Chapter 10 The Doctor's Web

Emma Stone - POV

I slam Dr. Kane's office door so hard the glass rattles in its frame. She doesn't even look up from her laptop, just keeps typing with those perfectly manicured fingers like I'm not standing here shaking with rage.

"You drugged Kai." My voice cracks on his name. The psychic bond thrums with his terror from across campus, mixed with Ryan's analytical worry and Cole's barely contained violence. Blake's calculating fury burns through the connection like acid.

Kane finally glances up. Her expression stays perfectly neutral, which only makes my anger spike higher. "Good morning, Emma. Please, sit down. We have much to discuss."

"I'm not sitting anywhere until you tell me what you've been doing to him." I grip the door handle behind me, ready to bolt. Something's wrong here—wronger than just the drugging. My precognition whispers warnings I can't decode.

"I've been protecting all of you." Kane closes her laptop with a deliberate click. "Including Kai, though I doubt he sees it that way right now."

"Protecting us from what?"

Instead of answering, she reaches into her desk drawer. My heart hammers as she pulls out a thick manila folder marked with official seals I don't recognize. Government seals.

"From them." She slides the folder across her mahogany desk.

Every instinct screams at me not to touch it, but I force my legs to carry me forward. My hands shake as I flip it open. The first page makes the world tilt sideways.

CLASSIFIED - DEPARTMENT OF SUPERNATURAL RESEARCH

SUBJECT: EMMA CATHERINE STONE

THREAT CLASSIFICATION: CLASS A

RECOMMENDATION: IMMEDIATE CONTAINMENT FOR VIVISECTION STUDY

The chair catches me as my knees give out. Black spots dance at the edges of my vision. "This isn't real."

"Keep reading."

I flip through pages of clinical reports that describe me like I'm some kind of weapon. Terms like "neural dissection" and "ability extraction protocols" blur together. My middle name is wrong on half the forms—they have me listed as Catherine instead of Claire—but somehow that small mistake makes everything else feel more terrifyingly real.

"How long?" The words scrape out of my throat.

"Since the night you touched that book in Thornfield Library. The psychic surge you created registered on monitoring equipment across three states." Kane's voice holds something that might be genuine concern, but I can't trust my judgment anymore. "They classified you as a potential weapon before you even knew what you were."

Surveillance photos spill from the folder. Me walking to class. Working late shifts. Sleeping in my dorm room with Jess curled up in the bed across from mine. The violation of it makes my stomach heave.

"The compound I gave Kai wasn't meant to exploit his abilities, Emma. It was camouflage." Kane pulls out another folder, this one stuffed with missing person reports. "Every time he paints a prophetic vision, it creates energy signatures they can track. The drug makes those signatures look like normal artistic inspiration instead of supernatural prediction."

Through the bond, I feel Kai's confusion shifting toward reluctant understanding. His synesthesia shows my emotions as jagged silver lightning streaking across his vision.

"Seventeen enhanced individuals have vanished in the past two years," Kane continues. "All college-aged. The official reports say they dropped out or transferred. The truth is they're in underground facilities where government scientists study their abilities by... dissecting them. While they're still alive."

The room spins. I grip the chair arms until my knuckles go white. "Why should I believe any of this?"

"Because according to this timeline, you should already be dead." Kane taps a specific page in the folder. "Federal extraction team was scheduled to take you during yesterday's session. The only reason you're still here is because I convinced my handlers you needed stabilization before transport."

The word 'handlers' hits me like ice water. "What are you?"

Kane's professional mask finally cracks, showing exhaustion and something that looks like fear. "I'm not just a graduate student, Emma. I'm deep cover for the Department of Supernatural Research. My mission was to monitor and deliver you to the extraction team."

The psychic bond explodes with the others' shock and fury as they feel my emotional state through the connection. Across campus, Cole's protective instincts surge into homicidal territory while Blake's mind races through escape scenarios. Ryan's clinical detachment shatters as medical knowledge tells him exactly what 'vivisection study' means. Kai's synesthesia turns my betrayal into screaming red fractals.

"But working with you changed everything," Kane says quickly. "You're not just powerful—you're evolving. Your abilities are growing beyond anything documented in government files. If they take you now, they'll destroy something unprecedented in their rush to understand it."

"So what's your solution?" I stand on unsteady legs, backing toward the door. "Keep lying to all of us? Keep drugging my friends?"

"I want to help you disappear. All five of you. But first, you need stabilization procedures to control your power growth. Without them, you'll either burn out completely or create a psychic explosion that levels half the campus."

Footsteps echo in the hallway outside. Through the bond, I feel Cole's deadly stillness that means he's positioning for an attack. Ryan's medical training catalogues Kane's vital points while Blake calculates the psychological pressure needed to break her. Kai's prophetic instincts scream danger in colors I can feel through his synesthesia.

Kane notices my distraction and glances toward the door. "They're coming for you. Your protectors. But Emma, listen carefully—the stabilization procedures will limit your abilities to manageable levels. You'll still be enhanced, but you won't be the walking nuclear bomb that keeps federal agents awake at night."

"And if I refuse?"

Her expression hardens back into government operative. "Then I make one phone call, and by midnight you'll be on an operating table while men in lab coats see how many pieces they can cut you into before your heart stops."

The door handle turns behind me. Cole's presence fills the corridor like approaching thunder. Through the bond, I feel his absolute certainty that Kane deserves to die and his willingness to make it happen.

Kane's hand moves toward her desk phone. "Choose now, Emma. Trust me and live with limitations, or trust them and watch everyone you care about die trying to protect you from forces they can't comprehend."

Her fingers hover over the keypad. In the hallway, Cole's footsteps go silent—the most dangerous sound of all. The stabilization procedures might save my life but steal the power that's become part of my identity. Refusing could doom not just me, but the four men whose lives are bound to mine.

"What exactly do these procedures involve?"

Kane's smile returns, cold and calculated as winter. "Surgery, Emma. Brain surgery. And there's no guarantee you'll still be... you... when we're finished.”