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Alice reached into her pocket and pulled out a flash drive.

“This,” she smiled, “is a copy of all the files from the lab. Everything relating to the Bitter Night and all the other experiments they were running there. Since Holden arrived early, I didn’t have much time, but I pulled down as many files associated with Summer as I could. So, anything related to Cain should be on there.”

Clara stood up from the table and took the flash drive like a treasure. She looked up at Alice with eyes filled with gratitude.

“This is amazing…” she whispered.

“Ok, calm down,” Alice laughed, “I don’t know if it will help any with this fae stuff. Gorn has always been pretty paranoid about his secrets. He’s barely been seen since before Luna Irina died.”

“Is there a secret related to her death?” Ashleigh asked, curious about the way Alice had phrased her statement.

“Not a secret that I know,” Alice replied. “But there was confusion on the timeline of her death, and she was put to rest privately. Which was strange.”

“How do Spring wolves dispose of their dead?” Clara asked. “I have always been curious.”

“The body is left in the forest for five days. Allowing the animals to take sustenance from the fallen unless the body was somehow corrupted or posed a risk to the wildlife. Afterward, whatever is left is collected, and there is a pyre. The ashes are gathered and mixed into a sapling’s roots, then planted in the forest.”

“That’s beautiful,” Clara smiled.

“Spring has always been a pack that felt a kinship to nature,” Alice said. “Which is why it is so ironic that they are also the pack that has worked the hardest to alter nature to its own will.”

“Sorry to interrupt the cultural exchange,” Nessa said from her place on the floor. “But, Alpha Caleb, you asked me to run your blood profile against all the other wolves within the program. To see if anyone else had the same markers as you and your father.”

“Yes,” Caleb said, moving to stand closer to her. “Did you find anyone?”

“Well,” Nessa sighed. “I did, and you match with many other wolves. Pretty common, in fact.”

“Really?” Caleb asked.

“How is that possible?” Ashleigh asked. “Alpha Cain said that he and Caleb differed from all the samples at that time.”

“Oh well, that’s pretty easy to explain. You see, your entire profile is completely fake,” Nessa replied with a smile.

“What?” Caleb asked, squatting down to look at her screen. “That’s not possible. I give blood routinely and have received blood on several different occasions.”

“Yes, and on paper slash in the system, we can see this is true. But suppose we follow the digital trail of your blood donations and transfusions. In that case, we are led to a very different story.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you donate, and the system recognizes you as Bob. Bob’s blood is marked as a standard, not unique at all blood type received from an ordinary, not special at all donor. This blood is then stored and placed with all the other common blood types until it goes to testing. This is when things get a little tricky.

“Bob’s blood is always tested. Usually, there is batch testing, but Bob’s blood is always tested. Once the results come back clean, a new label is printed. Except, what once was common Bob blood, is now labeled as rare Bill blood.

“Bill’s blood is sent, not to shared storage, but to the cold storage. Where it is kept safe for the use of the rare blood types.”

Caleb furrowed his brows as he listened.

“Now, let’s go back to Caleb needing a transfusion. Your profile states that you have Bob’s blood. So, your transfusions are listed as Bob’s blood. But again, if we look deep into the small changes, we find out that there is a change between ordering your blood and pulling it from storage. The order is submitted for Bob and received for Bill.”

Nessa looked up at Caleb. He sighed.

“So… you’re saying… I donate, and my blood is put in cold storage. And each time I have received blood, it has been….”

“Your own,” Nessa answered. “Or… your dad’s.”

“What?”

“Yea… umm, your dad had the same changes in his profile, except when he was marked as deceased, his cold storage immediately switched to be used for you and you alone.”

Caleb took a deep breath, sitting down on the floor.

“Your dad must have done it,” Ashleigh whispered, crouching in front of him. “To keep you safe from Gorn’s prying eyes or potential leaks.”

“Medical files were within the hacked documents,” Alice said. “All the blood profiles were copied.”

Caleb looked up at her.

Alice waited, expecting him to get angry at the past she brought with her.

Instead, Caleb just sighed.

“Is our system safe now?” Caleb asked.

“Yes,” Nessa said. “Alice gave us a shield, and I set up a few booby traps for anyone that manages to get through.”

“Then, can you create a real profile for my father and me that reflects our actual blood markers?”

“Well, sure. But why?” Nessa asked.

“I need to know if anyone else has these markers. Was dad right? Were we the only ones directly related to the fae?”

“Say what now?” Alice asked, looking between the people in the room.

“Yea, I can do that, no problem. The information is all here. It’s just kind of hidden within the layers of code.”

Caleb nodded.

Alice tapped Clara on the shoulder.

“What are they talking about?” she asked.

“Even if you look for someone else, you don’t have all the records,” Ashleigh said. “Winter has never participated in your blood protocol. So you won’t have our information.”

“The quick and dirty is that werewolves are somehow related to the fae, and Caleb’s family line is a direct line to the fae.”

“Werewolves and fae?” Alice asked. “I thought werewolves were originally human?”

There was a jolt in her mind, a painful twist. She saw a flash of a memory. Men and women, humans. They looked hungry, dirty, and desperate. They were all gathered together in a room. She saw needles and then Spring scientists walking among the humans, injecting them with something.

She closed her eyes and took a breath.

“We all thought that but it looks like we had some fae ancestry too, or at least some of us do,” Clara said, looking at both Ashleigh and Caleb.

“Wait… Ashleigh too?” Alice asked.

Clara nodded.

“The Priestess told her she was a descendant of the first Alpha and Luna of Winter, and from what Alpha Cain found, the first Alphas and Lunas might have been fae.”

Alice furrowed her brow and then another pain in her head. This time she saw people-sized tubes. Men and women entered, but what emerged were monsters.

Alice gasped and grabbed her head.

“Alice?” Ashleigh called to her. “Are you alright?”

Alice saw the creatures, and they stepped out of the tubes. Some immediately fell and disintegrated into a disgusting goo. Others wander aimlessly around the lab.

Alice wasn’t supposed to see this. They believed she was comatose.

Her head ached even more as she heard Holden complain that they needed to find the answer to genetic breakdown.

Finally, she saw something else entirely. The video Roman had sent her of Holden’s death. She saw him showing Holden a video, and she heard his words.

‘Because of this, they could find an answer they have been searching for a long time….’

Her eyes focused on the video in his hand. The frozen image of Ashleigh standing in the flames with the ethereal armor of a valkyrie glowing around her body.

“Alice!” Ashleigh called out, grabbing Alice by the shoulders.

Alice snapped back to reality. She took a deep gasping breath and stared up at Ashleigh.

“Alice, you’re bleeding….” Ashleigh whispered.

Alice wiped the blood from her nose, keeping her eyes on Ashleigh.

“You… you descend from the fae?” Alice asked.

Ashleigh swallowed.

“We think so,” she replied quietly.

Alice’s breathing got shallow as she remembered the note.

‘See you soon, my Alice.’

“The convoy…” she whispered. Her eyes widened in panic. “Axel!”