As they emerged in an empty entrance area, one of the hunters hurried off into a room at the other end of the hall. He returned less than a minute later pushing a large trolley that resembled the type you’d find at airports, except wider. The hunter parked the trolley in front of the creature before the two of them worked together to usher the beast onto it. It was too sluggish to put up a fight. It just stepped onto it, almost obediently, before its legs folded beneath it and it sat down.

Then the men continued across the room, heading toward a corridor at the other side of it. One of them pushed the trolley, while the other pulled out a phone from his coat pocket. He dialed a number.

“We’re back,” he said after a moment. “We’ll be in Room 98.”

He returned the phone to his pocket and the two of them continued winding along the corridor with the griffin until they reached a set of double doors, just before the entrance of a glass walkway.

The man who wasn’t pushing the trolley stamped his thumb against a screen, and the two doors slid open. They entered with the creature and stopped at the head of a long meeting table that ran down the center of the room. This looked like a boardroom similar to others that I’d passed through in the building where River was kept, except for one key difference. The walls of the other rooms had been mostly bare. But standing in this room, it was hard to spot even an inch of wall that wasn’t covered with sketches. Weird sketches that looked like they belonged in a fantasy art studio. All of them depicted what looked like grotesque hybrids, combinations of apparently some kind of Earth animal and at least one body part of a supernatural creature. The limbs of a bear with the face of a werewolf. The body of a tiger with the distinctive black talons of a Hawk. Gruesome mutations that I could not have concocted in my wildest dreams. Even thoughts of River got pushed to the back of my mind as I gaped around the room at the pictures.

The double doors drew open again. I turned to see a tall, slim man entering. It was Mark. Holding a phone in his right hand, he approached the trolley and gazed down at the griffin. He bent down—fearlessly close to it—and tugged at the creature’s neck, apparently allowing himself to get a better look at its face.

He stared at the griffin for several moments before nodding curtly and rising to his feet. He eyed the other two hunters. “Have you informed Evelyn yet?” he asked.

“Not yet,” one of the men replied. “I thought you might want to do that.”

Mark cleared his throat and punched a number into his phone. He raised it to his ear, but nobody picked up. “Her phone’s switched off,” he muttered. “I’ll go find her. In the meantime, wait here.”

“Yes, sir,” the men murmured.

With that, Mark marched out of the room.

Although I knew that five minutes had already passed, I was beyond tempted to follow him and find out who this Evelyn person was, and what on earth these hunters were playing at. But I forced myself to my senses. I don’t have time. Staying longer and trying to discover what they were doing would not help River. Not even if I managed to unravel everything about their activities. At least, not until I had someone from The Shade by my side.

I cast one last glance at the griffin before forcing myself to leave the room, although I was sure the scene I had just witnessed would haunt me long after I had left the facility.

River

That night, as I drifted off to sleep, I hoped that I would dream of Ben again. As disturbing as the previous dreams involving him had been… I missed him so much. I missed him more than I’d ever thought it possible to miss a person. I felt hollow thinking back over the weeks and months we’d spent together before getting separated. What I wouldn’t give to see him again…

But that night, he didn’t make an appearance in my subconscious. Instead, my sleep was hijacked by a nightmare. My experience from the previous day, being probed and examined by Jocelyn in the lab, morphed into an inescapable horror movie, starring me as the hapless victim. She and a crowd of other doctor-scientists in lab coats were gathered round me on an operating table, freely helping themselves to pieces of my body and stuffing them in plastic tubes like the one I’d filled with urine. They had not even bothered to give me a general anesthetic. I was conscious of every cut, every nip, every pull of my flesh…

I woke with a start, sitting bolt upright in bed. I found myself sweating and panting heavily. I swallowed hard, running my hands over my face.

It was just a dream. Just a dream. Granted, those words didn’t have the same effect on me that they would’ve done a week ago—before the inexplicably prophetic dream involving Ben predicting Jeramiah’s kidnapping of Ben’s parents and grandfather.

I glanced at the small digital clock on my bedside table. 3:07 AM.

Although the temperature in my cell was mild, I started to shiver. I was feeling cold again. Too cold. Nothing new, of course. Unbearable chills could creep into my bones even in the middle of a desert. Even after all the time I’d had to get used to the body of a half-blood, I still hadn’t been able to figure out a pattern for my coldness. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason for when the shivering came on—it just did, and all I could do was wrap myself up.

But even the blanket and the puffer jacket Beatrice had given me weren’t enough to provide sufficient warmth. I slid out of bed and entered the bathroom, where I ran myself a hot bath. Thankfully, this was effective. I continued topping up the tub with hot water every few minutes until the pain in my joints ebbed away to a more manageable level. I must have been soaking for about an hour before hoisting myself out and drying off. I changed into the same clothes I’d worn yesterday, since I hadn’t yet been provided with fresh ones.