Chapter 18
Nicole’s POV
The signing was scheduled for ten in the morning.
At nine forty-five I was in the observation room, which was a generous name for what was essentially a small side office with a monitor feed and a locked door.
The camera covered the full meeting room – the long table, the chairs, the window that let in good morning light. Marlon was already seated at the head of the table with the contracts in front of him and a glass of water he hadn’t touched.
I had my earpiece in, the twins were with Amber. I had my new platinum hair and my green contacts and my mask and I was sitting very still watching a monitor, which was exactly where I needed to be.
They arrived at ten.
Tracy Caesar came in first, which was habit and hierarchy – she had spent years entering rooms first. She looked older than I remembered. The neurological deterioration had changed her face in ways that went beyond age, a certain looseness around her expression, a slight delay in her reactions. She was still well dressed and still tried to carry herself like a Luna.
Sophia was behind her, in a cream dress with her hair perfectly arranged and her expression carrying the quality of someone who had decided this environment was beneath them but was graciously tolerating it anyway.
Lily was beside her. Of course she was. Lily Hayes went where proximity to power took her, and right now that meant standing half a step behind Sophia in a meeting room she had no formal reason to be in, wearing the same expression she had worn in school hallways.
She looked around the room the way she always had. Checking who was present and what their rank was.
Her eyes moved across the camera in the corner without pausing.
She didn’t know I was watching.
Tate came in last in a dark suit. He said something quiet to Jonathan at the door and then moved to the table and
sat.
Marlon began. He was good at this. He had the contracts distributed and the terms outlined in clear, measured language before Tracy had settled properly into her chair, and he moved through each clause with the confidence of someone who had prepared thoroughly and expected to be challenged.
Tracy stopped him at page two.
“This clause,” she said, tapping it with one finger. “The principal investigator. She won’t be managing my case directly.”
“Dr. Carter manages all cases through the research team,” Marlon said. “This applies equally to every participant. It protects the integrity of the protocol.”
“I’m not every participant,” Tracy said. “I’m a Luna,”
“You were a Luna,” Marlon said, mildly. “Here you’re a trial participant, the terms are the same.”
Tracy’s expression tightened. I watched her jaw set. Tate, beside her, said quietly, “Mother.”
ed him “I’ve heard things about this Dr. Carter,” she said. “About how she achieved her position, the
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rumors are not flattering.”
The room was very quiet.
Diana Ashford, who had been sitting at the far end of the table, set down her pen.
“I’ve heard those rumors as well,” Diana said. “I also read Dr. Carter’s published methodology, her peer review results, and her three independent verification reports. I came here because of what I read, not what I heard.” She looked at Tracy with the direct, unhurried attention of one former Luna to another. “The work speaks for itself, the rumors don’t.”
Parkville, seated in his wheelchair to Marlon’s left, made a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh. “I trained Dr. Carter,” he said, simply. “I have trained researchers for years. She is the best I have ever seen. Anyone who suggests otherwise is welcome to review her publication record.”
Tracy said nothing as Tate was looking at the table.
Sophia, who had no standing in this room and had apparently decided that didn’t matter, leaned slightly forward.” It does seem unusual,” she said, “that the lead researcher won’t appear in person. If the work is so exceptional.”
“Dr. Carter’s schedule is her own to manage,” Marlon said. “Her methodology doesn’t require her physical presence at every session. Her team does.”
I had been watching the monitor with my hands flat on my knees.
Marlon’s voice came through the earpiece, quiet and dry. “Say the word and I revoke her eligibility.”
I looked at Tracy on the screen, the tightness in her face. The slight confusion that moved behind her eyes when Diana spoke, when she couldn’t quite track the conversation fast enough to respond in the way she would have once responded. The deterioration was visible if you knew what you were looking for.
“Don’t revoke anything,” I said into the earpiece.
Marlon’s expression didn’t change.
“This project will succeed,” I said quietly, to myself. “I’m not going to let one person’s bad manners be the reason it doesn’t.”
Later on I watched Tracy sign the contract.
She did it with her chin lifted and her expression set in the careful dignity of someone who had lost an argument and was not going to acknowledge it. Sophia signed as her secondary contact. Tate signed as guarantor.
Diana signed then Parkville signed last, he looked up at the camera before he put pen to paper. He smiled, small and steady, and signed.
Marlon collected the documents and said the preliminary scans would be scheduled within the week. He thanked them for their time and showed them out.
When the room was empty I pulled out my earpiece, set it on the table, and pressed both hands flat on my knees.
The trial was the beginning.
Tracy Caesar was going to be in this building, at regular intervals, receiving treatment from my team, for the foreseeable future. Sophia Lane and Lily Hayes were apparently attached to her. Tate was somewhere in this same building right now, completely unaware that the principal investigator of the project he had been lobbying for months was sitting feet away watching him on a monitor.
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I had been doing harder things than this for years, I reminded myself.
I stood up, straightened my coat, and went out.
Tate’s POV
The contracts were signed and I told myself the hard part was done.
I found them in the residential lounge – Tracy already seated with her tea, Sophia beside her, and Lily, which I hadn’t expected. She had her youngest on her lap.
“You could have warned me,” Lily said, the moment she saw me as she shifted the child on her lap. “Jonathan has been completely unreachable since you arrived, our son’s birthday is next month and he barely knows what cake the boy wants. I had to bring myself here just to find him.”
“He’s working,” I said.
“He’s always working.” She bounced the child once. “I didn’t come all this way to sit in a corridor, Tate.”
“Listen to me,” I said, and kept my voice even enough that all three of them understood it was directed at all three of them. “This is not our pack territory. The institute has its own rules and its own authority and while we are here we follow both without exception.” I looked at each of them in turn. “Tracy’s place in this trial is the most valuable thing any of us have walked through that door with today. I will not have it jeopardized by carelessness, entitlement. Are we clear?”
Tracy set her tea down as Sophia looked at the window. Lily adjusted the child on her lap and said nothing, which from Lily was the closest thing to agreement I was likely to get.
I pulled her aside before she could settle back into the sofa. “Jonathan is not here in any ordinary capacity,” I said, low enough that Tracy couldn’t follow it. “He’s running a quiet investigation — Dr. Carter, the full project team, the institute’s backing. I want to know who she is before my mother is months into a treatment built on her work. “I held her gaze. “So let him work and don’t mention it outside this room.”
Lily’s expression moved from aggrieved to interested. “You think something’s wrong?”
“I think I don’t know enough,” I said. “That’s sufficient reason.’
I returned to the room before she could pull the thread any further.
Tracy was watching me when I turned around. “No one has explained to me,” she said, “why the head of this project has not seen fit to introduce herself to her own participants, not once. Not a single appearance.” She set her cup down. “What kind of lead researcher hides from the people she is supposed to be treating? It is unprofessional. It is borderline incompetent and it tells you everything about whether this project is as exceptional as everyone claims.”
“Enough,” I said.
Tracy looked at me.
“Do not repeat those words outside this room.” I kept my voice low but I didn’t soften it. “Being part of this trial is a privilege, it is not something we are owed and it is not something that will survive us behaving as though it is. ” I looked at her directly. “I am tired, Tracy. I am tired of replacing doctors and staff because of your attitude. I am tired of managing the damage after you have decided that everyone around you is beneath your standard. That ends here. While we are in this building you will conduct yourself accordingly.”
Tracy’s expression tightened as a muscle moved in her jaw. She looked at me for a long moment with the particular look she had given me since childhood when she wanted me to know she had not finished with a subject
even if she was temporarily setting it down.
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“That’s because they are all useless,” she said, and her voice had the sharp edge of someone who had been holding that back and had decided she was done holding it. “Every last one of them. None of them know how to do anything properly. Not the way Nicole did.”
Tracy seemed to register what she’d said a half second after she said it. She pressed her lips together and looked at
I kept my expression neutral, and after a moment she looked away first.
Sophia filled the silence as she looked at me. “Have you found anything on Dr. Carter yet? You seem unusually interested in her, for due diligence.”
“I’m thorough about anything that concerns this pack,” I said.
“Of course. It’s only that it seems – personal. Somehow.”
I turned and looked at her directly. “Don’t.”
She held the look for a moment as I kept my voice low enough that only she could follow what came next. “And stop trying to use the Council to pressure me into choosing the next Luna. You’ve been overstepping for months and I’m finished pretending I haven’t noticed.”
The color left her face, she opened her mouth and I was already turning back to the room.
“Tracy. You and Sophia should get settled in the inpatient department, the preliminary scan schedule will be sent to your room this evening. I want you to rest before it begins.”
Tracy looked like she wanted to say something else but didn’t.
“Lily.” I looked at her. “Find Jonathan, that’s why you came.”
Lily stood, shifted the child to her hip and left without argument, which told me she understood the conversation
was over.
I checked my watch. “I have a meeting,” I said, to no one in particular, and walked out.
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