"My traits are the same as everyone else's…" I said, acting confused. The cold pressed deeper into my back and spine, making me want to close my eyes. My fingers tightened around the crystal bracelet, but I resisted flaring it to life just yet.

"I asked you a question, and I expect a complete answer," she said in a frozen, detached voice.

This time, I didn't have a clue how she wanted me to answer. I'd already said my traits were the same as everyone else's.

She pointed at me with a long black cylinder with a faint blue light on its tip.

[Shock baton.]

Before I could put two and two together, she continued.

"When I ask a question, I expect a complete answer." She tsked at me, then pointed the cylinder at me with a strange detachment.

It crackled as it touched my skin, making my body spasm. A scream ripped up my throat, but I gritted my teeth together, stopping it from ripping out of my throat.

Everything went white, almost like I wasn't even in the laboratory anymore. My fingers tightened, and the buzz of the crystal band grounded me as pain wracked my body.

Then it stopped.

It took seconds for the white hot pain to leave my body, before my thoughts returned.

This wasn't my mother, this was a monster.

The pain pushed back the cold, and I felt awake, more awake than before.

Catherine didn't look away from me, and the strange glasses that covered her eyes were the first thing I saw again. She smiled as she set the baton down and picked her tablet back up.

"Now, let's have a civilized conversation, shall we?" She leaned back in her chair in the white lab coat, and a memory flickered to the surface. Again, she wore the coat, but asked me to sort blocks into piles, her cold blue eyes watching me as the timer ticked.

Then it vanished, and the cold returned from the table under me, making me shiver.

"What are your traits?"

My mind raced as I tried to understand what she was asking. It needed to be a complete answer, not that I'd give her the truth.

"Survivability and Adaptability," I grunted, then frowned, deciding to add the negative trait as well, even though most didn't group it in when discussing traits. "Plus Hangry…"

While I didn't want to get shocked again, no matter what, she wasn't going to get the truth from me. My willpower flared in response, filling me with the resolve to do what was necessary to get out of this situation.

I wished I had tried to sneak out, or at least attacked her when I came out of the storage room. She'd just mentally thrown me. Even with my father's warning about her, this situation was almost impossible to believe, and I was actively living it.

Her eyes narrowed, but she typed for several moments on the tablet in her lap.

I didn't flinch.

"Hmmm…" She twisted around in her seat and started frantically typing. Bright white charts came up on the screen as she made notes.

"Did the system correct the mutations I introduced?" she asked quietly.

I ignored her, even though I wanted to see what the screen said. The cold from the table increased, and I knew I needed to get out of here. I tried not to let anything change as I sent energy into the bracelet gripped in my left hand. Warmth flowed into my skin, feeling amazing as the cold receded.

I rubbed the burning crystal along the metal strap holding me at the waist, trying to get it to soften. I increased the heat, as it wasn't warming up fast enough. Pain blossomed as the metal melted and dripped along my fingertips, but I ignored the burning.

[You have earned a stat point in Willpower.]

I let the buzz of the crystal go out as a gap finally formed in the metal. The metal rapidly cooled as I pressed the burnt sections of my hand to the cold table.

It will heal. Just let it heal.

I let out a shallow breath to steady myself. The remaining strap went across my chest, but I needed time before doing that again.

"Tell me about your Shadowstalker class, Alex," she asked, devoid of emotion. She glanced over her shoulder at me. "I want to know your abilities and skills as well, but first, what is your class description?"

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"No." I kept it short and sweet. I hadn't even told Lenna all of the things about my class, and she knew more than anyone but Noseen.

Catherine? Not a fucking chance.

She turned back to face me fully, her lips pressed into a thin line. "Such defiance. A pity."

I glared and didn't respond. All I needed were a few more minutes to get the chest strap off without her looking at me. My left hand already hung down below the table, ready to go. My fingers had healed enough to bend and flex. Now, I just needed her to turn her back for long enough.

"If you aren't willing to give me the answers I want, then I can dig them out, but that's a little more damaging." She tapped a few sections of her screen while shaking her head. "A conversation is a much better experience, but alas, you are your father's daughter as well."

My father was worth so much more than her, but I resisted saying anything else. I knew it wouldn't help, and that it wouldn't phase this monster in front of me.

Catherine typed a few more things on the screen. Then, before I could react, she spun about and stabbed a scapelinto my shoulder.

A gasp escaped my lips, and I kept my left hand hidden from view, yet the pain wasn't bad. The blade was very sharp and only went in an inch or so. The pain couldn't compare to some of the wounds I'd gotten while fighting, or even the melted metal on my fingers.

[An OFFENDER has been detected in your area with a bounty. You have been given a temporary boost to stats and abilities.]

[Catherine, Genetics Specialist, Level 99, Prey, Unknown, OFFENDER.]

The notification threw me. Why was she now an offender? The shock baton hadn't triggered it, but the scalpel did?

"Look what you made me do." She shook her head as she yanked the blade out of my shoulder, staring at the blood. "Maybe now you'll be truthful with me."

I ignored her, as the stab wound would heal on its own, though slowly. Some food would be good and speed up all of my healing. The cold from beneath me increased again, and sank deeper into my body. It had to be intentional. I was running out of time.

She took the knife over to the workstation and grabbed a bottle of liquid. "I bet my tests will show all sorts of interesting things."

I didn't want her running tests on my blood. Who knew what'd show up, or what they'd do with it?

With her distracted and her back facing me, I yanked my hand up and melted through the band connected to the slab holding my chest. This time I was careful to not get any of the metal on my bare skin.

A beeping sound came from the other room, and her head jerked up.

I yanked my hand back down, trying to look like I wasn't up to trouble.

"What the…" Her face twisted into a grimace promising retribution, but not in my direction. "Now you're making me forget the other projects I'm in the middle of."

She rushed out of the laboratory toward the beeping, which came from the room with the Compy still strapped to the table. The door slid open and stayed that way.

I bent both metal straps away from my body and wobbled to my feet. The sluggish feeling dissipated quickly as I quietly stumbled away from the table. Each step lessened the strange cold, and the draining feeling it has caused.

The blood-covered scalpel rested on the workstation, and I made my way over to it, snagging it into my inventory. The weird lines on the screen flashed twice, then shifted into English as I watched.

Test subject number 143. Scans submitted. Add DNA sample.

Building clone profile.

What the fuck? Cloning?

No, just no.

I snatched my knife off my belt and rushed through the doorway, not thinking about what I had to do. I pushed everything into my speed and stealth. Silently, I sprinted across the metal floor, somehow not stepping in any of the dried blood.

Catherine spun about just as I reached her, a needle in one hand. My knife slammed off center into her chest, flaring red. The movement jerked the strange glasses loose, and they crashed to the floor, revealing bright red eyes.

"Alex…" she whispered, "you should have aimed for my heart."

Her fingers wrapped around my wrist, digging in like claws. Her nails lengthened, tearing into my skin, but I didn't flinch. My blood dripped from her claws as she dug into my wrist to try to pull the blade out.

"You underestimated me." My dreadful aura flared into existence, and she froze. I flooded the knife with burning hot energy, as much as I could shove, removing my aura projection.

A single sound escaped her as she jerked once more, with her talons digging in deeper, but I didn't let go.

The burning smell made my eyes water. I kept pumping more and more energy into the knife. Then it came.

Finally, it came.

[You have earned bonus experience for defeating a level 99, Genetics Specialist, Catherine.]

I ignored the rest of the notifications, since she was for sure dead. A sigh escaped my lips as I stumbled back, trying not to breathe through my nose.

Her body crumbled to the ground, barely making a sound as it hit the metal floor.

One second was all it took to get my wits about me. I crouched down next to her and quickly started patting her pockets, but didn't find anything. I wiped my blood drips off the floor, ignoring the rumble in my stomach.

A numb feeling trickled through me, and I stepped away from the carcass. I stopped myself from processing what had happened. Yet, my thoughts kept circling.

My mother was dead. I'd killed her. She'd tortured me.

How the fuck would I tell my family? Should I?

I needed to get out of here. Kabi and Lenna waited for me outside the camp.

Taking a shuddering breath, I twisted back to her laboratory. Three steps away from the carcass, and it crumbled into dust, like I'd completely incinerated her from the inside out, yet I hadn't. Still, only a pile of dust sat in the dried blood on the metal floor.

It hit me. Only Forgers did that.

The red eyes flashed inside my mind, along with the fact that the system had shown as unknown next to how she'd taste. Had she even been human anymore?

Claws and red eyes.

How was that possible?

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