The door lock released with a heavy metal clunk after Dr. Davis left, and two guards stepped in like the room belonged to them now that the white coats were gone.

Sera lifted her head, the corners of her mouth pulling into a dry curve. "Oh, good. And here was me thinking that we were done. I guess when Dr. Orhan says that we are finished for now, she is really just talking about herself," she drawled. "Apparently I’m just getting started."

Neither guard bothered with a smile or to waste their words replying.

One moved to the chair and unlatched the floor bracket that held her restraints; the other waited with fresh ties looped around his gloved fingers. Up close, their gear smelled like cold fabric and disinfectant, with a faint bite of gun oil beneath.

"The initial readings are done," the taller guard informed her, tone even and practiced, like he had used these words a hundred times on a hundred bodies. "Baseline confirmed. Now they need imaging and tissue samples."

"Fantastic," Sera murmured. "Wouldn’t want to throw off anyone’s precious schedule."

They tightened the cuffs at her wrists until they were snug, but not brutal, and lifted her to her feet with the clean, unhurried efficiency of people trained to move weight that might turn into trouble.

The taller one checked the strap at her spine, the shorter one checked the angle of her elbows, then they guided her into the corridor.

The hall breathed cold air that pretended to be fresh. Light washed the walls an exhausted white. Every ten feet a camera glowed with a pinprick LED, each lens angled to overlap the others so no dead corner remained.

Sera walked between the guards without dragging her feet. While her boots touched tile she counted: vents, cameras, doors.

She read labels without turning her head: I-2, I-4, LAB 3B, CRYO HOLD.

She marked the scuff where a stretcher had scraped new paint, the faint skid where rubber soles had slipped, the damp patch near a drain that had not dried all the way.

She felt the floor thrum where a heavy unit drew more current than the hall lights, and she filed that hum with the rest: power room, two doors past the red fire box.

They passed a plexiglass cell on the left.

It was empty. Another on the right. Also empty. The next three carried nothing but the clean reflection of her own movement.

There was no trace of Zubair’s broad shoulders or Alexei’s stubborn jaw or Lachlan’s bright, lazy grin or Elias’s patient frown.

That was both good news and terrible news all at the same time.

"Any chance you misplaced a wolf?" she asked lightly, without turning her head.

"The animal is stable," the shorter guard replied. "We are in a different wing from your holding cells."

"Of course," she returned, mouth soft with a smile that never reached her eyes. "Wouldn’t want him to make friends."

They turned a corner. The air shifted temperature by a thread. The hum deepened. A sign read DIAGNOSTIC IMAGING in block letters that tried too hard to be friendly.

The room waited behind a thick door with a wire-laced window. One guard swiped a card. The green light obliged with a tiny blink, and they walked her inside.

The space smelled like cold metal and paper masks.

A wide table of brushed steel sat under a half-ring of machines hung from the ceiling like the skeleton of some quiet animal.

Cables drooped in tidy loops. Red recording lights glowed without blinking. Behind a glass wall, two technicians leaned over a console crowded with graphs and clean lines.

They wore white coats that matched the walls. They did not look up.

Dr. Orhan stood at the far side with her clipboard at the angle Sera had already learned: comfortable enough to write for hours, rigid enough to keep the pen from wavering.

Dr. Davis stood two paces behind her, his hands folded, and his face composed into something that would not startle if a building fell.

"VO₂ max first," Dr. Orhan announced, pen poised. "Then high-resolution structural scans. Then endocrine panel. Tissue afterward."

"Copy," one of the technicians called from behind the glass. "Machine is warm. Calibration within range."

Sera climbed onto the table when the guards directed her, not because her obedience felt natural but because she just wanted to hurry up and get this over with. It wasn’t anything new to her, Dr. Orhan oversaw a lot of the experiments back in Country M.

She had learned early on that fighting just made you even more tired when they were cutting into you.

Straps crossed her forearms and thighs with a clinic’s careful snugness. Not tight enough to bruise, but still tight enough to pretend that bruises would be optional here.

"Breathe normally," a speaker ordered from the wall. "Mask coming on."

A clear mask descended on a thin arm and settled over her mouth and nose.

The plastic carried a faint citrus tang from whatever cleaner they had used last. Cool, dry air slipped through a valve with each inhale, and numbers began to dance on screens beyond the glass.

The first technician spoke in half-codes. "Baseline ventilation... heart rate stable... oxygen saturation high... starting graded increase."

The machine adjusted flow.

The mask resisted.

Her lungs worked a fraction harder and then fell into the new rhythm without complaint. The creature inside her went still and retreated until Sera could barely feel it inside of her.

"Breathe in through your nose," the speaker continued. "Exhale through your mouth into the mask."

"Do I get a prize if I pass?" Sera asked the ceiling.

No answer came from the wall. The numbers remained the same. The technicians whispered.

"Noted," Dr. Orhan murmured in disappointment, her pen moving on the clipboard. "The efficiency at step three fell below acceptable parameters. But still normal for human constitution."

"Were we really expecting something different?" the second tech muttered, look over at his co-worker beside him.

"Given what I have found out from Dr. Davis, we were expecting a much better outcome," Orhan countered without looking, and the pen moved again. "I guess Dr. Davis wasn’t being humble when he said that she was nothing more than a disappointment. Maybe imaging will figure out where he went wrong with his initial experiment."