Chapter Four: Smoke and Secrets
1066 Words
The first thing Sabrina Cuevas noticed when she woke up wasn’t the pain — it was the silence. That kind of heavy silence only hospitals had. But this wasn’t a hospital.
Her arms were restrained. Smooth leather cuffs held her wrists to a steel-framed bed. Her clothes were gone, replaced with thin gray scrubs. She blinked. A small camera blinked back from the corner of the ceiling.
Then she remembered.
The gas. The smoke. The face leaning over hers—Isaac’s. Her heart should’ve hated him. But all she could feel was betrayal… and something darker. Something that twisted in her chest, sharp and sweet.
He saved her.
He captured her.
Both were true.
The door creaked open. She stayed still, playing unconscious.
“I know you’re awake,” said a deep voice.
Isaac Hale stepped into view, dressed in a tailored black coat. The same cold calm in his eyes. But she saw it now — the hint of a war inside him. He wasn’t proud of this.
“I didn’t hurt you,” he said. “I made sure they didn’t.”
“They?” Her voice cracked. “So I’m a prisoner.”
“You’re alive,” he replied, sitting beside the bed. “You were in danger. The people you work for — the ones who sent you to kill me — they were setting you up.”
She laughed bitterly. “That’s cute. Trying to gaslight an assassin.”
“I’m not lying, Sabrina. Look at me.”
She turned her head, refusing.
“Did you ever ask why the wolf clan took you in when your parents died?” he said softly. “Why they trained you so young, why they taught you to kill without question? You were never a soldier. You were a weapon.”
His words hit a part of her that she’d buried long ago.
He leaned closer. “You’re not the monster they made. But you’re also not as innocent as you think.”
She froze.
“What do you mean?”
Isaac pulled something from his coat — a small black file, marked with her name. “This is from the Vault,” he said. “It’s real. Top-level clearance. Not even your Alpha knows I have it.”
She scanned the first few pages.
Then her blood ran cold.
It was her — but not just her missions. It was the experiments. The classified records. Pictures of her as a child — hooked to machines. Monitored. Conditioned.
“Wolves were never supposed to be mind-controlled,” Isaac said quietly. “But they tried. On you.”
“No…” Her voice trembled. “This is fake. You’re trying to confuse me—”
“Then explain the gaps in your memory,” he said. “The way you lose time. The strange dreams. The moments where you wake up not remembering what you’ve done.”
Her breath caught.
How did he know?
“You’ve been programmed, Sabrina. And someone has the trigger.”
Silence stretched between them.
He reached into his coat again, this time pulling out a Polaroid photo — old, worn, and strange. A girl standing in the center of a burning building, fire behind her… and eyes glowing silver.
Sabrina.
“I took this the night your village burned,” he said. “I was there. I saw what you did.”
“I didn’t—”
“You did,” he said. “But it wasn’t your fault. You weren’t in control. Someone else was behind your eyes.”
She turned her face, blinking fast.
He whispered, “You were the experiment. You were the weapon. But now… you can be more.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I don’t need you to,” he said, standing up. “I just need you to stop trusting the people who made you this way.”
The door opened.
“Wait,” she whispered. “Why me?”
“Because I know what it’s like,” he said.
She frowned. “To be used?”
He shook his head.
“To become something you didn’t choose. I didn’t ask to be a vampire. I was turned during a mission — left to die. I didn’t die.”
The door closed behind him, leaving her in the cold silence once again.
But this time, her mind wasn’t still. It was racing.
She didn’t know what was real anymore. Her memories were fragile, like glass cracked from the inside. And if Isaac was telling the truth… it meant her entire life had been a lie.
---
Two nights later
Sabrina sat at a sleek glass table in a different room — no restraints, but no freedom either. A bowl of untouched soup sat in front of her. Isaac stood by the window, eyes glowing faintly in the dark.
“You could run,” he said, voice quiet.
“I know.”
“I wouldn’t stop you.”
She tilted her head. “But you’d find me.”
He didn’t deny it.
She watched him. He moved with grace — but not the kind that came from years of training. It was… ancient. Fluid. Like something no longer pretending to be human.
“Why do you care?” she asked. “You don’t even know me.”
“I know enough.”
“That’s not an answer.”
He turned to her. “Because when I look at you, I see what I could’ve become. Cold. Controlled. Blind.”
She stood slowly. “I’m not blind anymore.”
“No,” he said. “You’re waking up.”
For a moment, they just stood there — wolf and vampire, enemies by nature. And yet something heavier passed between them. Unspoken. Forbidden.
“I still don’t trust you,” she said.
“You shouldn’t.”
“But I hate you a little less.”
He smiled — the first real one she’d seen.
Then she leaned in.
So did he.
Their lips almost touched.
Until—
A sudden bang.
Lights flickered. Sirens screamed.
A red alarm glowed in the hall.
CODE BLACK.
Isaac cursed. “They found us.”
“Who?”
“The ones who want you dead.”
“Which ones?” she asked, already reaching for the knife under the tray.
He looked at her.
“All of them.”
- Writer
