Chapter 24
title: "Silver Sickness" wordCount: 2607
The thing wearing my mother's face moves like a spider, all wrong angles and too-fast jerks, and when it opens its mouth, the sound that comes out makes my wolf try to claw its way out of my silver-poisoned body.
I stumble backward. My shoulder hits the concrete wall and pain explodes through the joint but I cannot look away from those silver eyes, from the black claws that should not exist on human hands, from the way her lips peel back to show teeth that are too sharp, too many.
"Mom—"
She lunges.
Declan slams into her from the side. They go down in a tangle of limbs and snarling, and the sound she makes is neither human nor wolf but something caught between, something that should not exist. Her claws rake across his chest and blood blooms through his shirt in four parallel lines.
"The sedative!" He has her wrists pinned but she is thrashing with inhuman strength. "Sloane, the medical equipment—find a sedative!"
My feet move before my brain catches up. The metal cart near the hospital bed holds syringes and vials and I grab them with shaking hands, reading labels through tears I did not realize were falling. Lorazepam. Midazolam. Propofol.
Behind me, Declan grunts in pain.
I spin around with the propofol and a syringe. My mother has twisted in his grip and her teeth are inches from his throat. Her eyes are empty silver coins, no recognition, no humanity, just feral hunger.
"Hold her still."
"I am trying." His voice is strained. Blood drips from the claw marks on his chest onto the concrete floor.
I move closer. My hands are steady even though everything inside me is screaming. The syringe fills with white liquid and I approach from behind, looking for a vein in her arm, but she twists again and those black claws slash toward my face.
Declan catches her wrist. "Now, Sloane."
I drive the needle into her shoulder, straight through the hospital gown, and push the plunger. She shrieks—that horrible not-human sound—and then her body goes slack. Declan lowers her to the floor carefully, like she is made of glass, and we both sit there breathing hard.
"What is she?" My voice cracks. "What did he do to her?"
Declan touches his chest and his fingers come away red. "I do not know."
But the medical records might. I crawl to the clipboard he dropped earlier and start reading, really reading this time, past the dosage schedules and vital signs to the notes scribbled in margins.
Subject shows increased aggression after serum introduction. Cognitive function declining. Recommend increased silver dosage to maintain sedation.
Day 847: Subject's eyes have changed color. Phenomenon unexplained. Dr. Chen suggests we are witnessing a new form of lycanthropic mutation.
Day 1095: Three years of treatment. Subject no longer responds to verbal stimuli. Claws manifest in human form—unprecedented. Serum appears to be working but at significant cost to subject's mental state.
My stomach turns. I flip through more pages, looking for something that explains what the serum is, what Garrett was trying to create.
"Sloane." Declan is beside me now, his shirt pressed against his wounds. "What does it say?"
"He was experimenting on her." The words taste like ash. "Trying to create something. A serum derived from alpha blood and silver that would let him—"
I stop. Read the next page twice to make sure I am understanding correctly.
"Let him what?"
"Control other wolves' minds." I look up at him. "He was trying to make something that would force submission. Turn any wolf into a puppet."
Declan's face goes very still. "That is not possible."
"Yeah, no, apparently it is." I gesture at my mother's unconscious form. "She is the proof. Look at her eyes. Look at those claws. That is not natural silver sickness. That is something he made."
"But why keep her alive? Why not just—" He stops himself.
"Kill her?" I finish. "Because he needed a test subject. Someone whose disappearance would not raise questions because everyone already thought she was dead." My laugh is bitter. "Convenient, right? The whole pack dies except for one woman, and Garrett gets to play mad scientist in his basement for three years."
Declan reaches for my hand but I pull away. I cannot be touched right now. If someone touches me I will shatter into a thousand pieces and I need to stay whole long enough to figure out what to do next.
"We need to restrain her." His voice is gentle. "Before she wakes up."
"With what?"
He points to a cabinet in the corner. Inside are silver chains, the kind used for feral wolves in the old days before we had better methods. The kind that burn and scar and leave permanent damage.
"Not my circus." I stand up. "I am not putting those on her."
"Sloane—"
"I said no."
"Then what do you suggest?" He stands too, and there is blood seeping through his makeshift bandage. "She tried to kill you. She tried to kill me. When she wakes up, she will try again."
"She does not know who I am." The words come out broken. "She looked right at me and there was nothing there. No recognition. No—" My throat closes.
Declan moves toward the cabinet. "I will do it."
"Declan—"
"I will do it because you cannot." He pulls out the chains and they clink together with a sound like wind chimes. "And I will hate myself for it. But I will not let her hurt you again."
He wraps the chains around my mother's wrists and ankles with careful precision, making sure they are tight enough to hold but not tight enough to cut off circulation. Where the silver touches her skin, red welts rise immediately. She does not wake but she whimpers in her sleep, a sound so human and hurt that I have to turn away.
The medical files are extensive. Garrett kept meticulous records of every injection, every reaction, every failed attempt to perfect his serum. I read them all while Declan watches my mother's unconscious form, ready to inject more sedative if she stirs.
Day 234: Subject rejected serum batch 7. Convulsions lasted forty-three minutes. Heart stopped twice. Resuscitation successful but subject's healing factor appears compromised.
Day 456: Breakthrough. Serum batch 12 shows promise. Subject's wolf is suppressed but consciousness remains intact. However, subject has become non-verbal and exhibits signs of severe psychological trauma.
Day 678: Serum batch 15 is the closest we have come to success. Subject can shift partially—claws manifest in human form, eyes change color—but full transformation remains impossible due to silver content in bloodstream. Dr. Chen believes we are creating something new. Not wolf, not human. Something in between.
There are photographs clipped to some pages. My mother strapped to a table, her mouth open in a scream. My mother with silver eyes staring at nothing. My mother with black claws tearing through restraints.
I close the file before I vomit.
"He tortured her." My voice sounds distant, like it is coming from underwater. "For three years. He tortured her and called it research."
Declan does not respond. What is there to say?
"I thought finding her would fix something." The confession spills out before I can stop it. "I thought if she was alive, if I could just get to her, then maybe—" I stop. Start again. "But she does not even know who I am. She looked at me like I was prey."
"Sloane—"
"I do not know how to save her." My hands are shaking again. "I do not know if it is even possible. What if this is permanent? What if Garrett broke something that cannot be fixed?"
Declan crosses the room in three strides and pulls me against his chest. I resist for half a second and then I break, sobbing into his blood-stained shirt while he holds me like I am the one who might shatter.
"We find someone who knows," he says into my hair. "We do not give up."
"What if there is no one?"
"Then we figure it out ourselves." His arms tighten around me. "But we do not leave her here. And we do not let Garrett win."
I want to believe him. I want to believe there is a way to undo three years of torture and experimental serums and silver poisoning. But the medical files paint a pretty clear picture of what my mother has become, and none of it looks reversible.
A sound from the basement entrance makes us both freeze.
Footsteps on the stairs. Slow and deliberate.
Declan moves in front of me, his body a shield, and I realize he is unarmed and injured and we are trapped in a basement with an unconscious feral wolf and no way out except through whoever is coming down those stairs.
The footsteps stop.
"Well." Iris's voice echoes off the concrete walls. "This is worse than I thought."
She looks terrible. Dark circles under her eyes, her clothes rumpled like she has been wearing them for days, her hair pulled back in a messy knot. But she is here, carrying a leather medical bag that looks older than both of us combined.
"How did you find me?" I step around Declan, wiping my face with the back of my hand.
"Locator spell." Iris descends the last few stairs and surveys the basement with clinical detachment. "I cast it three months ago. After our fight. I wanted to make sure you were—" She stops when she sees my mother. "Oh, Sloane."
"You have been tracking me?"
"Yes." No apology in her voice. "And it is a good thing I did, because you are about to do something incredibly stupid without proper preparation."
Declan tenses. "Who are you?"
"Iris Nakamura. Witch, healer, and apparently the only person in this room with any sense." She sets her bag down and kneels beside my mother, examining the silver chains with a critical eye. "How long has she been exposed?"
"Three years." I hand her the medical file. "Garrett has been injecting her with silver nitrate every six hours. And something else. A serum made from alpha blood."
Iris flips through the pages, her expression darkening with each one. "This is silver sickness. Advanced stage. I have seen it twice before and both times the wolf died within weeks of symptom onset."
"But she is not dead."
"No." Iris looks up at me. "She is not. Which means either she is the strongest wolf I have ever encountered, or the alpha blood in that serum is keeping her alive." She stands, brushing dust off her knees. "Either way, this can be reversed."
Hope flares in my chest, painful and bright. "How?"
"Massive transfusion of alpha blood. Enough to flush the silver from her system and jumpstart her healing factor." Iris pulls a coil of rubber tubing from her bag. "It is dangerous for both the donor and recipient. The donor will be weakened for weeks, possibly months. The recipient might reject the transfusion and die anyway."
"Use mine." The words are out before she finishes speaking. "I am an alpha. Use my blood."
"Sloane—" Declan starts.
"No." I cut him off. "This is not a discussion. She is my mother. Use my blood."
Iris studies me for a long moment. "You understand what you are offering? This is not a pint or two. This is liters. Enough that you will barely be able to stand when we are finished. Enough that your wolf will be dormant for weeks while you recover."
"I understand."
"And if Garrett comes for you while you are weak?"
"Then he comes for me." I meet her eyes. "But I am not leaving her like this."
Iris nods slowly. "All right. But we need to move her somewhere safer first. This basement is—" She stops. Tilts her head. "Do you hear that?"
I listen. At first there is nothing, and then I catch it—a faint buzzing sound, rhythmic and insistent.
My phone. The one I stole from Garrett's office.
I pull it from my pocket and the screen shows an unknown number. My thumb hovers over the decline button.
"Answer it," Iris says. "He already knows we are here."
I swipe to accept and put it on speaker.
"Sloane Carrigan." Garrett's voice is warm, friendly, like we are old acquaintances catching up. "I see you have found my guest. I have been keeping her comfortable for you."
My free hand curls into a fist. "Comfortable."
"Well, as comfortable as possible given the circumstances." He sounds amused. "I assume you have read the medical files by now. Impressive work, is it not? Three years of research and I am very close to a breakthrough."
"You tortured her."
"I conducted necessary experiments." His tone does not change. "And I would have continued, but you have forced my hand. So let me make you an offer, Sloane Carrigan."
Declan moves closer, his expression murderous.
"Surrender yourself to me by dawn," Garrett continues, "and I will provide the antidote to the silver sickness. Your mother will be restored to full health and you have my word that she will be released unharmed."
"Your word means nothing."
"Perhaps." He pauses. "But consider the alternative. If you refuse, I will send my wolves to that basement. They will kill everyone inside—your mother, your witch friend, and that Thorne boy who has been sniffing around where he does not belong. And then I will find you anyway, but you will have three more deaths on your conscience."
My throat is tight. "You are bluffing."
"Am I?" The smile is audible in his voice. "Test me, Sloane. See what happens. You have until dawn to decide. I will be waiting at the Carrigan estate's north gate. Come alone, or everyone dies."
The line goes dead.
For a moment, no one speaks. Then Declan says, very quietly, "You are not seriously considering this."
"He will kill you." My voice is flat. "He will kill all of you if I do not go."
"So we run." Iris is already repacking her bag. "We take your mother and we disappear. I know places Garrett cannot reach."
"And how long do we run?" I look at her. "How long before he finds us? How long before more people die because I was too much of a coward to face him?"
"This is not about courage." Declan's hands are on my shoulders, forcing me to look at him. "This is about survival. If you surrender to him, he will kill you. Or worse—he will do to you what he did to her."
He is right. I know he is right. But the image of my mother's silver eyes, the sound of her inhuman snarling, the medical records documenting three years of torture—it all adds up to one inescapable truth.
I cannot let anyone else suffer because of me.
"We have until dawn," I say. "That gives us a few hours to figure something out."
Iris and Declan exchange a look that says they both know I am lying, that they both know I have already made my decision. But neither of them argues.
Iris kneels beside her medical bag again and pulls out a silver syringe filled with black liquid. The contents seem to move on their own, swirling like smoke trapped in glass.
"Before we begin the transfusion," she says, not looking at me, "you need to know—this will wake your alpha blood completely, and there is a reason your wolf has been keeping it suppressed."