Chapter 3

Ottilie's POV

"Hand over the phone!"

Before I could finish speaking, Davis lunged at me like a rabid attack dog, his massive hand swiping at the device in my palm.

Instinctively, I pivoted away, pressing the phone tight against my chest inside my coat. He missed, losing his balance and crashing heavily into the metal wall with a dull thud.

"What is wrong with you?!" I glared at him.

"Enough, Ottilie!"

Kieran stepped in, violently grabbing my left arm.

"I’m sick of your games," he snarled, leaning in to whisper near my ear. "If you want to die, fine. But you’re not taking my life’s work down with you. Go get that data. Now."

Fighting the agonizing grip that felt like it would shatter my bone, I met his murderous gaze and let a cold smile curl on my lips.

Using the momentum of his own grip, I twisted backward and forcefully yanked my arm free.

"Keep your temper in check, Kieran." I brushed off my wrinkled sleeve, my voice unnervingly steady. "I’ll get your data. You’d better wait right here with your little shadow. Don’t. Wander. Off."

As I turned toward the cold storage vault at the far end of the corridor, my hand slipped into the hidden seam of my lab coat.

My thumb brushed against a micro-recorder disguised as a pen. The phone had just been bait. I wasn't stupid enough to play my actual aces against a gang of sociopaths running illegal human trials.

The heavy vault door slid open, spewing a thick fog of dry ice.

Inside, a lone night-shift technician was playing a video game with noise-canceling headphones on.

I slammed my hand onto the steel handover desk, jolting him so hard his headphones slipped off.

"Jesus! You scared the hell out of me!" he cursed, jumping to his feet. "What do you want at 2 AM?!"

"Give me Pod 04's sample case." I leaned in over his bodycam, deliberately projecting my voice. "Listen clearly. It is exactly 2:17 AM. I am Researcher Ottilie. Kieran Holt and Medical Assistant Davis are waiting in the B3 hallway right now to receive this case. Process it."

I swiped my ID card aggressively and hauled the heavy silver case off the counter.

When I stepped out of the vault and returned to the un-monitored corridor... Kieran was gone.

The only people standing there were Davis and four heavily armed medical security guards who had seemingly popped out of thin air.

"Where's Kieran?" I stopped, slowly setting the case down at my feet. My eyes swept over the group.

The aggression had evaporated from Davis's face. In its place was a perfectly calibrated, sickeningly fake look of pity. He pressed his radio mic, ensuring the entire security channel could hear his performance.

"Ottilie, please calm down," he said, holding his hands up defensively as he stepped toward me. "What are you talking about? There's no one here. It’s just you. You’ve been talking to yourself for the past ten minutes."

I scoffed, stepping forward instead of retreating. "I’m asking you, where did the living, breathing man who was standing next to you go?"

"God..." Davis wiped his face theatrically, shouting into the radio with feigned heartbreak. "Dr. Krantz, prep the medical pod! She’s having an episode again. She was just swinging at thin air, and now she’s looking for her dead husband!"

The guards moved in formation, surrounding me. The team leader held a heavy sedative syringe in his right hand.

"Kieran died in the Stillwind Rift three years ago! We couldn't even recover a body!" Davis yelled louder, playing the part of a tragic hero trying to wake up a lunatic. "Snap out of it, Ottilie! You’re severely ill! We need to get you into isolation!"

In my previous life, it was this exact, devastatingly compassionate performance that branded me insane. They jabbed me with sedatives, dragged me to the Greycape facility, and slowly butchered me for science.

Staring at the approaching needle, watching the poorly hidden triumph dancing in Davis’s eyes, I—having already died once—felt absolutely nothing.

I didn't struggle as two massive guards pinned my arms behind my back.