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Ella's shoulder hit the concrete wall hard enough to bruise. She pressed herself flat against it, trying to breathe quiet, trying not to move. Thirty feet down the corridor, two guards in Bureau gray dragged someone toward the elevator. The girl's head hung forward. Dark hair. Wrong build. Not Mia.
Ella's pulse hammered in her ears. She'd counted four cameras on the way in, disabled two, avoided one. The fourth was twenty feet ahead, bolted above the checkpoint door. The same door those guards just walked through.
She had maybe two minutes before the loop she'd rigged reset.
The Registry branding on her wrist throbbed under the bandage, a hot sick burn that hadn't stopped since yesterday. Eighteen hours marked. Twelve hours since Mia's last text. Six hours since that photo loaded on the encrypted server—Mia being hauled through a side door of this exact building, timestamp 02:47 this morning.
Ella pushed off the wall and moved.
The checkpoint door had a card reader. She pulled the RFID clone from her pocket—lifted off a drunk intern outside a bar three hours ago—and swiped. The light blinked red. She swiped again. Red.
"Shit."
"That's a Section-Seven intern badge," a voice said behind her. "Doesn't open detention-level doors."
Ella spun.
The man was tall, maybe mid-twenties, wearing a charcoal Bureau jacket with an investigator pin on the collar. Dark hair, sharp jaw, eyes like he hadn't slept in a week. He stood five feet back, hands loose at his sides, relaxed in the way people who know how to fight get relaxed.
"You lost?" he asked.
Ella's hand went to the knife in her boot. "Just looking for the bathroom."
"Detention-three sublevel." He tilted his head. "Bathrooms are upstairs."
"Guess I took a wrong turn."
"Guess you did." He didn't move. "Let me see your wrist."
Her stomach dropped. "What?"
"Your wrist. You're favoring it. Fresh mark, right? Let me see the registration brand."
She should run. She should stab him and run. She didn't move.
He stepped closer. Not threatening, just closing distance. When he got within arm's reach he stopped. "I'm not calling it in. Show me the mark."
Ella peeled back the bandage with her other hand. The brand glowed faint silver under the fluorescent lights—Registry ink, burned into the bone. The edges were still red and blistered. In the center, a crescent moon and a serial number.
His eyes flicked to it. Something crossed his face. Not surprise. Something colder.
"When?" he asked.
"Yesterday morning."
"You came here looking for someone."
It wasn't a question. Ella swallowed and didn't answer.
He reached out, fast, and gripped her wrist just above the brand. Not hard. Just enough to hold it up to the light. She hissed at the pressure and tried to jerk back. He didn't let go.
"You don't know what red means," he said quietly.
Ella froze. "What?"
He turned her wrist slightly. The Registry mark shimmered, and under the silver ink, another layer appeared—a thin red line tracing the edge of the crescent.
"They flagged you," he said. "See that? Red-marked. You've got seventy-two hours before they stop tracking and start collecting."
"Collecting?"
"Clearing the list." He let go of her wrist. "That's what detention-three is for. They don't process you. They disappear you."
The corridor felt like it tipped. Ella's mouth went dry. "My friend—"
"Mia Santos." He said the name like he'd been expecting it. "Flagged two weeks ago. Picked up this morning. She's three floors down."
Ella's heart slammed against her ribs. "How do you—"
"I work here." He tapped the investigator pin. "Senior investigator, enforcement wing. Cain Locke."
"You're one of them."
"Yeah." No apology in his voice. "I am."
She pulled the knife.
He looked at it, then at her, and didn't move. "You want to stab a Bureau investigator in a building full of enforcers, go ahead. Or you can put that away and listen for thirty seconds."
"Why the hell would I listen to you?"
"Because I'm the only one in this building who's going to tell you the truth." He met her eyes. "Mia's alive. For now. If you want to keep her that way, you need to leave. Right now."
"I'm not leaving without her."
"Then you're both dead." He said it flat, no drama. "You go down there, they'll flag you live, drag you into the same cell, and by the next full moon, you're both gone."
Ella's hand shook. She kept the knife up. "You're lying."
"I'm not."
"Why are you telling me this? You work for them."
"Yeah." His jaw tightened. "I do."
Something in the way he said it—like the words tasted wrong. Ella stared at him. At the badge. At the way he stood between her and the checkpoint door, blocking it, but not calling for backup.
"You're a wolf," she said.
His eyes narrowed. "What makes you think that?"
"You can see the red mark. Humans can't. It only shows under moonlight or to another wolf."
For a second, he didn't answer. Then he exhaled through his nose. "Smart."
"You're registered. And you work for them."
"I work inside them," he corrected. "There's a difference."
"Bullshit difference."
"Believe what you want." He glanced past her shoulder, toward the camera. "You've got ninety seconds before that loop resets. After that, every guard on this floor sees you."
Ella's pulse spiked. "I'm not leaving her."
"You don't have a choice."
"There's always a choice."
He stepped in close, too close, and his voice dropped. "Listen to me. If you go down there tonight, they'll kill you both. If you leave now, I can buy you time."
"Why would you do that?"
"Because I'm tired of cleaning up bodies." His eyes were cold and flat. "And because she told me someone would come for her. She said you wouldn't stop."
Ella's throat closed. "She said that?"
"Last thing she said before they locked her in."
Footsteps echoed from the far end of the corridor. Cain's head snapped toward the sound. He grabbed Ella's arm and yanked her toward a side door she hadn't seen—no camera, no card reader, just a manual release bar.
"Go," he said.
"Wait—"
He shoved the door open and pushed her through. She stumbled into a stairwell, dimly lit, concrete steps leading up. Before she could turn back, he pressed something into her hand—a folded piece of paper, small, sharp-edged.
"Don't go home," he said. "They'll be waiting."
"Where do I—"
The door slammed shut.
Ella stood in the stairwell, breathing hard, the paper crumpled in her fist. She could hear voices on the other side of the door. Cain's voice, smooth and bureaucratic: "False alarm. Camera glitch. I already checked the hall."
She didn't wait to hear the rest. She turned and ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time, her wrist screaming, the brand burning red beneath the skin.
At the top, she shoved through the exit into an alley. Rain had started to fall, cold and thin. She pressed herself against the wet brick and unfolded the paper.
Four words, written in quick slanted handwriting:
*East dock. Midnight. Alone.*
No signature. No explanation.
Ella stared at the note. The rain soaked through her jacket. Her phone buzzed in her pocket—three missed calls from her mom, two texts from her roommate asking where she was.
She couldn't go home. Cain said they'd be waiting.
She looked back at the Bureau building, dark and silent, rain streaming down its glass face. Somewhere inside, three floors down, Mia was locked in a cell.
And Cain—investigator, wolf, liar, or something else—had just let her walk out.
Ella shoved the note into her pocket and started walking.