Elias Vance doesn’t believe in mistakes. He is meticulous, precise, and completely unshaken—until Subject 07 opens his eyes. Kaelen is not human. He is a classified specimen found on the edges of a collapsed military base. He does not speak, does not react to pain, and has been declared nothing more than a living experiment. Elias should be indifferent. He’s spent his entire career ensuring subjects like Kaelen don’t get under his skin. But Kaelen is watching him. Studying him. And when he finally speaks, the words dig under Elias’ skin like knives. "You’re not like them." Kaelen should be a test subject, nothing more. Elias should be in control. But the moment he starts craving answers, he realizes— He’s already lost.