Chapter Five

Zane soon stepped into the elevator.

He reached for the panel and pressed a sequence of numbers to the floor he was headed. The soft chime of the elevator sealed him inside, and he exhaled slowly, letting his personality as Doctor Zane West settle back over him like a second skin.

A doctor should not look so pleased after restitching a patient without anesthesia.

So he wiped off every trace of his satisfaction from his face and molded himself back into the version of Zane West that everyone expected. The brilliant, unshakable intern surgeon scientist whom everyone already treated like a head consultant.

A few seconds later, the elevator doors opened to the Westcare surgical wing. Zane moved through the nurses and interns who greeted him, keeping his responses clipped and professional. 

After answering an intern who asked him about the reports of a Cardiac patient, Zane crossed into the research wing, which was filled with glass-walled labs and security cameras.

He didn’t stop walking until he reached a reinforced glass door marked ‘AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY’ Since he was above that clearance, it didn’t take much for him to be let into the private lab.

As he moved past rows of centrifuges, Zane’s mind drifted to the past. 

He had just been six months into his two-year internship at Westcare when a Zoned Alpha was wheeled in.

Alpha Rory of the Hill family.

 When he was shot with a zone tab during a pack fight, Alpha Rory had been stripped of his humanity. Becoming a feral wolf with pure animal instincts, he murdered almost half of his pack.

 It had taken weeks for them to finally restrain him, and since there was no cure for zoning at the time, his pack abandoned him at the WestCare research center in a sedated coma. Supervisor Consultant Dr. Sinclair tapped Zane for the team tasked with finding a cure to dezone Rory.

With nothing but myths and barely any documentation, Zane threw himself into finding a cure. Twelve months of failure, test tubes shattering, rats dying, and chemicals exploding right in his face. Until finally, Zane, out of the nine members of the team, found the missing formula.

He’d stood before this same containment chamber, syringe in hand, while staring at the Zoned Alpha strapped to a steel table. The guy, more of an animal, was unsedated that day, and he was thrashing insanely against the chains, his growls rattling the walls. Spit flew from his jaws, eyes glowing yellow. Zane had let his cold detachedness fall in place before sticking the needle into the guy’s neck, pushing the plunger, and stepping back.

For a long minute, there was nothing other than the Alpha snarling in full shift, frothing at the mouth, but then his growls choked off, and he began violently convulsing. It was the most violent convulsion in medical history that all the Beta techs and Alpha scientists in the room that day had held their breaths, convinced the Alpha would code red. They were all looking at Zane, whose eyes were bright with maddening excitement. Finally, the convulsion stopped, and slowly, the fur on the Alpha’s skin began receding. 

Skin replaced it, and for the first time in years since Alpha Rory had zoned, he shifted to human again. Every single wolf in the room began a round of applause, slapping Zane’s back and celebrating their success, when a sweet, thick scent, like ripe pineapple dripping with honey, filled the air. The celebratory noises died down, and everyone looked around in absolute confusion. There was no omega around in that lab, and only Omegas smelled like varieties of fruits. 

Confused but alarmed, Zane cautiously approached the ‘Alpha’ strapped to the bed, choking off a breath in wonderment as he realized that not only had the Alpha been dezoned, but he was somehow now an Omega.

After that, Zane ran a couple more tests and definitely concluded that the side effect of the new Dezone–Vita was a DNA reconstruction.

The findings were immediately sent to Robert West in the head hospital of WestCare, and the old man had been enthralled by the prospects of a drug capable of turning an Alpha, top of the food chain, into a weak, slick-producing Omega. One might have expected Robert West to begin research on how to turn the Alpha back from being an Omega, but away from the eyes and ears of the Dezone-Vita research team, he ordered Zane to secretly continue to study the substance in Dezone-Vita that may have caused the DNA reconstructions.

Zane knew such research should be illegal, or controversial at least, but seeing this as a chance to prove his worth to his grandfather, Robert West, he agreed.

 Zane is suddenly pulled from his journey down memory lane by the blinking light on a nearby chamber console. The soft beep was signaling that one of the test subjects had reached a data threshold. He stepped closer, narrowing his eyes as he scanned the tablet mounted on the glass box. The guinea pig inside was curled up in the corner, panting lightly. But its glands were visibly inflamed, and a faint slick sheen coated its bedding. It was unmistakably Omega discharge. Zane’s breath caught. “Designation inversion,” he whispered as his heart picked up pace.

Grabbing his leather research journal from the cabinet, he began scribbling down a series of notes. This was the first actual proof that Dezone-Vita’s molecular rewrite wasn’t just an anomaly with Rory; it was still replicable. Zane’s fingers were still moving over his journal when his hospital’s walkie-talkie vibrated violently in his coat pocket.

“The cardiac patient in Bay 6 is crashing. Supervisor Sinclair is offsite, and you are the only one cleared to take the lead.”

 Adrenaline zapped through Zane, and without a second thought, he bolted out of the lab, abandoning his research journal carelessly on the slab. He also forgot to secure the biometric locks to the lab as he hurried to the O.R.

Right as he stepped into the elevator, if he’d just glanced over his shoulder at one more time, he would have seen the blonde-haired nurse sneaking into the lab after him.

~***~

If Liam was the one who temporarily pulled the cardiac patient off life support, it wasn’t like anyone was ever going to know. Well, maybe just you. Anyway, now the opportunity presented itself, Liam quickly took advantage of it, sneaking into the lab and heading right for the workstation he’d seen Zane the one time he was cleared into the lab. 

He immediately noticed the open journal and, after going through some of its pages, Liam’s eyes widened in shock.

When Asher had ordered him to find out what Zane was researching, Liam never expected to stumble into a goldmine like this. What do you mean by a DNA and designation-altering drug?

Quickly, he fished out his phone to inform Asher of his findings.

“Zane is making a goddamn illegal bioweapon, I sent the details to your Ichat.” He said the second Asher picked up. “It’s a drug called Dezone-Vita. It was initially created to reverse zoning, but it also rewrites DNA. It turns Alphas into Omegas, Alpha Asher. Like actual glandular transformation. I think we should take this to the press.”

“No.” Asher’s voice was firm and quiet through the phone speaker. “I have a better idea.”