Lahat ng Kabanata ng THE LAST SHIFT: A Werewolf without a Wolf : Kabanata 61 - Kabanata 70

Echo stood at the tunnel entrance like a ghost in the snow.Something was wrong with her posture. She appeared too straight, too still, like she was waiting for orders.Then I saw her eyes.They weren't brown anymore. They burned silver."No," I breathed.Kieran stepped in front of me, blades drawn. "That's not her."Subject 13 raised his rifle. "She's gone. He's taken her."But I couldn't move. Couldn't breathe.Echo's mouth opened. Subject One's voice came out."Kaia," he said through her lips. "You brought her back. I perfected her."My fists clenched. "Let her go. She's not your puppet."Her head tilted mechanically. The smile that followed was too calm, too cold."She invited me in," the voice said. "She wanted to be more. I showed her how.""She wanted to be free!" I shouted, stepping past Kieran. "You're twisting her pain."Echo took a step closer. Her silver eyes flickered for just a second. A blink of hesitation."I know you can hear me," I whispered. "Echo, you asked for hel

The Vault door slammed shut behind us, but the sound wasn’t loud. It sounded final, like a breath taken and never exhaled. My palm still burned from the disk she gave me; a core key. One, she said, would unlock the Archive’s last firewall.Echo and I didn’t speak for a while. We climbed the stairwell back to the upper level, our boots tapping against metal, both of us breathing heavily from more than just the climb. What just happened below wasn’t something you could walk away from without leaving a part of yourself behind.“She’s not done,” Echo finally said. “You know that, right?”I nodded. “She woke smiling.”Echo’s footsteps slowed. “And the others down there. She’ll use them.”“I don’t think she sees it that way. She thinks she’s giving them purpose.”“She’s wrong.”We passed through the upper corridor of the cradle and emerged back into the main hall. The lights flickered—again. Another tremor rolled through the mountain like something massive was shifting its weight beneath us

The original me smiled. Not a normal smile. The kind that cuts through air like a blade.Then she charged straight at me.Heat from the flames hit the side of my face, sharp and biting. I stumbled backward, boots scraping over broken tiles. The air was thick with smoke and charred wood, so strong it burned going down my throat."Kaia..." I started, but she didn't slow down.Her eyes glowed that weird gold color, brighter than any wolf's eyes I'd ever seen. Her hair whipped behind her as she jumped.I ducked, but she was too fast. Her hands slammed into my shoulders, shoving me into the wall so hard pain shot down my spine. My teeth clicked together."Why are you here?" she demanded. Her voice was mine, but deeper and meaner. It felt wrong, like hearing yourself in a nightmare where you're the bad guy. "You don't belong in this life.""I didn't choose this!" I shouted back, twisting under her grip. The wall behind me cracked from the impact. Fire flickered across her face, making her l

For a second, I forgot how to breathe.She shouldn't have been here. Shouldn't have been anywhere. My brain couldn't process it. Seeing her carved a hole straight through me, so deep I almost missed the thing crouched on top of her.Her face was paler than I remembered. Lips cracked, hair tangled and matted with dirt. Dried blood streaked across her jaw. But her eyes still had something sharp behind the fear, a spark that wouldn't die. Even that felt wrong, because last time I saw her, there hadn't been anything left to fight with.The thing on top of her growled low and deep. It vibrated through the frozen air and down my spine. Too big to be human, too wrong to be a wolf. Its back arched weird, shoulders rolling forward like it could barely hold its shape. Thick muscle shifted under patchy, mottled fur. Claws long enough to scratch dirt from where it stood. The stink of rot rolled off it in waves, sour and heavy, like the air around it was already rotting.Kieran's hand left my arm

It didn't charge right away. It just slid forward, like it was testing how close it could get before we snapped. Every step looked wrong, its limbs bent in ways they shouldn't, feet dragging, then jerking forward in sick bursts of speed.Kieran didn't move. His blade was up, steady, the tip pointing at its throat.My chest was tight, lungs pulling in air that felt too thick. I could hear my heartbeat over everything else. Even the forest had gone quiet. No rustling leaves, no owl calls. Just the sound of that thing breathing; wet, uneven, rattling like something was rotting inside it.The girl's fingers dug deeper into my wrist. "Kaia," she whispered, voice shaking, "don't let it look at you."I swallowed hard. "What happens if it does?"She shook her head, eyes locked on the creature. "You don't want to know."The thing tilted its head at her voice, and for a split second, those burning eyes flicked toward me. My stomach flipped, heat flooding my face like I'd been caught doing somet