Page 118 of Dark Bonds

“We need to get out of here,” Frankie says, grabbing my arm. The touch sends a jolt through me, both comforting and agonizing as the curse marks flare in response.

We turn to leave, but the passage we entered through has vanished, replaced by a smooth, featureless wall. Panic rises in my throat as I realize we’re trapped.

“No,” I mutter, running my hands over the wall, searching for any hint of an opening. “This can’t be happening.”

Frankie joins me, her fingers probing the seamless surface. “There has to be a way out. Maybe if we?—”

Her words are cut off by a piercing scream.

“That’s an alarm.” Panic ripples through me.

“How the hell are we getting out of here?” Frankie spins in a circle, looking for a way out, but there is nothing but shiny sterile walls.

I swallow bile, my tongue once again thick in my mouth. “I don’t know.”

Chapter 39

Frankie

All at once,the alarm stops. The ringing echoes in my ears for a few moments as I rub them to ease the ache.

My mind reels as I stare at the clinical white walls of Blackwood’s secret lab, each breath a battle against the nausea threatening to overwhelm me.

The lab assaults all my senses at once, a sterile nightmare in stark whites and gleaming steel. Fluorescent lights buzz overhead like angry wasps, casting an unforgiving glare that seems to strip away all shadows and comfort.

The air is thick with the acrid smell of chemicals, burning my nostrils and leaving a metallic taste on my tongue. Beneath that, a strange ozone-like scent makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

The constant hum of machinery vibrates through the floor, up my legs, and settles in my chest like a second heartbeat. Even the light feels wrong, too harsh and revealing, as if it’s trying to strip away our essence as shadow shifters.

Rows of complex machinery line the walls, their displays blinking with incomprehensible data, each light a silent testament to Blackwood’s twisted experiments. A series of emptyexamination tables line the center of the room, their leather straps hanging ominously at the sides.

I can almost hear the echoes of screams that these walls have absorbed, the pain and fear of Blackwood’s victims seeping into the foundation of this place.

Dorian stands beside me, his face a mask of shock and guilt. The shadows beneath his skin writhe, mirroring the turmoil in his eyes. I fight the urge to reach out and comfort him, to trace the lines of his curse and take away his pain, but the weight of his betrayal still hangs heavily between us, a chasm I’m not sure how to bridge.

“Why did they stop?” I turn to him.

All he can do is shake his head.

“We need to tell the others,” I choke out, my voice barely above a whisper, as if speaking too loudly might awaken some dormant evil in this sterile hell.

Bishop. We need to find Bishop, but not just to confirm Valerie’s words. My gut is telling me he will know what to do and how to handle this.

Dorian nods, his eyes never leaving the bubbling vials that look so much like what Valerie used to inject me with. The memory sends a shiver down my spine, my own shadows coiling restlessly beneath my skin in response.

As Dorian pulls out his phone to contact the rest of our pack, I force myself to look closer at the lab and face the horror head-on. “How did we even get in here?” I whisper, the realization hitting me. “The wards, the security...”

Dorian’s face darkens, his voice low and intense. “Blackwood’s arrogance. He never thought anyone would find this place, let alone breach it, but we did, and that might be our only advantage.”

“Are we absolutely sure this is Blackwood’s lab?” My gaze falls on a series of charts and diagrams pinned to a corkboard.They show human silhouettes, their bodies crisscrossed with lines of shadow energy, a macabre roadmap of someone’s ambitions.

“It has to be, he is the only one who knew I was down here.” He shakes his head again as though shaking himself awake.

“Dorian,” I call, my voice wobbly, the tremor in it betraying the fear I’m trying to suppress. “Look at this.”

He comes to stand beside me, his breath catching as he takes in the diagrams. The shadows whisper their pain. “We have a moral obligation to find them and free them. They have to be down here somewhere.” His voice is low, intense, and laden with the weight of dark secrets.

I scan the board and find exactly what I’m looking for. “Blackwood’s signature. It is him,” I whisper.

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