Zara moved through the city like a storm. The text still burned on her shattered phone: WE HAVE YOUR FRIEND.
Her veins thrummed hot, silk twitching under her skin. Tammy's face flashed in her mind — scared, crying, begging for answers. Zara hated herself for leaving her in the dark. Now Tammy had been dragged into the web anyway.
The trail led to the edge of the old subway tunnels. Abandoned platforms, graffiti dripping from cracked walls, the air thick with mold and dust. Zara dropped silently into the darkness, every sense sharp.
A muffled scream echoed ahead. Tammy.
Zara sprinted forward, silk threads snapping her across the tunnels in bursts of teleportation. The hunger surged with every jump.
And then she saw him.
Reed.
He stood in the center of the tunnel, shirt ripped, skin stretched thin over jagged bones. His mouth curled into something between a grin and a snarl, his teeth too sharp to belong to a human anymore. His eyes glowed sickly, locked on Zara with obsession.
Tammy was webbed to the wall behind him, gagged and thrashing.
"Well, well," Reed drawled, his voice guttural, inhuman. "I knew you'd come running. Always playing the hero."
Zara's hands trembled, silk dripping from her palms. "Let her go."
Reed tilted his head, laughing low. "Why would I? She told me everything. How you lied. How you promised you wouldn't go near the lab. You broke your word, and now she's meat on the wall. Just like me."
Zara's blood went cold. Tammy's eyes widened in shame. She'd told him.
Reed stepped closer, his skin tearing as new limbs twitched beneath. "You think you're better than me? You and I are the same experiment, Zara. The only difference is… I stopped pretending I wasn't hungry."
He lunged.
Zara teleported, slamming her fist into his ribs, but his body absorbed the hit with a sickening crunch. He spun, claws tearing across her arm. Blood sprayed. She gasped, teleporting again to Tammy's side — but Reed was faster this time, his claws raking sparks off the concrete as he cut her path.
"You won't save her," he hissed. "Not tonight."
Zara attacked again, silk coiling his throat, but he tore through it like paper. He was stronger, hungrier, more monstrous than before. The fight was chaos — teleportation bursts, claws ripping through walls, Tammy's muffled cries echoing through the tunnel.
Zara slammed him into the ground, straddling his chest, silk digging into his mouth. "I should've finished you in the gym!"
Reed spat blood into her face and laughed, teeth dripping red. "You should have."
Before she could tighten her grip, a second set of claws ripped free from his back. They speared the ground, launching him upward. He ripped through her webbing, grabbed Tammy in one grotesque arm, and vanished into the darkness of the tunnels.
Zara stumbled to her feet, blood dripping from her wounds, chest heaving.
Her scream shook the tunnel. "REEEEEED!"
But he was gone.
Only the echo of his laughter remained.