Chapter 2 The Transformation

Elena's POV

The doorknob stopped turning.

I stood frozen in my tiny Cambridge apartment, laptop clutched to my chest, my brother's encrypted message burning in my pocket. Someone was outside. At 4:30 in the morning. Right after I'd submitted forged documents to Ashwood Institute.

This wasn't a coincidence.

My phone buzzed. Another email from the unknown sender: Fire escape. Now.

I didn't question it. I grabbed Ethan's duffel bag from my closet—already packed because some part of me had known this moment was coming—and ran for the window. My fingers fumbled with the old latch. Behind me, I heard the lock click. Someone had a key.

The window flew open. Cold October air hit my face as I climbed onto the rusty fire escape three floors above the street. Below, a black car idled with its lights off. Above, my apartment door crashed open.

"She's running!" a male voice shouted.

I didn't look back. I jumped down the fire escape stairs two at a time, my heart hammering so hard I thought it would explode. The metal rattled under my feet. Heavy footsteps pounded behind me—two people, maybe three.

My phone buzzed again: Silver car. Get in.

A silver sedan pulled up just as I hit the ground. The back door flew open. I dove inside and the car peeled away before I even got the door closed. Through the rear window, I saw two men in dark suits burst onto the street, watching us disappear.

"Who are you?" I gasped, finally looking at the driver.

She was maybe twenty-five, with platinum blonde hair streaked with electric blue and ice-cold eyes that watched me in the rearview mirror. "Someone who doesn't want to see another Hartley die. I'm Freya. Your brother asked me to watch out for you if anything happened to him."

My chest tightened. "You knew Ethan?"

"Everyone knew Ethan. He was the only decent person at that hellhole." Freya's accent was Danish, clipped and efficient. "He told me three months ago that if he disappeared, you'd probably do something stupid like try to replace him. I've been monitoring your internet activity. The second you accessed his university portal, I knew you were coming."

"The men at my apartment—"

"Institute security. They've been watching you since Ethan vanished, waiting to see if he contacted you." Freya turned down a dark side street. "They saw the email. They know you got his message. You can't go back to that apartment. Ever."

Everything I owned was in that apartment. My clothes, my books, the photo albums of me and Ethan as kids. Gone. Just like that.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"Safe house first. Then I'm driving you to Scotland." Freya glanced at me again. "You're really going through with this insane plan, aren't you? Pretending to be him?"

"Do you know what happened to my brother?"

"I know he found evidence of something big. Something that got him killed." Freya's hands tightened on the steering wheel. "My girlfriend Maria disappeared from Ashwood two years ago. Omega, like you. The Institute said she transferred. Her parents never heard from her again. Ethan was helping me investigate when he..." She didn't finish.

We drove in silence for twenty minutes. Finally, Freya pulled into an underground parking garage and led me to a tiny basement apartment that smelled like coffee and electronics. Computer screens covered one wall, showing security feeds from what looked like Ashwood Institute.

"How do you have access to their cameras?" I asked.

"I'm very good at what I do." Freya handed me a bottle of water. "Now let's talk about how you're planning to survive more than five minutes at that place."

I pulled out the twin protocol document Ethan had sent. "We share the same scent. Oak and rain. If I can suppress my Omega markers and amplify the Alpha notes—"

"You'll need industrial-grade suppressants," Freya interrupted. "The kind that aren't legal in any EU country."

"I know. I already ordered them." I showed her the confirmation email from a Ukrainian pharmaceutical site. "They're being shipped to a pickup location in Edinburgh."

Freya's eyebrows rose. "Those suppressants will destroy your liver. Three months, maybe four, before your body starts shutting down."

"Then I have three months to find out what happened to Ethan."

"You're as stubborn as he was." But Freya was pulling up files on her computer. "Fine. If you're doing this, we do it right. First, the hair."

She sat me in front of a mirror and pulled out scissors. My long chestnut hair had been growing since I was sixteen. Ethan used to joke that it was the only way people could tell us apart.

"Last chance to back out," Freya said.

I thought about the email. Trust no one. They're killing students. I thought about three months of lies and police who stopped looking. I thought about my twin brother's voice on our last call: When I expose this, everything changes.

"Cut it," I said.

The scissors made soft snipping sounds. Long strands fell around my feet. I watched in the mirror as I transformed. Shorter. Sharper. More like the brother I'd lost.

When Freya finished, I looked exactly like Ethan's last Instagram photo.

"Now the walk," Freya said. "Ethan moved like he owned every room he entered. Confident. Almost arrogant. Show me."

I stood up and tried to copy the swagger Ethan had perfected. The way he'd throw his shoulders back, the slight smirk, the eye contact that said he wasn't afraid of anything.

"Not bad," Freya admitted. "But you're still thinking like prey. Omegas are trained from birth to make themselves smaller. You need to take up space. Command attention. Try again."

We practiced for an hour. Walking, talking, sitting. Every gesture had to be Ethan's. Every facial expression had to project Alpha confidence I didn't feel.

"What about Dominic Blackwell?" I finally asked. "Ethan said he might help me."

Freya's expression darkened. "Dominic Blackwell is dangerous. His family controls half of Britain's supernatural territory. He's brilliant, ruthless, and very good at reading people."

"But Ethan trusted him."

"Ethan trusted him. That doesn't mean you should." Freya pulled up a photo on her computer. The same cold, handsome face from Ethan's Instagram. Storm-gray eyes that seemed to look through the camera. "Dominic was the last person to see your brother alive. They were investigating together. Then Ethan disappeared and Dominic suddenly stopped asking questions."

My stomach dropped. "You think Dominic killed him?"

"I think Dominic knows what happened. Whether he caused it or witnessed it, I don't know. But he's keeping secrets." Freya closed the laptop. "He'll be your roommate. Ethan's room was never reassigned because officially, Ethan's just on medical leave. You'll be living with the one person most likely to recognize you're not who you claim to be."

"Then I'll have to be convincing."

Freya studied me for a long moment. "You really loved your brother, didn't you?"

"He was my other half. We shared everything—birthday, looks, even our scent. Losing him feels like losing part of my soul." My voice cracked. "I need to know what happened. I need to make them pay."

"Then get some sleep. We leave for Scotland at dawn." Freya handed me a blanket. "And Elena? Once you walk through those gates, you're committed. The Institute doesn't let people leave. Not alive, anyway."

I curled up on the couch, but I couldn't sleep. I kept thinking about Ethan's message. Trust no one. DV knows everything.

DV. Dominic Blackwell. The only person Ethan trusted at Ashwood.

The person who might have killed him.

My phone buzzed one last time. Unknown sender again. But this message made my blood run cold:

Welcome home, Ethan. Your roommate has been waiting for you. He has so many questions about where you've been.

- D.B.

Dominic Blackwell knew I was coming.

And he knew I wasn't Ethan.