“His name is Adrian Voss.”
Bruno didn't react immediately.
Then he nodded once.
“All right.”
That was it.
No question about why.
No surprise.
He simply turned toward the corridor.
“Come with me.”
Adrian hesitated.
“Where?”
“My office.”
Something about that sounded considerably more official than the rooms Bruno had taken him to so far.
Bruno seemed to notice.
“Computer.”
“Oh.”
Adrian followed.
His ankle was better.
Not good, exactly, but the wrap helped, and two days spent mostly unconscious had apparently accomplished something useful.
His ribs still hurt.
Everything else felt—
Adrian wasn't sure.
Rested wasn't the word.
His muscles felt heavy. His head felt strangely clear in places and completely hollow in others.
And he was hungry again.
Of course he was.
They passed the reception desk.
A man Adrian hadn't seen before sat behind it. Human, grey hair, glasses. He glanced up at them, gave Bruno a nod and returned to his screen.
Different shift.
Different people.
The building had continued existing while Adrian slept.
That shouldn't have felt strange.
It did.
Bruno's office was near the front of the building.
It was smaller than Adrian expected.
Desk.
Two chairs.
A cabinet.
A window overlooking the parking area.
A coat rack strong enough to support what appeared to be an enormous raincoat.
There were papers on the desk.
An actual stack of them.
Adrian looked at Bruno.
“You still use paper?”
Bruno lowered himself into his chair.
“Unfortunately.”
It creaked.
Adrian sat opposite him.
Bruno woke the terminal.
“Full name?”
Adrian's stomach tightened.
“You have it.”
“I have what you told me. I want to make sure I spell it correctly.”
“Oh.”
Adrian looked at the screen.
“Adrian Voss.”
Bruno typed.
“Age?”
Adrian hesitated.
“Thirty-eight.”
Bruno's fingers stopped.
Only for a fraction of a second.
Then they continued.
“Human?”
“Yes.”
“From Rovenmark?”
“No.”
“Where?”
“Calden.”
That earned another glance.
Not suspicion.
Attention.
“That's a long way from here.”
“I know.”
“How long has he been in Rovenmark?”
“I don't know.”
Bruno looked at him.
Adrian wished immediately that he had answered differently.
But there was no different answer.
Bruno turned back to the screen.
“Let's start with the name.”
He submitted the search.
Adrian's pulse climbed.
It was absurd.
This was a database.
He had spent most of his adult life interacting with databases.
They were not frightening.
Usually they were badly designed, mildly infuriating and maintained by someone who insisted a field couldn't be changed because three other systems depended on it.
This one terrified him.
Results appeared.
Bruno scanned them.
Then stopped.
Adrian knew before he said anything.
“We have one.”
Bruno opened the record.
The photograph appeared first.
Adrian forgot to breathe.
The man in the photograph had short dark hair.
Broad shoulders.
A face Adrian knew better than any other face in the world.
Nothing remarkable.
The picture wasn't particularly flattering.
Official photographs rarely were.
Adrian knew the man in the photograph immediately.
It still took him a second to think of him as himself.
He looked—
Large.
That was the first thought.
Not huge.
Not Bruno.
Just larger than Adrian remembered being.
The neck was thicker. The jaw broader. The shoulders occupied more of the frame.
Thirty-eight.
Human.
Male.
Adrian Voss.
Him.
Except Adrian looked down and found pale hands resting in his lap.
Smaller.
Narrower.
A strand of white hair had fallen across his sleeve.
His tail rested beside the chair.
Adrian looked back at the photograph.
Something cold moved through his stomach.
Bruno was reading.
“Thirty-eight. Human male.”
Adrian said nothing.
Bruno scrolled.
The word appeared near the top of the record.
MISSING.
Adrian stared at it.
There it was.
A fact.
Adrian Voss was missing.
Bruno leaned slightly closer to the screen.
“Reported twelve days ago.”
Adrian looked at him.
“What?”
“Missing-person report was filed twelve days ago.”
“No.”
Bruno looked back.
“Yes.”
“When was he last seen?”
Another scroll.
“Thirteen days ago.”
Adrian stared.
Thirteen.
He counted automatically.
Two days here.
The forest.
The facility.
The van.
There weren't enough days.
Not even close.
“That can't be right.”
Bruno looked at him.
“Why?”
Adrian realized what he'd said.
“I…”
He looked at the photograph.
Thirteen days.
His memory gave him the laboratory in fragments.
Waking restrained.
The procedures.
The chamber.
The alarm.
Escape.
There had been gaps.
He knew that.
Sedation.
Darkness.
But thirteen days?
Bruno watched him.
“Do you know when you saw him?”
Adrian's mouth went dry.
“Not exactly.”
Bruno studied him for another second, then returned to the record.
“Last confirmed at work. Failed to arrive the following morning. Employer contacted him. No response.”
Adrian closed his eyes briefly.
Work.
Of course.
Someone had noticed.
Bruno continued.
“Residence checked. No indication he'd returned.”
Adrian opened his eyes.
“Who reported him?”
Bruno stopped scrolling.
Adrian realized too late that the question had come out too quickly.
Bruno looked at him.
“His employer initiated the welfare check.”
Adrian waited.
“And?”
Bruno's expression changed slightly.
“Family subsequently filed the missing-person report.”
Something inside Adrian dropped.
Family.
He looked at the screen.
His mother knew.
His father.
Mara.
They knew he was gone.
For thirteen days, they had known.
The dream returned with vicious clarity.
Where is my son?
Adrian looked away.
Bruno didn't speak for a while.
Eventually Adrian forced himself to look back.
“Is there anything else?”
“Yes.”
Bruno read.
“No activity on his personal accounts after disappearance. No confirmed travel records. No portal crossings registered under his identity.”
Adrian almost laughed.
Of course not.
“Vehicle?”
Bruno glanced at him again.
Adrian's heart skipped.
Too much.
He was asking too much.
But Bruno answered.
“Located near his workplace.”
Adrian nodded.
The van.
He remembered walking.
Pizza.
Home.
Then— Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
The magic surging through him.
Darkness.
His hands curled in his lap.
Thirteen days.
Someone had taken nearly two weeks from him.
Bruno leaned back.
The chair complained beneath him.
“Adrian.”
Adrian looked up.
The name hit him strangely.
For one stupid instant, he thought Bruno was addressing him.
Then he realized.
Bruno nodded toward the screen.
“How do you know him?”
There it was.
Adrian had known the question was coming.
Of course it was coming.
He had still managed not to prepare an answer.
“I…”
Bruno waited.
Adrian looked at the photograph.
He could say friend.
No.
Bruno would ask how.
Coworker.
Worse.
Relative.
Obviously impossible.
Someone he'd met once.
Then why the full name?
Why the age?
Why ask whether he was missing?
He could tell the truth.
Adrian looked down.
Pale hands.
White hair.
The edge of a tail beside the chair.
He imagined saying it.
That's me.
Bruno would look at the photograph.
Then at him.
Human man.
Young Aniel woman.
Thirty-eight.
No identification.
No records.
No evidence.
And Adrian had already told them he didn't know his own name.
His stomach twisted.
“I…”
Nothing followed.
Bruno's ears shifted slightly.
Adrian swallowed.
“I saw him.”
Silence.
Bruno stopped leaning back.
“Where?”
Adrian's heart beat faster.
He had to answer.
“In…”
He stopped.
Bruno waited.
Adrian could hear the clock on the wall.
The computer fan.
Someone walking in the corridor outside.
His own breathing.
“Where?”
Bruno's voice was still calm.
But different now.
Adrian looked at him.
“Where they kept me.”
Bruno became completely still.
Adrian saw the change immediately.
The gentleness didn't disappear.
Something else arrived beside it.
Focus.
“When?”
“I don't know.”
“Before you escaped?”
“Yes.”
“How long before?”
“I don't know.”
Bruno turned fully toward him.
“Was he alive?”
Adrian stared.
“What?”
“When you saw Adrian Voss. Was he alive?”
The question shouldn't have been difficult.
It was.
Was Adrian Voss alive?
Adrian looked at the photograph.
The man on the screen smiled faintly in the way people did when told they weren't supposed to smile for official photographs but didn't quite manage neutrality.
Adrian remembered that face in mirrors.
Shaving it.
Watching it age.
Seeing his father's features gradually appear around the eyes.
Was he alive?
“Yes.”
Bruno leaned forward.
“Are you sure?”
Adrian's throat tightened.
“He was then.”
Bruno watched him.
Adrian realized immediately that it had been the wrong answer.
Not because it was false.
Because of how it sounded.
“What does that mean?”
“I don't know.”
“You just said he was alive when you saw him.”
“Yes.”
“And then?”
“I don't know.”
“Did you see something happen to him?”
“No.”
“Did you see him again?”
Adrian's thoughts tangled.
“Yes.”
Bruno's expression sharpened.
Adrian froze.
Fuck.
Technically yes.
The reflection.
The chamber.
His own—
“When?”
“I…”
Bruno waited.
Adrian shook his head.
“I don't know.”
Bruno exhaled slowly through his nose.
For the first time since Adrian had met him, patience visibly cost him something.
“Was he being held in the same place you were?”
“Yes.”
“Was he restrained?”
Adrian remembered metal around his wrists.
“Yes.”
“In the same room?”
“No.”
That at least was easy.
“Did you speak to him?”
Adrian hesitated.
“No.”
“Did he see you?”
The question was so absurd Adrian nearly laughed.
It wouldn't come.
“I don't know.”
Bruno stared at him.
Adrian stared back.
The silence stretched.
Then Bruno pushed away from the desk slightly.
“I need you to help me here.”
Adrian looked down.
“I am.”
“No.”
The word wasn't harsh.
It was simply firm.
Adrian looked up again.
Bruno's enormous hands rested on the desk.
Claws visible.
Still.
“I know you don't want to talk about what happened to you.”
Adrian said nothing.
“And I'm not asking you to tell me everything.”
Bruno glanced at the photograph.
“But this man has been missing for thirteen days.”
“I know.”
“His family is looking for him.”
Adrian flinched.
Bruno saw it.
He continued anyway.
“If he was being held where you were, there is a chance he is still there.”
Adrian's stomach turned.
“There isn't.”
Bruno went still.
Adrian realized what he'd said.
“Why?”
“I—”
“How do you know that?”
“I don't.”
“You just said there isn't.”
“I meant…”
Adrian stopped.
There was no end to that sentence that helped.
Bruno's voice remained quiet.
“Did you see him die?”
“No.”
“Did someone tell you he was dead?”
“No.”
“Then why do you think he isn't there?”
Because I'm here.
Adrian pressed his lips together.
Bruno waited.
Seconds passed.
Adrian looked toward the window.
A car moved through the parking lot.
Someone crossed toward the entrance carrying a paper bag.
Normal life.
Inside the office, a missing man sat on a computer screen while the same missing man tried to convince a bear that he had seen himself in captivity.
This was insane.
“I don't know,” Adrian said.
Bruno leaned back.
This time the chair's protest sounded louder.
He rubbed one hand across the side of his muzzle.
Adrian had the distinct impression that Bruno was choosing his next words carefully.
“When you were found, we didn't push you for details because you were injured, exhausted and frightened.”
Adrian looked at him.
“That hasn't changed.”
“No.”
Bruno's voice softened slightly.
“But something else has.”
He turned the screen enough that Adrian could see the photograph clearly.
“This.”
Adrian looked at his old face.
“If Adrian Voss was being held in that facility, then this isn't only about what happened to you anymore.”
Adrian's ears lowered.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
That irritated him.
“Yes.”
Bruno watched him.
Adrian's irritation disappeared almost immediately.
Somewhere in Bruno's understanding of the world, there were now two victims.
The young Aniel woman sitting opposite him.
And Adrian Voss.
One had escaped.
One had not.
Adrian rubbed his palms against his trousers.
“What happens now?”
Bruno didn't answer immediately.
“I report this.”
“To who?”
“Regional investigation. Missing persons. Depending on what they find, probably law enforcement and our crossworld incidents unit.”
Adrian's stomach tightened.
“They'll search?”
“If we can give them somewhere to search.”
“I don't know where it was.”
“We know where you were found.”
“That was after I ran.”
“How long?”
“I don't know.”
“Direction?”
“I don't know.”
“Anything you remember can help.”
Adrian looked at him.
“Trees.”
Bruno waited.
“A lot of trees.”
One corner of Bruno's mouth moved.
Adrian stared at him.
“That wasn't a joke.”
“I know.”
For the first time that morning, something almost normal passed between them.
Then it was gone.
Bruno turned back to the computer.
“We have the forest worker's location. We know roughly where he found you. We can start there.”
Adrian thought of the road.
The truck.
The walk he barely remembered.
The facility hidden somewhere behind him.
“What if it's gone?”
Bruno looked at him.
“Then it's gone.”
“And if they moved everything?”
“Then we look for what they left.”
Adrian looked at the photograph again.
“What happens to him?”
Bruno misunderstood.
“To Adrian Voss?”
Adrian nodded.
“He remains missing until we find him or establish what happened to him.”
The words settled heavily.
Remains missing.
Adrian stared at himself.
At the old himself.
He wondered what his mother had given the authorities.
That photograph?
Another one?
Had Mara helped?
Had Jonas been called?
Had someone gone through his apartment?
Opened his refrigerator?
Seen the frozen pizza he never got to eat?
The thought nearly broke something in him for reasons he couldn't explain.
“Can I…”
He stopped.
Bruno waited.
“Can I see who the family contact is?”
Bruno's expression changed.
There.
Too far.
Adrian knew it before Bruno spoke.
“Why?”
Adrian looked at the screen.
“I just…”
He couldn't say because that's my mother.
“I wanted to know.”
Bruno studied him.
“Do you know his family?”
Adrian's pulse climbed again.
“No.”
The lie came too quickly.
Bruno noticed.
Of course he noticed.
But he didn't challenge it immediately.
Instead he asked:
“Did Adrian tell you about them?”
Adrian grabbed the offered explanation.
“Yes.”
“What did he tell you?”
Fuck.
Adrian's mind went blank.
Bruno's gaze remained on him.
Not cruel.
Not accusing.
Simply waiting.
Adrian looked down.
“That they were looking for him.”
Bruno frowned slightly.
“He knew?”
“I don't know.”
“You just said—”
“I know what I said.”
The words came sharper than Adrian intended.
Bruno stopped.
Adrian closed his eyes.
“Sorry.”
“You don't need to apologize.”
“Yes, apparently I do.”
Bruno was quiet.
Adrian rubbed his forehead.
His ears felt hot.
“I can't…”
He stopped.
Bruno waited.
Adrian tried again.
“I can't do this.”
Something in Bruno's posture changed.
The professional pressure eased.
Not completely.
Enough.
“All right.”
Adrian opened his eyes.
Bruno turned the screen away.
The photograph disappeared from view.
Adrian hated how much relief that gave him.
“We stop here.”
“But you said—”
“I have enough to report that Adrian Voss may have been held at the same location.”
Adrian's stomach sank.
Bruno continued.
“If investigators need more, they can ask later.”
“They'll want to talk to me.”
“Probably.”
Adrian looked toward the door.
“Do I have to?”
“Not today.”
That wasn't an answer.
Adrian suspected Bruno knew it.
But he accepted it.
Bruno typed something.
Adrian watched his hands move over the keyboard.
Huge fingers.
Dark claws.
Careful movements.
A report was being created.
A real report.
Adrian Voss had been seen alive.
In captivity.
No.
Adrian frowned.
“When was I found?”
Bruno stopped typing.
“Two days ago.”
“No. Date.”
Bruno told him.
Adrian calculated.
His stomach dropped.
He had been taken thirteen days ago.
He had escaped roughly three days ago.
Ten days.
Nearly ten days between the van and the forest.
He remembered nowhere near ten days.
“What?”
Bruno was watching him.
Adrian looked at the screen.
“I was trying to work something out.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
That, at least, was true.
Bruno resumed typing.
Adrian sat quietly.
He should have felt relieved.
His family was alive.
They were looking for him.
People cared that he was gone.
Instead he felt worse.
Because Adrian Voss wasn't merely something inside his head anymore.
He existed in databases.
In reports.
In photographs.
In the lives of people waiting for him to come home.
And now, because of a sentence Adrian had barely managed to say, other people were going to start looking too.
They would search the forest.
Maybe find the facility.
Maybe find blood.
Bodies.
Records.
Maybe nothing.
But they would be looking for a thirty-eight-year-old human man.
Adrian glanced down at himself.
Grey shirt.
Dark trousers.
Small pale hands.
White hair.
A tail curled beside the chair.
For the first time, the full absurdity of what he had done settled over him.
He had just become a witness in his own disappearance.
Bruno finished typing.
“I'll send this through.”
Adrian looked at him.
The cursor hovered over the confirmation.
For one brief second, Adrian considered stopping him.
Telling him everything.
Don't send it.
There is no second victim.
You're looking at him.
He imagined Bruno's face.
Nessa.
Questions.
Tests.
Police.
Doctors.
Scanners.
The laboratory all over again, except this time everyone would insist it was for his own good.
Maybe they would believe him.
That possibility frightened him almost as much as them not believing him.
Adrian said nothing.
Bruno pressed the key.
The report disappeared.
Sent.
Somewhere in the system, Adrian Voss had just acquired a new lead.
Adrian stared at the empty space where his photograph had been.
For thirteen days, people had been searching for him.
Now they finally had a witness.
Unfortunately, the witness was him.