Chapter 8: Father-Daughter Confrontation and Hidden Fangs
1286 Words
The helicopter’s shadow sat on the truck roof like a damp rag someone slapped down in a hurry—heavy, ugly, refusing to move.
Alicia clung to the rusted edge, nails digging into the metal, rust flaking under her fingertips. A sting.
Then warm wetness. Great. She was bleeding again.
Wind knifed into her throat. Smelled like jet fuel. Home, in the worst possible way.
Her father’s company flew that exact model. She grew up doing homework under that same smell.
“Hold on!” Lucas’s voice crashed through the wind—ragged, angry, sort of amused? He had one hand crushing the roof rack, the other suddenly clamping around her wrist. Too warm. Hot enough she flinched.
She tried to yank away. No good. His grip locked like a cuff.
The helicopter door slid open.
A rope ladder dropped.
Martha leaned out—perfect makeup, perfect hair, perfectly annoying. The kind of woman who probably vacuumed her desk twice a day.
“Miss Morgan,” she called through the speaker, crisp as a tax audit, “the Chairman requests your presence immediately.”
Alicia barked a laugh. It surprised even her, came out sharper than she meant.
“He requests? Half a year disappearing without a word, and he thinks a ladder fixes that?”
Lucas snorted. “Rich folks, huh?”
His tone was teasing, but she caught the little twist in his mouth. A jab meant for himself more than anyone else.
She didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Words jammed up behind every memory of how her father handled things—by not handling them. By vanishing when her mother died. He’d returned with a tan, a merger, and zero shame.
The truck jerked violently.
Lucas staggered. Alicia’s stomach lurched—she looked down.
Sebastian’s SUV was ramming them, grill gleaming like a predator’s tooth.
“He’s herding us toward the ladder!” Lucas growled, groping on the roof until he found the spare wrench. His jaw clenched. “So. You jumping?”
Her eyes flicked between the swaying ladder and the city police station in the distance—Isabella and Lillian were still in there.
“No!” The word jumped out before she could filter it. “Martha! Let me off! I need to—”
The ladder snapped downward, smacking Lucas’s back.
He grunted—more like a bitten-off howl. Blood spread across his bandage.
Alicia lunged to steady him, but something small and metallic spun through the air.
A capsule.
It hit the windshield with a soft tick.
And exploded.
White smoke roared over the glass.
Lucas swore—coughed—went blind. The truck rammed a guardrail. Alicia slammed into him, and for a second all she smelled was blood and something else—woodsy, wild. A den? What kind of thought was that?
Before she could decide if she imagined it, Lucas yanked her off the roof. They tumbled into a thorny patch of bushes, graceless and loud.
He coughed until his ribs shook. “You… limbs okay?” His hand slid along her arm, clumsy, checking bones like he wasn’t sure Palestinian were made of.
“Fine—” she started, but a new sound cut her off.
Whirr.
The helicopter touched down on the gravel ahead.
Footsteps. Crisp. Expensive. Familiar.
Her father’s shoes—polished to death, snapping over stone.
“Alicia,” he called, voice wrapped in smoke. Smoke? He didn’t smoke. Never. Not even in college. He hated the smell.
She rose, pushing aside branches. Her father stood with his back to her, talking quietly to Martha. She was holding a slim metal case.
It opened.
Alicia’s lungs locked.
Silver syringes. Rows of them.
Saints’ Order equipment. For hunting wolves.
“Is the dosage enough?” her father asked.
Cold. Detached. Like he was ordering office supplies.
“Plenty to keep that wolf obedient, sir,” Martha replied, smiling like she was offering hors d'oeuvres. “As for Edward—Sebastian said he’ll ‘clean the residue.’”
Edward.
Edward?
Lucas’s fingers clamped her shoulder. Too tight. His eyes—those green, too-bright eyes—went wide with something she rarely saw in him.
Fear.
Her father continued, unbothered, “Once we have Alicia’s sample, the Lunar Project is done.” He finally turned, smiling that soft, fatherly smile she used to believe. A smile at odds with the silver syringe he spun between his fingers. “Did you think I cared about wolves? What matters is our bloodline.”
My blood. Her head spun.
The data from the asylum.
Her mother’s encrypted report.
The gene markers.
It was not the company he wanted.
It was her.
“You’re insane,” Alicia whispered, stumbling into Lucas without meaning to. “Mom’s research—she died because of it, didn’t she?”
A flicker—annoyance? Shame? No. Something uglier.
He sighed, almost bored. “She was… inconvenient. Sitting on a serum that gives humans the wolf’s gift and refusing to share. I had to move forward.”
Lucas moved first—too quick, too raw. A growl rumbled from somewhere deep. He dragged Alicia back, but Martha swung a net from behind a tree.
A silver-lined net.
Lucas hit it and convulsed. The smell of burning flesh punched the air.
Alicia clawed at the mesh—hissed when her fingers sizzled.
“Stop,” she snapped, but her voice cracked.
Her father crouched beside her, syringe glinting. “Sweetheart. Don’t make this difficult. Your blood and his—together we can create something perfect.”
The needle kissed her skin—
A gunshot cracked the world open.
Her father dropped, blood blooming over his tailored suit. The syringe rolled away, twitching in the dirt like a wounded insect.
Martha shrieked—grabbed her wrist—another shot nailed her hand.
Alicia jerked her head up.
Rosalind stood on the truck roof, trembling, holding an old hunting rifle like it might explode. Tears streaked down her soot-smudged face.
“I—I found it in the evidence room,” she choked. “They said it was for… wild animals. I didn’t think—”
Lucas tore through the net, the silver burning strips off his palms. He hauled Alicia behind a tree, breath ragged. She could feel his heartbeat through her back—too fast, too loud.
Her father coughed on the ground, pushing himself up with shaking arms. His stare locked on Rosalind. Empty. Flat. Like she was already a chalk outline.
A new figure stepped from the smoke.
Saints’ Order uniform.
But in his hand—her father’s corporate access card.
Jack.
The so-called traitor. The man who’d handed them the notebook with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
“Sir,” Jack said calmly, “the operation failed. Sebastian wants me to finish it.”
Her father spat blood, laughing. “You think you’ll leave alive? Alicia’s sample—already copied—”
Jack didn’t let him finish.
The knife slid in clean, almost polite.
Alicia slapped a hand over her mouth. Lucas’s arm tightened around her shoulders. She felt him swallow hard—maybe anger, maybe fear, maybe something worse.
Police sirens wailed in the distance. Again. Always too late.
Jack pulled out the blade and turned toward their hiding place. He smiled—almost apologetic, which somehow made it worse. The access card flickered between his fingers.
She recognized the symbol printed on it.
The same one on the cover of her mother’s research dossier.
Jack never wanted the Order’s secrets.
He wanted her mother’s work.
The real prize.
The same research Alicia had locked in the underground vault—
—three days ago.
And apparently, not nearly deep enough.
- Writer
