Page 36 of Petrified

“He was waiting for it.” I keep staring at the date even after I say it, because some part of me still wants that to be the worst version of the truth.

Amand lowers his phone and looks across the rows of projected outcomes spread over Gerald’s desk. His expression stays hard as he shakes his head. “No. He planned for it.”

Chapter 11

LEVIATHAN

By the time we get back to Essence, I know enough that I don’t need to see Gerald’s files again. Rowan and Amand gave me the important parts on the drive over, and every mile made the pressure under my skin worse. Gerald has been predicting what my designation might do, choosing situations that could force those abilities out of me, and tracking what happens when Rowan and Amand are close enough to stabilize whatever changes.

The part that keeps circling back is Rowan. I can still feel the weight of his face between my hands and the way his breathing kept getting shallower while stone crawled into his chest. That memory has nothing to do with charts or projections or whatever clinical shit Gerald wrote after the fact. Rowan almost died because we took a case Gerald already believed could force my designation into something new.

Gerald is behind his desk when we walk into his office. He looks up from whatever he’s reading, takes in Rowan’s expression, Amand shutting the door behind us, and me standing in front of the desk instead of dropping into my usual chair. “I assume you found the files.”

I stare at him for a second. “That’s it? No pretending you don’t know what we’re talking about?”

“There would be little point.” Gerald closes the folder in front of him and sets it aside. “You have questions.”

“I have several, but we’re starting with whether you’re going to waste my time lying.” I plant both hands on the edge of his desk and lean toward him. “Did you give me the unicorn case because you thought exposure to them would force my designation to develop?”

“Yes.”

The answer lands harder because he doesn’t hesitate.

Rowan moves closer behind me while Amand stays near the door, cutting off the easiest exit without making a production out of it. Gerald notices both of them and still looks more interested in me.

“You came to our house with photographs of three dead shifters,” I say. “Every one of them had a perfectly round hole through the chest because someone had run a unicorn horn straight through them. You told me the shifted form carried different DNA than the human body, so ordinary tracing wasn’t getting you anywhere, and there was no obvious connection between the victims.”

“That was all true.”

“You also told me you wanted me because I could smell designations other investigators couldn’t.”

“That was true as well.”

I straighten and fold my arms. “You keep saying that like using true information makes the rest less fucked up.”

“It means the case wasn't fabricated for you.” Gerald’s tone stays calm. “Elias was killing people before Essence became involved. The victims existed independently of my interest in your designation. What I controlled was who took the assignment.”

There’s the distinction he thinks matters.

I remember standing over those bodies, trying to separate the unicorn signature from everything around it. I remember Gerald pushing me to identify what I could smell, how much I could isolate, whether I could reproduce it. Later, when I got close enough to the unicorns that scent alone wasn’t enough, my designation went farther. I didn’t just smell like something else. I could present as another shifter strongly enough to get inside their world until Elias figured out what I was, dosed the stable with ginger to interfere with me, and decided framing Silas and keeping me as some kind of prize sounded like a reasonable end to his evening.

“You knew full presentation was possible before I ever did it,” I say.

“I believed it was possible.”

“So you put me around a designation rare enough that I’d have to adapt if I wanted to keep up.”

“Yes.”

I drag one hand through my curls and look back at Gerald. “The unicorn case wasn’t the beginning, though.”

“No.”

“Ginny was.”

Gerald’s expression changes slightly. “Ginny made me aware that your abilities were developing outside any known Chameleon pattern.”

“That case had nothing to do with you.”