——Morgue.
The morgue was cold and sterile. Six body bags lay on metal tables under harsh fluorescent light.
Elena stood at the far end, staring at the row of zippers. Her hands were clenched at her sides. Corillo's footsteps echoed across the tile floor. He stopped beside her and placed a hand on her shoulder.
"This isn't on you," he said quietly.
Elena kept her eyes fixed perfectly straight. "Six cops dead because of my decision."
"You made the call you had to make."
She finally turned, her eyes hard. "Tell that to their families."
Corillo sighed heavily, rubbing his face. "I need some air. I'll meet you upstairs."
He turned and walked out. The heavy metal door clicked shut.
Elena's face instantly dropped. The sorrow vanished, leaving a cold, blank slate.
She lifted her left wrist and checked her watch. 1:45 AM.
That was enough time.
Elena smoothed the front of her blazer, took a deep breath, and walked out of the morgue.
——Downtown Precinct. Interrogation Wing.
The hallway was dimly lit. As she approached Room 2, she heard the sharp smack of a hand striking a table, followed by a woman's muffled, terrified sobbing.
Elena stopped outside the door. "What the hell is going on in here?!" Elena yelled, her voice echoing down the hall.
Captain Harlan stood over the metal table, his sleeves rolled up. Mrs. Carter was handcuffed to the chair. Her lip was split, bleeding down her chin, and her eye was swelling shut.
Harlan turned, glaring at Elena. "Get out, Reyes. I'm having a conversation."
"You're committing assault!" Elena shoved Harlan away from the table. "She's a civilian! I'm reporting this to Internal Affairs!"
"Six cops are dead because of her kid!" Harlan's face was red. "That freak is hiding somewhere and she fucking knows where!"
"Get out." Elena stared at him. "Before I call my father."
Harlan looked at her with disgust. "Daddy's little princess." He grabbed his coat and walked out. The door slammed shut.
Elena immediately softened. She pulled some tissues from the dispenser, knelt beside Mrs. Carter, and gently wiped the blood from the woman's chin.
"I'm so sorry, Mrs. Carter," Elena whispered. "You're safe now. I won't let them hurt you again. But please... if you know anything about Daniel, you have to help me."
Mrs. Carter just cried, shaking her head.
Elena watched the woman cry for a moment, then stood up and brushed off her knees.
——
The squad room was tense. Phones rang constantly, detectives worked in grim silence, everyone focused on finding who had killed six of their own.
Elena walked to her desk. A few officers looked up as she passed, their eyes cold with barely contained anger.
Sitting on her blotter was a thin manila envelope. The stamp read: Forensics & DNA Analysis.
It was the organic fluid she had scraped off the surgical pillar at the warehouse two nights ago.
She ripped the flap open and pulled out the single sheet of paper. Her eyes skipped past the methodology paragraphs and went straight to the genetic breakdown results.
She frowned. The text didn't make sense.
Homo sapiens - Human (78% match)
Varanus komodoensis - Komodo Dragon (15% match)
Canis lupus - Gray Wolf (4% match)
Eptatretus stoutii - Pacific Hagfish (3% match)
Elena stared at the ink. She read the lines three times.
She picked up her desk phone and punched in the four-digit extension for the basement lab.
"O'Brien," a tired voice answered.
"Is this a joke?" Elena demanded, her fingers gripping the plastic receiver. "Six cops are dead in an alley, O'Brien. You think this is the time to fuck with me?"
"Excuse me?"
"Komodo dragon? Wolf? Hagfish?" Her voice was rising. "I gave you evidence from a multiple homicide, and you send me back a zoo inventory?"
The line went dead quiet for two seconds. When O'Brien spoke again, the exhaustion was gone, replaced by pure, defensive anger.
"Listen to me, Detective," the tech snapped. "I ran that sample three times. I burned through a thousand dollars of sequencing reagents because the machine kept throwing error codes. I thought you were fucking with me."
Elena stopped breathing. "What?"
"It wasn't mixed blood," O'Brien said. "Normal samples separate in the machine. This one didn't. It's like... like the human cells are being changed by something else. That's why it was so thick."
Elena looked down at the paper.
"I don't know what you found, Reyes. But whatever it is, it's not normal.
The line clicked. He hung up.
Elena slowly lowered the receiver. She looked at the report again. Then she looked up at the muted television across the bullpen, where the frozen, two bullet holes punched through the rubber rooster mask glared out from the paused dashcam footage.