“The Pit”

Dana Quill first heard the name in a voicemail that cut out halfway through.

“The Pit,” the caller said, his voice low and ragged. “They’re not doing cage fights down there. They’re… growing things. If you want a story, this is it. But don’t come alone, and don’t—”

Static swallowed the rest. When the message resumed, it was only the automated timestamp.

She played it twice, then a third time, listening to the way he said growing, the way the word seemed to catch on something in his throat. She checked the number—burner. No way to trace it back, not quickly, anyway.

Her editor leaned in the doorway of her cubicle, a paper cup of coffee in his hand and worry in his eyes.

“I’m going to guess that’s not a PTA meeting you’re rewinding,” he said.

Dana paused the voicemail and swiveled her chair. “Underground fights. People paying cash to watch illegal matches. Maybe bio-enhancement. Could be linked to that biotech shell company we’ve been sniffing around.”

“Could be a crank,” he said. “Could be somebody who watched Fight Club too many times.”

She pulled up the anonymous email that had come in right before the call: a single blurry still frame attached, no text. Two figures in a concrete ring, mid-motion. The crowd outside the ropes was a smear of faces and phones. The fighters were nothing but silhouettes, but one of them had a stance she recognized in a way that made her shoulders knot.

“That’s the same arena that came up in the zoning complaint last year,” she said. “The one everyone swore was a storage facility.”

He stepped closer. “Give me the quick version.”

“Tipster says this isn’t human against human. Says they’re juicing them with something.” She hesitated, trying to find sensible words for what had been rattling around in the back of her skull since she’d opened the image. “Says they move like animals. Not metaphorically.”

He set his coffee down on the edge of her desk. “You know what happens when you start chasing stories where people vanish in basements. We’ve had this talk.”

“You hired me for this,” she reminded him. “Not for rewriting press releases.”

He gave a humorless little exhale. “I hired you because you don’t scare easily. That doesn’t mean you’re fireproof.”

She clicked on the still frame so it filled her monitor. Zoomed in as far as the pixels allowed. The fighter on the left was almost entirely a blur, his face turned away, but the shoulder line, the slope of the neck, the way his weight rested on the balls of his feet—something in it jolted an old memory free.

Her father on the back patio, sixteen years ago, shadowboxing with an invisible opponent. Cigarette tucked in the corner of his mouth. The same slight lean forward. The same narrow-hipped stance he’d learned in whatever small-town gym had taken him in when he was younger.

Her father who had walked out one night, muttering something about “one last gig,” and never come back.

She heard herself say, “I think this might be them.”

“Them who?” her editor asked.

She zoomed in another notch, though it did no good. “My dad.”

Silence stretched out. In the reflection of the monitor, she watched his face go from skeptical to cautious.

“Dana,” he said carefully, “every drunk in this city who ever laced gloves thinks he’s still got one big fight ahead of him. You sure this isn’t you seeing what you want to see?”

“No,” she said. Then, quieter: “I’m not sure about anything except that I need to know what’s going on down there.”

He rubbed a hand across his jaw, thinking. “If this is for the paper, we do it by the book. You don’t go in swinging a camera around your neck and a press badge on your chest.”

“Already ahead of you,” she said. “If they’re selling whatever this is as ‘enhanced security solutions,’ somebody has to be handling clients. I can pose as a buyer. Front company, burner accounts, clean phone. I’ll take my own transportation. No GPS they can backtrack.”

“You’ve thought about this more than you’re admitting.”

“Since the zoning complaint,” she said. “This feels like the same place. Same owner shell corps. Same lawyers filing angry letters whenever anyone says the words ‘inspection’ or ‘permit.’”

He sighed. “You’re not making this easy to kill.”

“Did you want easy?” she asked. “Or did you want the thing that makes everyone else look lazy when we run it?”

He stared at the frozen image on the screen. “If you go in and something feels off, you walk away. You understand? You don’t try to be a hero in somebody else’s basement.”

She thought of Leah, of the way her wife’s brow furrowed when she came home late, the quiet lectures about risk and backup plans and contingencies. She thought of Caleb, still lanky and half-grown, sending her links to viral fight clips and asking her if they were “for real.”

“I understand,” she said.

He didn’t look convinced, but he nodded. “Send me your alias profile before you leave. And check in every hour once you’re on-site. Miss two in a row and I call it in, story or no story.”

“Deal.”

When she left the office, the sky over the city had gone colorless, that flat afternoon light that turned everything into a photograph. She drove out past the beltline and the freight yards, toward a part of town where the streets lost their names and turned into strings of letters and numbers.

The address from the anonymous email led her to a fenced industrial block with no signage. The only light came from high security lamps mounted on poles, glaring down on cracked asphalt and stacked shipping containers. A security booth sat at the gate, window dark.

She checked the alias phone in her pocket. Checked the small camera pinned inside her jacket. Checked, without meaning to, the text from Leah still sitting unanswered.

Be safe today. Don’t forget we have dinner with my sister at eight. Love you.

Dana typed out a reply and erased it twice before settling on Running late. I’ll tell you about it tonight. Love you too.

A figure stepped out of the security booth as she rolled up to the gate. The man wore a black jacket with no markings and watched her car the way someone watches a stray dog—curious, cautious, ready to move.

He leaned down to her window. “This lot’s closed.”

“I have an appointment,” Dana said, keeping her voice level. She slid a folded envelope through the gap, the way she’d rehearsed. “Erik Webster’s expecting me.”

He weighed the envelope in his hand, then opened it just enough to see the gloss of the printed credentials and the carefully forged letterhead authorizing a “preliminary demonstration of augmented security assets.”

His expression didn’t change, but his posture did. Less bored. More engaged.

“Park by the loading bay,” he said, pressing a button to make the gate slide back. “Someone will meet you at the door. Phone stays in your car unless they say otherwise. House rules.”

She smiled as if this were all normal. As if her pulse hadn’t kicked into a harder rhythm the moment she heard Webster’s name spoken aloud.

“I can follow rules,” she said.

The gate finished its slow crawl. She drove through, tires crunching over gravel, toward the yawning dark of the loading bay and the faint, distant sound of something heavy striking metal, over and over, like a heartbeat buried under concrete.

Part II

The man who met her at the loading bay moved with the practiced efficiency of someone accustomed to handling trouble. He was lean, dressed in black from his boots to the reinforced gloves on his hands. A thin scar crossed his jawline like a deliberate stroke of ink.

“You’re the buyer,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

Dana nodded. “I was told I’d get an initial tour.”

He held the door for her but didn’t step aside. She brushed past him and immediately felt the temperature drop—not a gentle shift, but a deep basement cold that settled into her sleeves and collar.

The hallway was built from poured concrete and armored steel plates bolted at uneven intervals, as though patched after damage no one cared to describe. Overhead, strips of fluorescent lights buzzed with intermittent flicker, giving the walls a gray, waxy tone.

The guard walked ahead without introduction. “Demonstration is already in progress.”

“That’s fine,” Dana said. She kept her voice even, but her attention was everywhere—the security cameras in the corners, the heavy doors with warning tags, the faint sound of chanting or cheering echoing through the ducts.

They reached a checkpoint staffed by two more guards. One held out a tray.

“Phone.”

Dana slid the burner device from her pocket and placed it on the tray, knowing they’d strip it, crack it, possibly keep it. She had backups layered in places they wouldn’t think to check.

The guard nodded once, and the door beyond unlatched with a subdued metallic thunk.

The corridor widened, and the faint cheering became a steady, throbbing roar. The air carried a smell that was hard to define—sweat layered with something metallic, maybe blood, maybe rust, maybe both.

Ahead, steel stairs descended into a cavernous space.

The arena.

Dana followed the guard down, keeping her pace slow so she could take everything in. The chamber opened beneath her like a hollowed-out foundry. Catwalks and platforms wrapped the walls in concentric tiers, each one crowded with spectators leaning over rails.

They weren’t the types who frequented seedy underground shows. These were people with expensive coats, subtle jewelry, polished shoes. Investors. Venture-capital taste with appetites they couldn’t admit publicly.

Below them sat the cage.

It was circular, big enough to host a full-sized MMA bout, but the wiring looked thicker, more industrial—like it was built to withstand something stronger than a trained fighter. Rings of chain mesh reinforced the frame, and the outer scaffolding was braced at eight points, each anchored into concrete.

Two figures moved inside the cage. At first glance, they looked human: tall, wiry men with shaved heads. But their movements were all wrong. They paced in tight arcs, shoulders hunched forward, their steps too light for their size, their attention fixed solely on each other.

A bell clanged—old metal, heavy, the sort of sound that resonated with finality.

The fighters blazed into motion.

Dana had covered fights before—boxing, bare-knuckle brawls, even a few illegal ones—but nothing she had seen prepared her for their speed. One man lunged across the distance in a single, jarring stride, covering ground like an animal that had never learned to limit itself to human physics. The other dodged, but the dodge was an unnatural bend at the waist that carried his torso nearly parallel to the floor before snapping upright again.

Then came the sound—bone striking flesh with force far beyond anything human arms should generate.

The crowd responded with a ripple of cheers. Not loud, not wild, but hungry.

Dana forced herself to keep her expression neutral. She had seen enough to make a career, enough to start a federal investigation, enough to destroy lives. But she also knew that letting that realization show on her face would end everything too quickly.

A guard approached her from the side and handed her a small headset.

“Translation,” he said.

She put it in only to realize it wasn’t translating language—there were no commentators to interpret. Instead, the device filtered the sound from the cage: a technician murmuring into a mic, identifying biometrics in real-time.

“Subject Nine—heart rate stable. Musculature responding to serum variant three. Reflex amplification at projected levels. Maintain distance.”

Subject Nine struck the other fighter in the ribs. The sound was sharp and wet. The second fighter crumpled, then sprang forward in a low, four-limbed rush that sent his fingers scraping across the mat with a skitter like claws.

Human hands shouldn’t move like that.

“He’s compensating for structural instability,” the voice on the headset continued. “Knee ligaments aren’t holding. Adjusting weight distribution to forelimbs.”

Dana swallowed, steadying herself.

The first match ended abruptly. One fighter pinned the other against the cage wall and drove a fist—not a punch, but a hammering blow—into the side of his skull. The crack echoed up through the catwalks. The crowd exhaled in a collective release.

The victor stepped back, panting, shoulders rising and falling with sharp precision. His neck seemed thicker than it had been at the start of the fight.

Dana leaned slightly toward the rail, studying his silhouette. She thought about her father again, the shape of his frame when he trained, the lines of muscle she knew by heart.

“Enjoying the show?”

The guard who’d escorted her earlier was watching her, expression unreadable.

“Impressive,” she said. “I can see why clients pay for this level of enhancement.”

He held her gaze for a moment too long. “Enhancement is one word for it.”

The arena lights shifted, drawing attention back to the cage. Another set of doors lifted, revealing a tall, broad-backed man with a shaved scalp and dark red scars crisscrossing his shoulders—the second fighter for the next match.

Dana didn’t breathe for a moment.

His face was still human. Mostly.

But his eyes were wide and glassy, pupils dilated until the irises were nothing more than rings of pale color. His skin had taken on a faint mottled pattern along the jawline, like subdermal veins pressing upward.

The spectators whispered a name among themselves.

Redback.

He stepped into the cage and scanned the audience with quick, jerky movements. His shoulders twitched, then settled. The scars across his back flexed with each breath.

The door clanged shut behind him. The opposing fighter—a smaller man with elongated forearms—entered at the same time.

Dana raised her chin just enough to look directly into the cage.

Redback’s head stopped turning.

He stared at her as though the entire arena had gone silent.

There was recognition in the look—a slow, dawning horror that had nothing to do with the match.

He lifted one hand, fingers curling against the mesh.

His lips moved around a whisper that wasn’t even sound but shape.

Run.

Then he said her last name.

Quiet. But unmistakable.

A cold, tight feeling spread beneath her ribs. Someone beside her shifted slightly, noticing her reaction. She forced her posture to remain relaxed, but her mind began calculating exits.

The bell rang for the second fight.

Redback didn’t move.

Not at first.

He watched Dana for one breath.

Two.

Then his body snapped into motion with a violence that made the catwalk tremble.

The fight began.

And Dana realized she was not merely observing The Pit.

The Pit had noticed her.

Part III

The fight between Redback and the smaller enhanced fighter didn’t last long. What unnerved Dana wasn’t the outcome—it was the way Redback moved once the bell rang.

He didn’t explode forward like the other contenders. He adjusted first, a slight shift of weight from heel to forefoot, almost cautious. His head lifted a fraction, nostrils widening as if pulling in information the way ordinary fighters draw breath before a strike.

Only after that did he lunge.

The smaller man tried to sidestep, but Redback caught him by the shoulder and drove him hard into the mat. Bone thudded against padding in a way that sent murmurs up the spectator tiers. Redback didn’t follow through with a killing blow. Instead, he backed away from the downed fighter, pacing in a slow arc, gaze flicking again toward Dana.

“Subject Thirty-Two is exhibiting hesitation,” the voice in Dana’s earpiece said. “Compensating. Behavioral anomaly noted.”

A metallic click cut through the arena—one of the guards down by the cage pulled a panel from the wall. He pressed something on the inside. Redback jolted, the hesitation gone.

He finished the match in seconds.

The crowd rewarded the brutality with a low surge of approval.

Dana forced her gaze away from the cage and scanned the catwalk. Guards had increased their presence. She’d been trained to pick up on small shifts in posture, subtle tightening of formation, glances shared between personnel. The change wasn’t dramatic, but it was targeted.

They weren’t watching the cage.

They were watching her.

A slow dread settled over her as the arena lights dimmed for the next match. She stepped back from the railing. The guard who had escorted her earlier materialized at her side again, expression flat.

“Mr. Webster would like a word,” he said.

Dana kept her tone measured. “This soon? I thought the demonstrations ran longer.”

“They do,” he said. “He still wants to speak with you.”

He didn’t touch her—didn’t need to. He angled his body in a way that left only one route forward, and walking away from him would draw eyes she couldn’t afford.

As he led her up the steps toward a private mezzanine, Dana let her mind run through each contingency she’d built into her plan. Most were already useless. Her phone was confiscated. Her editor expected hourly check-ins she wouldn’t be able to make. And there were still at least a half-dozen guards between her and the exit.

The guard ushered her into a glass-walled observation suite built into one of the upper catwalks.

Erik Webster was waiting for her inside.

He wasn’t what she expected. No bombastic showman, no vulgar crime boss. Webster stood with a kind of careful poise near the railing, hands folded behind him, as though he were preparing to give a presentation to shareholders rather than preside over a blood sport.

His hair was neatly combed, salt beginning to creep into the dark strands. His clothes were simple, unbranded. His posture had an ease that suggested strength and control rather than bravado.

He turned when she entered, and something in the way his gaze settled on her made it clear he’d known exactly where she stood in the arena the entire time.

“Ms. Quill,” Webster said. “Thank you for accepting our invitation.”

Dana kept her expression neutral. “I don’t recall being invited.”

“People like you invite yourselves,” Webster replied. “I simply make sure you enter the correct door.”

The guard closed the suite door, and the soundproofing sealed out the arena noise. The sudden quiet felt sharp, as though the air had thickened.

Webster gestured to the glass overlooking the cage. Redback had already been removed; technicians were cleaning the mat.

“What you witnessed just now,” Webster said, “is only the surface of our work. Enhanced combat is merely the most visible application.”

Dana stepped closer to the glass to keep distance between them. “Your fighters look like they’re in constant pain.”

“Pain is a transition,” Webster said. “Evolution tends to be uncomfortable in its early stages.”

She studied him more closely. His eyes were steady, almost unnervingly bright, like someone who spent too much time awake. There was no mania in him—only conviction.

“You think this is evolution.”

“I know it is,” he said. “Humanity’s survival has never relied on intellect or creativity. Those traits made us complacent. What matters—what has always mattered—is adaptation under pressure. The species that endure are the ones willing to give up what holds them back.”

He leaned his hands on the rail, studying the cage below as though the place calmed him.

“You can’t possibly believe turning people into animals is advancement,” Dana said.

He gave her a minor smile, as if the thought amused him. “You misunderstand. Animals are bound by limitation. My work doesn’t degrade the human form—it unlocks it. Strength without hesitation. Instinct without doubt. Purpose without the noise of conscience.”

His voice carried no heat, no joy. Simply assurance.

Dana’s pulse intensified. She kept her breathing slow.

“And what happens,” she said carefully, “when the instinct you unlock is the instinct to kill you?”

“Why would it be?” Webster asked. “Predators don’t waste energy on unnecessary targets. They focus on what threatens the pack.”

Dana caught the linguistic shift—pack, not team.

“Besides,” Webster continued, “they understand who created them.”

She had no plan for what he said next.

“I’ve been following your work for years, Ms. Quill. You have a talent for exposing systems that don’t want to be seen. Admirable. Dangerous, but admirable.”

He moved closer to the console beside the window and tapped a sequence. A monitor flickered on, showing a grid of surveillance feeds. One showed the entrance gate. Another, the medical bay. Another—

Her car.

And beside it, a guard checking her belongings.

She kept her jaw still. “Seems like a lot of attention for a potential buyer.”

“You’re not here to buy,” Webster said.

She didn’t answer.

He pressed another key. A new feed appeared—someone being escorted down a different hallway. The frame shook slightly as the person walked: a teen in a hoodie, hands bound, two guards at his sides.

Dana’s stomach tightened.

Caleb.

Her younger brother looked dazed, confused—was he drugged? The guard on-screen shoved him forward when he slowed.

Webster studied her reaction with polite interest. “He follows fight rumors more than you realize. Your digging drew his attention, and once he started asking questions online, he became easy to track.”

Dana felt the air around her narrow. She hadn’t told Caleb anything. He’d found this place on his own—out of curiosity, or worse, admiration.

“You brought him here?” she said.

“I gave him a tour,” Webster corrected. “And now he’s a lever. A very effective one.”

Dana slowly straightened. “What do you want?”

Webster stepped away from the monitors and regarded her as though evaluating a specimen.

“I want demonstration,” he said. “Something beyond the ring. Something that shows what the next stage looks like.”

He reached into a drawer beneath the console. Pulled out a glossy white syringe filled with amber fluid.

Dana took one step away from him before she could stop herself.

Webster noticed. “You see, Ms. Quill… evolution requires catalysts. Fear. Pressure. Loss. The ones who break under it were never meant to endure. But those who adapt?”

He lifted the syringe as though presenting a gift.

“They become extraordinary.”

She glanced toward the door, but two guards had already taken position outside the glass. Her mind raced—a dozen escape routes in theory, none possible now.

Webster walked toward her with quiet certainty.

“You should be proud,” he said. “You’re about to witness your own transformation. Very few people get to experience their next form from the inside.”

He moved faster than she anticipated. She twisted her torso to evade him, but he seized her arm with surprising strength.

The syringe plunged into her neck before she could wrench free.

Heat spread like a slow burn beneath her skin. Her vision blurred at the edges.

The last thing she saw before her knees hit the floor was Webster’s calm expression as he watched her fall.

And the last thing she heard was his voice, still soft, still measured:

“Welcome to the future, Ms. Quill.”

Then the world collapsed into darkness, and the sound of distant roars rose up to meet her.

Part IV

Dana surfaced into awareness the way a diver surfaces through dark water—slowly, with pressure clinging to her from every direction.

A cold metal slab supported her spine. Restraints crossed her wrists, elbows, and ankles, padded but strong. A thin strap kept her head in place. Her mouth felt wrong. Her jaw ached, the muscles along its hinge twitching with involuntary spasms.

Footsteps approached. More than one pair. Crisp, purposeful.

She tried to turn her head and learned she couldn’t.

“Vitals fluctuating,” someone said above her. “The serum’s integrating faster than projected.”

Another voice answered, detached and clinical. “She’s high-functioning. Strong identity imprint. That accelerates the breakdown.”

Dana fought to focus her eyes. The lights overhead were glaring, recessed in armored housings like surgical lamps. Panels lined the walls—lockers, storage, stainless counters. This wasn’t a medical bay. It was an operating theater built without regulation or conscience.

The left restraint creaked.

Not from anyone touching it.

From her pulling against it.

A tremor moved down her forearm—unbidden, powerful. Her muscles tightened hard enough to make the strap bite into her skin. Something in her bones felt as though it were expanding, pushing against the limits of their shape.

Her breath hitched once, sharply, then steadied. Her senses sharpened. She could hear the rustle of clothing from the technicians across the room, the faint hum of machinery inside the walls, the rhythmic scrape of something moving inside a vent.

She shouldn’t have been able to hear any of that.

A technician leaned into view. His face was hidden behind a mask and visor. He shined a small light into her eyes.

“She’s conscious,” he said.

“Good,” Erik Webster replied from somewhere behind him. “That means we can begin the calibration phase.”

Dana’s pulse thudded once, hard. She tried to speak, but her voice came out rough, the words catching on the pain in her throat.

“Where’s my brother?”

Webster stepped into her peripheral vision. He wasn’t wearing a lab coat or gloves—only his usual dark clothing, sleeves rolled to the elbows as though he were supervising something mundane.

“Caleb is unharmed,” Webster said. “Confused, frightened, but intact. I have no reason to damage leverage before it’s needed.”

He checked the monitor beside her. “Your vitals are stronger than expected. The serum is accepting you quickly.”

“I’m not—” She stopped, jaw seizing for a moment, a dull throb radiating down her mandible. “—your experiment.”

“On the contrary,” Webster said gently. “You’re one of the most important subjects I’ve processed in years. Journalists don’t break easily. They’re built for pressure.”

The restraints on her ankles tightened as her leg muscles tensed involuntarily.

Dana tried again to turn her head. The strap holding her forehead squeaked.

“How long until the cortical distortion begins?” a technician asked.

“Minutes,” Webster said. “But she’ll be lucid for a while. The early stages enhance cognition before they alter it.”

A heat spread down her spine. Not a fever—more like an electric pulse rooting itself in each vertebra. Her fingers curled against the restraint. Something popped in her wrist, not painfully but with a quiet release, like a joint deciding it had been shaped incorrectly all her life.

Dana closed her eyes to steady herself. Inside the dark, the world sharpened. She could smell the sweat of the technicians—acrid and sharp. She could smell metal. Fear. The faint antiseptic tang of dried blood on the restraints.

They weren’t new.

A scraping sound came from her right—something dragging across concrete outside the room. Slow, irregular.

One of the technicians flinched. “The brood is active tonight.”

“Of course they are,” Webster said. “They sense what’s happening in here.”

A door hissed open.

Not the main one.

A smaller door behind the equipment cabinets.

Something shuffled inside the threshold, and Dana smelled it before she saw it—a pungent mix of musk, old wounds, and something animal layered over the faint scent of human skin.

“Out,” Webster said to the creature in the doorway, not raising his voice. “You’ll have your time later.”

Whatever stood beyond the threshold retreated with a low, breathy exhalation. The door sealed again.

Dana’s stomach twisted, not from fear—though fear was there—but from a strange creeping hunger she didn’t understand.

The restraints creaked again.

Webster noticed. “Stage Two,” he said. “Muscle reinforcement.”

One of the technicians shifted uneasily. “She’s strong. The bands may not hold.”

“If they don’t,” Webster said, “she won’t waste time on us. Not yet.”

Dana forced her jaw to move. It felt unfamiliar now, like it was beginning to hinge at a slightly different angle.

“You think I’m going to become one of your fighters.”

“No,” Webster said. “You’re going to become something better. Fighters are prototypes. But you—your survival instincts run deep. You carry personal loss, unresolved guilt, a relentless drive toward truth. Traits that, when distilled and refined, create a predator with purpose.”

He leaned closer.

“You will be magnificent.”

The metal slab vibrated.

Not from machinery.

From Dana’s body.

A deep tremor rolled through her, and the binding around her right wrist slid half an inch.

The technicians froze.

Webster lifted his hand. “Stay calm. She’s still adjusting.”

The strap tore.

Not all at once—fiber by fiber, a painful, grinding rip that filled the room.

Her right hand came free.

Her fingers curled reflexively, nails scraping the slab. She tried to pull her arm close, but the other restraints held.

A heavy body crashed against the door from the hall. The brood again. The technicians flinched, backing away from Dana’s table.

Webster didn’t move.

He watched her with an expression she didn’t understand—not fear, not excitement, something colder.

“Excellent,” he murmured. “Your progression is exceeding every metric.”

Dana’s muscles tightened again. Her jaw shifted, bone sliding against bone with a pressure that made her throat vibrate.

She forced her mouth open.

“Let me out,” she said, though the words were strained, half-struck through with a low growl she couldn’t fully suppress.

“You will leave,” Webster said. “Just not yet.”

The slab beneath her groaned.

Her vision doubled, then refocused.

She could break the rest of the restraints.

Not eventually.

Now.

A sudden metallic clang echoed from the hallway—the sound of an impact hard enough to warp steel.

The technicians panicked. One moved toward the emergency release panel.

Webster stopped him with a single word: “Don’t.”

The door crashed inward.

The brood surged through the opening—three figures, hunched, angular, skin marked with scars and shifting patterns. Their limbs moved in sharp, deliberate bursts. Their eyes locked onto Dana.

Then, to her astonishment, they hesitated.

Not afraid.

Recognizing.

Her right hand tightened into a fist.

Her left arm strained.

The restraints began to tear.

A technician stumbled backward, shouting. Another reached for a tranquilizer gun.

Webster stepped aside, unconcerned.

“Let’s see,” he said quietly. “If she chooses freedom… or instinct.”

Dana pulled.

The restraint on her left wrist snapped.

Her vision sharpened into startling clarity.

Her muscles surged with strength she didn’t understand.

Her skin felt tight along her spine, as though something beneath it wanted to move differently.

The brood stepped closer.

Dana met their gaze.

They were waiting for her.

Waiting to see what she would become.

She tore through the last restraint and lurched off the slab, staggering but upright. Her legs trembled under the new weight distribution of her shifting bones.

Webster didn’t retreat.

He only watched her, eyes sharp, patient.

“Go on, Ms. Quill,” he said. “Choose.”

Dana turned, body trembling with heat and adrenaline, and sprinted for the open door.

The brood parted for her.

None tried to stop her.

Their heads dipped slightly as she passed.

As if acknowledging one of their own.

Dana didn’t look back. She ran into the corridor, following the scent of rust, old machinery, and cold air—toward the freight tunnel Redback had mentioned—toward escape.

But her instincts narrowed into something sharper, faster.

She wasn’t just running from Webster.

She was running toward something.

And whether it was freedom, survival, or the first pull of predation, she couldn’t yet tell.

Only that she had to move.

Before what was happening inside her finished rewriting who she was.

Part V

Dana followed the tunnel by instinct more than memory. The concrete walls curved in long arcs, dipping and rising through the old foundry’s forgotten lower levels. Rusted pipes whispered overhead. The air tasted of dust and machine oil.

Her gait was wrong.

Her steps landed heavier than they should, then lighter, as though her legs hadn’t fully agreed on the mechanics. Each stride felt like she was borrowing someone else’s body—someone faster, someone stronger, someone who didn’t care how many warnings her nerves tried to send.

A vibration thrummed deep inside her jaw. She pressed a hand under her chin, felt the subtle shift of bone.

She didn’t stop.

Ahead, a square of pale light appeared—daylight, bleeding down from the end of the service shaft. A personnel hatch waited at the top of a narrow staircase. She climbed—not gracefully, but with a jarring burst of strength that carried her three steps at a time.

When she shoved the hatch open, it scraped loudly against its frame. She braced herself for guards, alarms, anything.

Instead, she stepped out into an alley behind the industrial block.

The sky hung low and overcast. Afternoon. Gray. Empty.

She took one step out of the hatch before her knees buckled. Her hand caught a dumpster to keep herself upright. Her breathing came too quickly—shallow, not from exertion but from something deeper trying to recalibrate.

Her vision wavered. Colors sharpened unnaturally. She could see the grain of rust on the dumpster handle, the faint oil smear on the cracked asphalt. And beneath those details, something darker stirred—a draw toward scent, movement, heat.

Footsteps approached.

Deliberate, measured.

Dana pushed herself away from the dumpster, but her legs wobbled. She spun toward the sound—and froze.

Erik Webster stepped into the alleyway with the composure of someone arriving early to a meeting. His shirt sleeves were still rolled. His hair wind-tossed from the surface exit.

“You’ve progressed remarkably well,” he said, voice steady. “Faster than any subject in the last three years.”

Dana’s throat tightened. “Stay back.”

“I won’t,” Webster replied. “But not because I wish to harm you. I told you before—you’re special. You’re a proof of concept.”

He approached without fear, hands at his sides.

Dana’s muscles tensed. Something deep inside urged her to lunge—to tear—to silence the threat.

She swallowed hard, focusing on his outline, trying to force her mind to override the pulsing instinct that wanted to close the distance.

“You took my brother,” she said. The words came out rough, tinged with the new weight in her jaw.

“I borrowed him,” Webster corrected. “Though in truth, he followed you here by choice. Curiosity often runs in families.”

Her fists clenched. Her nails bit into her palms.

Webster watched her reaction with keen focus. “You’re fighting yourself. That won’t last. The serum refines identity. It sheds anything you’re not willing to keep.”

“Meaning what?” Dana rasped.

“Meaning,” Webster said, “that your love for your brother, your wife, your work—all of that must compete against instinct.”

Something inside her chest gave a painful throb. Her balance faltered. She dropped to one knee, bracing herself.

Webster stepped closer.

She tried to stand and realized he was right: she was losing the thread of who she had been even ten minutes ago. Something in her wanted to move toward him—not as a victim, not as an attacker, but as something in between, something aligned.

He crouched beside her, expression unreadable. “Let go of the parts that can’t adapt. Embrace what remains.”

Dana drove her shoulder forward on instinct alone, slamming him into the wall.

Webster exhaled sharply but didn’t cry out. He twisted to wrench free, slipping from her grip with trained precision. A thin blade slid from his sleeve into his palm—a compact, shallow-edged instrument designed for close quarters.

He didn’t strike with hesitation.

He cut across her ribs.

The blade sank only partway—the tissue there had thickened, denser than human. The pain was sharp but muted, as though traveling through a dampened conduit.

Dana staggered back. Her fingers grazed the wound. Warm, but not bleeding like it should.

Webster’s expression shifted—surprise, then satisfaction.

“There,” he said. “You see? You’re ready.”

Dana’s vision narrowed. His outline sharpened into prey-shape, threat-shape, target-shape. Instinct surged—violent, hungry, absolute.

But memory rose too.

Leah’s voice telling her to be careful.
Caleb asking if she’d be home for his school debate.
Her father’s stance in that old back patio.

Those pieces held her together for one more second.

Enough.

Dana lunged for Webster—not to kill, but to pin him long enough to reach the phone in his pocket.

They fell hard to the ground. The blade clattered away. Webster clawed at her shoulders, but she reached his jacket and tore the device free, rolling away before he could grab her.

Her fingers shook as she unlocked it—not with hesitation, but with the almost feral urgency of a creature acting on instinct. She didn’t need fully human motor control for this. Not anymore.

She opened the emergency upload link tied to her bodycam.

Pressed SEND.

The upload bar moved slowly, painfully, but it moved.

Webster lunged for her.

Dana kicked him back with a force that sent him sprawling.

The upload completed.

The footage—cells, fighters, procedures, everything—shot across the network to her editor’s auto-backup server.

Webster froze when he saw the confirmation screen.

For the first time, his composure cracked.

“You don’t know what you’ve done,” he said.

Dana rose unsteadily to her feet. The wound along her ribs throbbed, her bones shifting again beneath the skin. Something primal stirred beneath every breath.

She staggered toward the alley mouth.

Webster didn’t follow.

He simply watched her with cold calculation, already recalculating his next move.

Dana made it three steps before her legs gave out again. She collapsed beside the curb, gasping against the shifting pressure inside her body.

The distant wail of sirens approached—local units picking up a disturbance. Maybe someone heard the fight. Maybe someone saw an injured woman stumbling from industrial property. Maybe luck finally broke in her favor.

She heard a car door slam. Boots approached at a run.

A familiar voice cut through the haze.

“Dana?”

She lifted her head slowly.

Leah knelt beside her in EMT gear, the reflective stripes catching the gray daylight. Her face went pale when she took in Dana’s condition.

“Hey—hey, look at me,” Leah said, reaching out. “Stay with me. Tell me what happened.”

Dana’s vision flickered.

Her wife smelled like antiseptic, fresh fabric, and the faint sweetness of the gum she chewed to stay awake during long shifts.

The scent hit Dana’s senses with startling clarity. Too vivid. Too alive. Something inside her reacted—an instinct she didn’t want, triggered by proximity.

She jerked back, breath shuddering.

Leah froze, hands half-extended. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “You can talk to me.”

Dana tried. The words tangled in something that wasn’t entirely voice anymore.

“Leah…” she managed. “Run.”

Leah didn’t move. Her eyes filled with confusion and fear.

“Dana, what—?”

Dana’s muscles tightened. The animal part surged forward again, wiping out thought.

She bolted.

Not in a straight line—her body didn’t trust that form anymore. She moved fast, low, vaulting over the alley fence with a burst of strength that startled even her.

Leah called her name once.

The sound followed her into the maze of industrial streets.

By the time officers reached the alley, Dana was gone.

Her footage was already in the newsroom’s possession.

And somewhere in the city’s abandoned underbelly, a new predator moved through the shadows—one who knew what she had lost, what she had become, and how little time she had left before the last remnants of Dana Quill slipped away for good.