over, the sight of which pinched my heart.

"Let's go," Meredith grumbled behind us.

The hospital was a rectangular glass-faced building with a cement foundation base and an overhead metal awning at the entrance. The cylindrical-shaped research lab had a similar glass and cement-wall structure that was attached to the hospital by a glassed-in walkway.

Unlike yesterday, Wilms pulled up in front of the hospital and we all piled out. Meredith pulled a lanyard with a plastic card attached out of her coat pocket and handed it to me, which I slipped over my head and let hang over my chest.

"I've never gone this way," Rose whispered to me as we headed left from the reception desk. With Meredith as our escort, we needed no check in process other than a polite smile and nod from the security desk, then stepped into a metal-encased elevator.

"Level two. We need five." Meredith nodded at Elena, who punched that floor button then Level five.

'Link me if you need anything.' Elena gave me a wistful smile as the doors opened for Level two. To avoid extra attention from Meredith, who hadn't said two words to me at last night's dinner and this morning's breakfast, I nodded and returned Elena's smile.

"You too." Meredith narrowed her eyes at Rose, who stayed next to me. "Dr. Edwards is expecting you."

"Oh, I - well, you see..." Rose fumbled over her words. "Dr. Edwards told me to meet with the pharma manufacturing factory, so I can see how the mass production of the vaccinations happens. He added the clearance level onto my hospital ID."

"The manufacturing arm is currently in hold status." Meredith sounded as suspicious as her frowning expression looked. "So nothing is being made right now."

A quick look from Rose's hazel eyes was all I needed to know that she'd gotten the extra clearance at my request, so I jumped in with, "So, there's nothing proprietary being made, right? I'd like to see it too, if that's okay. Even non-moving machines and empty boxes."

"Fine," Meredith sighed and leaned against the elevator wall. The rest of the ride passed quickly and silently through a few soft lurches of the elevator.

Once the doors opened on level five, Rose and I trailed behind Meredith's heel clicks. Our access cards cleared us past the doors, then we walked over the glass walkway, over the access road and surrounding green areas, until we reached another security desk, where two uniformed guards were stationed outside two solid metal doors. After another scan of our badges, the doors parted and revealed an intersecting corridor full of white-coated activity.

To me at least, the Western territory encompassed two separate worlds, each of which segregated different society levels within the same pack. The gun range and silver mines were small, dirty, and grimy spaces for workers. Primarily males worked those blue-collared jobs.

I wasn't sure what I expected from the pharmaceutical company and research lab, but more than half the lab-coated workers were females. They all were literal white-collared workers in their pristine lab coats.

No one discriminated in their curious stares.

Guess that's what Elena meant by bimodal? Doesn't seem cohesive.

One common behavior, no matter where I went, was the staring eyes. My fingers strangled around my access badge at the sudden draw of attention. After the pad of my index finger ran over the badge's hard, plastic edge for reassurance, I withdrew my hand and rested it near my side.

"Everyone is staring at you," Rose whispered into my ear as we continued down the hallway behind Meredith.

"Nothing new." I sighed at the wide-eyed stares from more people in lab coats.

While I was used to curiosity from how different I seemed to look, and stood out in a crowd with my pale skin and long, cornsilk-blonde hair, the attention at the lab was borderline celebrity-like.

And not in a good way.

Meredith turned left at a fork in the main corridor, where a brushed chrome sign indicated we headed in the direction of the manufacturing plant. Her black hair swished behind her small frame as she led us down a maze of corridors, corners, and hallways until Rose and I stood at a wall of glass windows and stared at the sight behind them.

Two stories below us was a factory, with sleek, silver machines, angled assembly line treads, and the familiar blue and white 'Lykaios' labels on boxes of my family's last name.

Lumi twitched in the back of my mind at seeing more glass syringes than I could count. The factory looked like it stopped in mid-production, with half the belts covered with empty syringes and boxes and not a single worker in sight.

"What happened?" I tried not to breathe condensation onto the glass window.

"All of this year's annual vaccines have already been distributed to the packs." Meredith examined me closely, so I masked the uncomfortable emotions that swirled inside of me.

"Are they going to make more?" Rose asked from the other side of me.

"Hopefully," was the curious response. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Rose's eyes darted to me but she remained silent.

"Miss Rose," Meredith spoke as if I wasn't right in between them. "You've seen the production factory, so you should make your way back to Dr. Edwards."

Rose's hand brushed against mine. "But -"

"I insist," Meredith clipped and crossed her arms over her chest. Dressed in her crisp, black suit, her small frame projected an air of finality even when her eyes glazed over.

Rose and I turned away from the glass, only to be met with two security escorts that I recognized from the metal entrance doors. Rose's wide eyes met mine and we didn't need to mindlink to read each other's expressions.

I nodded at her, who flashed a tight smile. Her expression hardened as she followed the security guards in the direction opposite of where we came from.

My nostrils twitched and flared once Meredith and I stood alone. "Was that really necessary?"

"I think so," was her terse response. She turned and headed down the opposite direction Rose was led, then scoffed over her shoulder. "If you want answers, you're not going to find any standing in a hallway."

Curling my fingers inward, my hands balled at my sides.

All this cryptic, suggestive talk is really starting to grate my nerves.

I followed Meredith past multiple glass-walled rooms, where scientists worked away on computers, peered at microscope lenses, and studied machines that hummed away with activity. With every room we passed, curious glances and hushed conversations greeted me. After ten minutes, Meredith led me into a small, windowless, room with a small, white round table and three chairs.

"Are we -" I looked at the empty chairs.

"Sit, Zara," Meredith shut the door behind her with a click. "Simon will join us soon, if I permit it."

What the heck?

"Meredith," I started as the last drop of patience I held inside me evaporated into a cloud of frustration.

We've been here an entire week and I've gotten none of the answers I came for.

She turned and leaned her back against the door, barricading us inside. "You'll have to trust me in that this room is one of the few where there's no security cameras, no two-way glass mirrors."

"Meredith." My face tensed as my eyebrows squeezed together.

Her stern expression and words gnashed my teeth together. She remained leaning against the door, locking her eyes with mine. "How much do you know about your brother Solomon?"

"Not much," I crossed my arms over my chest. "I promise that's the only reason I came. So I wouldn't be here if I didn't need answers."

Her answer was a tiny uplift of her left eyebrow.

After a few moments of a silent stare-down, I relented, "Next to nothing, other than how he died as a baby with the cord around my neck while I lived and possibly his wolf would have been white."

"Sit down." Her eyes traveled to one of the chairs. When I didn't budge, she added, "Please."

I sat down with a huff. My eyes tracked her movements as she slid into a seat across the table from me, and saved the one closest to the door empty. Shifting forward, she rested her hands on the table.

"He grew up here." One of her hand's fingers squeezed around the other hand. "Solomon was as much my brother as Tobias."

"He..." My eyes couldn't have stretched any wider and my jaw felt like it dropped to the ground level. "...grew up!?"

My stomach clenched around itself at her words and my heart pounded in my chest. A prickling sensation ran over my skin, like I was doused in ice cold water. Trembles vibrated my lower lip and my fingers twitched. I blinked as my mind spun around those two words.

He's alive? My brother is alive?

Solomon.

"I -" I swallowed as a sense of doubt crept inside me.

Is this a cruel trick? A trap?

Tears blurred my view of Meredith's sour expression. The back of my throat clenched against a giant lump of emotions that swelled and threatened to raise bile up. I sank my nails into my palms, using the sting that erupted to assure me I wasn't stuck in some horrible dream.

My voice was tiny and strained when I spoke, "He's alive!?"

Before Meredith answered, the door opened and a tall, thin man in a lab coat with short black hair. His dark eyes looked wide at me from behind thin, square-lensed glasses. Wearing a wrinkled plaid shirt under his white lab coat, his badge hung on a lanyard that he tucked into a chest pocket.

He stopped inside the doorway at the sight of me, clutching a small computer tablet against his chest and staring for a very uncomfortable few moments. I was relieved when Meredith cleared her throat.

"If you weren't seen by anyone, Simon..." Meredith clipped. "Then kindly shut the door before we are."

"Ahh yes." Simon shook his head, his gazing at me while his hand pushed the door closed again. Then, as if he spoke to himself, he mumbled, "It's here. Really, truly here."

"What!?" My voice raised with each word and I jolted upright, "Did you call me... it!?"

If these people, I mean werewolves, grew me in a petri dish, then, so help me Goddess, I will tear every inch of this building into rubble.

'Me too.'

While I'd felt her uneasiness since we entered the lab building, for the first time since we'd arrived, Lumi shared her sentiments. She shifted back and forth in my mind, her restlessness adding throbbing sensations to my threatened headache.

"Ahh, I'm sorry." The poor guy still didn't blink, but pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "I can't believe I'm looking right at... Subject Two."

A strangled sound choked itself in my throat.

Subject two!? Who is subject one?

"My apologies." As he sat down in the empty seat, I swore the guy still hadn't blinked. "My manners. I'm Simon and I work in biogenetic research here."

"Simon's on the team that developed the annual vaccine." Meredith leaned back in her seat.

"Can... can I..." his voice faded as uncertainty gripped his expression. Clenching his teeth, his eyes pleaded with Meredith. "Can we trust her?"

I never wanted to smash both fists into a wall more than I did that at this moment. A tremor traveled from my head down into my toes. Eight stings erupted, four in each palm, from my nails gouging in.

Me!? Trust... me!?

Why the hell should I trust them?

"I don't think she's him," Meredith whispered, her cold gaze skimming over me.

Her vague, exclusive conversation with Simon drew my eyebrows together. Glancing at him, his hesitation hadn't changed and one hand clutched the door handle.

"My father?" Bitterness barked out my words. "If you mean the horrible, cruel man who had me whipped and left to bleed out in an empty field because I showed Lucus Shaw mercy from being subjected to a bullshit mate selection process..."

My chest expanded with the truth, "Let me answer that with one word. No."

"I'm not him," I emphasized through gritted teeth, then slumped back in my seat. Closing my eyes, I muttered, "Four words, sorry."

"I..." Simon's whisper drew my eyes open, to sympathy pooling in his. The clenched grip he held on the door relaxed and his hand slacked at his side. "I believe you."

"I don't think we have a choice," Meredith muttered, earning her an eye roll from me.

I give up. On her and Tobias.

They can take their opinions and sit on them, for all I care.

I rolled my lips inward and pressed them when Lumi released a snort.

'Probably best.'

"I know it's hard to take in, but let me start over, please... Here."

Simon sat down in the empty seat with a plop. His hands slid his tablet across the table, where a login screen displayed along with a pulled up patient profile.

A picture of me from the shoulders up showed on the left, with some familiar biophysical information and dated six months ago.

When was that taken?

My eyes narrowed at the subject header on the file. The more I stared, the more the walls in this tiny room closed in. Dryness coated my tongue, drawing my attention to my hanging open mouth. My palms dampened as they gripped the sides of my chair. Swaying, I steadied myself against the trembles that formed between my shoulders.

Subject 2: Zara Accalia Lykaios
AB-negative, RH-null
M- suppressives: Wolfsbane, silver nitrate, Leuprolide - discontinued

"What is this?" I whispered at the screen.

All this time, I'm a... I don't know what I am.

A science experiment?

My skin chilled with goosebumps and my pulse throbbed in my veins.

At least that explains the weird attention here.

Before I spoke another word, Merdith's finger slipped into my line of vision. "If you needed any proof of my honesty, Zara, then I hope this is sufficient."

After her finger swiped over the screen, another profile stunned me into silence.

Subject 3: Solomon Cassius Lykaios
AB-negative, RH-null
ADT-suppressives: Wolfsbane, silver nitrate, Leuprolide, Goserelin, Triptorelin, Histrelin - unknown

Solomon.

His picture on the profile was missing, but with one shaky finger, I traced my finger over his name. On contact, my fingerprint imprinted a smear on the screen.

This whole time, he's been here... Why has he been here?

When my eyes finally tore away from his name letters, tears flooded into my eyes. They trailed hot down my cheeks but I ignored their tickling my skin and dripping over my jaw. My shoulders curved and back rounded as I curled inward, hugging my elbows to my stomach.

A beautiful warm sensation swelled in my chest and my voice came out raspy and broken as I pleaded, "Please, where is he? I h-have to see him."

"We haven't seen him in over six months. I was..." Meredith paused as the first genuine emotion, concern, flashed over her dark eyes. "Hoping you've seen him."

Instantly, the swell in my chest felt like a fist had clenched around it. Sharp tugs followed, freezing my breath in my lungs.

My fingers and voice trembled when I asked the question I dread the answer to, "Wuh-what... happened six months ago?"

With zero emotion, Meredith and Simon answered unanimously.

"He escaped."