They emerged like phantoms.
One by one, the girls stepped from their cages, blinking against the harsh overhead lights. Some walked upright. One crawled. Another clung to the bars even after the door opened, too afraid to move. Their bodies bore mismatched traces of humanity—wolf eyes, too-long limbs, scars where machinery had entered and been forced back out. Each of them bore a barcode tattooed beneath their collarbones.
E-02 through E-06.
Lana's stomach churned.
She held her arms slightly raised, open but not reaching. Her instincts screamed that even the gentlest gesture might be mistaken for a threat. She let them look at her.
Maris—the one who had spoken—stepped into the center of the room. Her half-wolf face was expressionless, but her eyes were calculating. She scanned the group, then turned to Lana.
"Some are broken," she said simply.
One of the girls had hunched shoulders and a nervous twitch. Another rocked slowly, mouthing words no one could hear.
Kieran stood behind Lana, silent.
"They don't follow instinct," he said. "They follow damage."
Lana didn't reply. She moved slowly to the side of one of the cages, where a girl—barefoot, trembling—stood watching her. The girl hissed once, then stopped. Lana extended her hand, palm up.
The girl didn't take it.
But she didn't run either.
She blinked.
And that was enough.
Lana turned to the group. "Do any of you remember your names?"
Maris said, "I do."
"Maris," Lana repeated. The word felt right.
"They didn't give us names," one of the others whispered. "Just injections."
Lana exhaled. Her throat tightened. "Then I'll give you names. For now. If that's alright."
No one objected.
She pointed gently. "You—you're Ember. Because of your eyes."
A red-eyed girl with curled fingers gave a weak nod.
She turned to the girl who hissed. "Silk. Because you moved like it."
The girl blinked once.
She motioned to the smallest, who still rocked. "Hollow."
The name made the room colder.
Kieran shifted.
Maris tilted her head. "You gave them names like a mother would."
"No," Lana said softly. "Like a sister."
Kieran finally spoke. "What do you plan to do with them now?"
Lana turned.
"What would you do?"
"Return them to cryostasis. Or destroy them."
The air thickened.
"They're not weapons," Lana said. "They're survivors."
"They're liabilities."
"Then so am I."
He stared at her for a long moment.
"If you want to keep them," he said slowly, "you're responsible for them. Their training. Their protection. Their... containment."
Lana nodded.
"Fine. Then let them follow me."
She turned back to the girls. Maris was already watching her with something that looked like respect.
Later, in the chamber set aside for decontamination, Lana and Maris sat across from each other. The others dozed or kept to themselves in corners of the repurposed lab.
Maris reached out, brushed her fingers against Lana's wrist.
The contact ignited something.
A shared memory.
They were children—glass between them. Crying. A doctor shouting. Evelyn screaming. Needles. Heat.
And then: separation.
Lana gasped.
Maris withdrew her hand. "You were taken out. I wasn't. They kept me here. I was the control."
"She tried to save us," Lana whispered. "My mother."
"She did. But too late."
A scream ripped through the space.
Lana ran.
Hollow was convulsing in the far corner, her arms bent backwards, bones cracking.
Ember cried out. Silk flinched. Maris didn't move.
Lana knelt beside Hollow. Her mouth frothed. Her eyes had gone black.
"She can't hold it," Maris said behind her. "It's too much. We weren't made to last."
Lana felt her own shift ripple beneath her skin.
Hollow thrashed. Claws tore the tile. Blood sprayed.
Lana didn't wait for it to escalate.
She struck.
Quick. Clean. One claw to the carotid.
Silence.
Blood pooled. Ember sobbed.
Maris stood. "You gave her peace."
Lana rose slowly.
"No. I gave her a choice she wasn't allowed to make."
She turned.
The remaining girls watched her.
Then, as one, they knelt.
And bowed.
Lana did not tell them to rise. She didn't say anything at all. The silence was its own answer.
Behind her, Kieran stood as still as a monument.
He looked at her not with admiration—but with unease.
Later that night, as the sisters slept in their new quarters—simple beds, dimmed lights, thick glass separating them from the rest of the building—Lana sat alone in the corridor, arms around her knees.
Jason approached quietly, holding a thermos of tea. "You look like you just crowned yourself queen."
Lana took it, but didn't smile.
"I didn't ask for this."
"They didn't kneel because you asked."
She sipped the tea. Lavender and bloodroot.
"They kneeled," Jason added gently, "because you didn't flinch. Even when you had to kill one of them."
Lana didn't answer.
But when Jason left, she remained sitting there. Eyes open. Listening to their breathing. Their heartbeats. Their lives.
At some point, without realizing, she started counting them.
One. Two. Three. Four.
And paused.
Five.
But she had killed one.
There should only be four.
Lana rose. Moved to the far end of the hallway. The lights flickered.
One of the beds was empty.
The scent of fur and metal filled the air.
Lana's claws slid out.
"Show yourself."
Nothing.
Then a whisper.
"Not all of us bow."
A shadow moved behind her.
Lana turned.
And saw the seventh.
She wasn't like the others.
Her limbs were proportionate. Her face nearly human. She wore a scavenged coat with the sleeves cut short. Her eyes burned red—not from genetics, but rage.
"You weren't supposed to be part of the story," she said.
Lana blinked. "What?"
The girl took a step closer. "Maris, Hollow, the rest? They were pieces of an algorithm. Failures. You were the variable. The wild one."
Lana held her ground. "Who are you?"
"The one who never broke. They thought I died in Cryo Block Two. I didn't."
A smile twitched across her lips, small and sharp. "They called me Specter."
Lana shifted her stance. "Why are you hiding now?"
"Because you freed them." Specter tilted her head. "And that means the game changes. I've been watching Kieran, Lysander, your little medbay tantrum. I've seen it all."
She stepped into full view. "Now it's my turn."
Specter lunged.
Lana caught her at the wrists. The impact drove her back into the corridor wall, cracking the plaster.
They grappled in silence—no snarls, no posturing. Just motion honed from survival.
Then Maris appeared behind them. She didn't speak. She didn't move.
But her presence shifted the energy.
Specter broke off first, landing catlike on the balls of her feet.
She smiled again.
"Careful, sister. You may be queen now. But this throne was always meant for a monster."
And she vanished into the vents.
Lana stood breathing hard, blood warm on her lip.
"What the hell was that?" she asked.
Maris stared at the vent.
"The one they couldn't break."
Jason returned an hour later with a medical scanner and silence. He patched Lana's shoulder without a word, just the occasional glance between the door and the ceiling. When he finally spoke, it was low.
"She got past every sensor. Every biometric lock. You know what that means, right?"
Lana nodded. "They made one of us... perfect."
Jason closed the med kit. "Or they made something else."
She didn't sleep. Not that night. Not the next.
The sisters grew restless again. Ember screamed in her dreams. Silk scratched new lines into the floor.
Lana began drawing maps of the vents.
And every so often, just beyond the cameras—
Something watched her.