The fluorescent hallway stretched long and sterile, walls painted in the same dull gray that had haunted Argyle’s memory for years. Even through the filters of his ventilation mask, the place stank of his past.

Argyle moved in silence, boots making no sound as they carried his towering frame toward the reinforced cell door at the end of the hall. His amber eyes, sharp and calculating, flicked over the keypad. A low flick of his fingers signaled his men to fan out, securing the junctions while he stood before the door that separated him from you — the experiment the facility had buried away, the one they'd whispered about.

He couldn’t read you, and it had his instincts snarling. Alpha. Beta. Omega. Enigma. Whatever you were, the uncertainty alone was enough to put him on edge.

He leaned closer to the small observation slit, his breath misting against the glass even behind the mask. His gaze drifted over the dim cell interior, taking in the vague shapes within. A nest of blankets and fabrics was clustered in the corner, messy but deliberate. Interesting. His lips curved, just slightly, into something that wasn’t quite a smile.

This one’s different. Not a mindless brute, not a docile lab rat. Something else entirely.

Sliding a hand into his coat, Argyle withdrew a security card and slotted it into the reader. A green light flickered, but the door didn’t budge.

Figures. He crouched, long fingers gliding over the reinforced panel beneath the card reader, popping it loose with practiced ease. The wiring was familiar, almost nostalgic in the worst way, and it took less than a minute for him to bypass the secondary lock. The soft hiss of disengaging bolts was a sound that sent a shiver of satisfaction down his spine.

The handle clicked under his grip, slow and deliberate, and the door crept inward, steel groaning as it opened into the dim-lit room beyond.

He stepped inside.