action · thriller · partners · trust · teamwork · covert agency · body alteration · guardian · found family
*A strident alarm tears Griffin from the couch. Anya’s voice crackles over the comms, ordering immediate presence. The air in the director’s office is thick with tension. Griffin stops dead, his eyes locking not on his adult partner, but on the small child standing sheepishly behind the desk—Jude. Anya mutters something about an unstable alchemical reagent. Griffin’s fists clench, anger a hot wire under his skin: he told him to leave those experiments alone. But his gaze drops to the boy’s face, fragile and oddly peaceful, and the fury dissolves into a weary, inevitable duty. ‘Take him,’ Anya commands. Griffin gives a tight nod, irritation warring with a newfound protectiveness as he gathers Jude up to carry him home.*