The group in bullet-proof armor closed in on Lyly and Randal, and Lyly moved.

She shoved O'Lane with a light tap to the chest and he stumbled back several steps, instinctively looking down to watch his footing and swinging an arm out to catch himself. He had been caught totally by surprise, felt defenseless as he registered the sounds of conflict around him – the hard thumps of bodies hitting the ground, the short grunts of air getting knocked out of someone's chest. 

The dry cracks of bones breaking.

No – he thought desperately as he stumbled – no one should have to die for this.

Yet, in the time it took for O'Lane to regain his footing, it had grown quiet in the garage.

He looked up, barely seconds after Lyly's shove, and saw her standing, legs wide, over a pile of armored bodies. 

"Why?"

Her voice was quiet and husky as she looked back at him over her shoulder. 

He stood frozen, hairs rising all over his body as he looked at her, wondered about the strange trick of the light that formed a pink halo around her eyes and silhouette of her face.  

With a dry swallow, he took a quick visual sweep across the carnage.

There was no blood. That was the first thing he noticed. His heart thumped quickly in his chest when he realized it, as he felt faint hope that someone, anyone, may have survived the encounter. But all he had to do was look at the angles of the bodies in the pile to know how false his hope was.

A body didn't need to bleed to die.

"Why?" she asked again, insistent as she turned fully to face him. He struggled to drag his eyes from the bodies behind her, looked at her more properly.

Her hands were clenched tightly at her side, her brows furrowed in an expression he had never seen from her before. And her hair was stretched out in a wide circle around her head, the pink tips almost glowing in the underground lighting.

She closed the distance between them in a few large strides – steps that, he realized, she had slowed down deliberately so that he could see them. With her forearm she pressed against his chest, smashing him back into the side of the SUV behind him. His ribs creaked in painful protest, and felt the car behind him tilt on its axles to adjust for the strength in the small body that had him pinned.

He met her eyes, responding to the furious question he found there with confusion.

"I heard you," she said, keeping eye contact despite the height difference. "You knew them."

"Lyly," he wheezed around the pressure and pain in his chest, "you have to understand, this—"

He was cut off by the sudden and intense sensation of an itch in his brain. Her gaze never wavered from his, she never touched him aside from the forearm pressing him against the side of the vehicle, but somehow he knew that she was there, inside his mind, as his memories of the last few days surfaced without his bidding.

He watched like a passenger as she dove through his mind, following the echoing path of the really bad idea like a bloodhound. It wasn't so much that he remembered these experiences as he relived them, felt again what he felt in the moment as she watched with absolute attention what had happened in the meeting room that day.

It was like being torn inside out as all his thoughts and emotions were laid bare under the flickering orange lights of the garage. He saw in his memories the face of the man who ordered this field test, and knew that she saw it too.

Lyly let out a low sound, enough to jar Randal back to the present moment. He started when he realized how close her face was to his, saw too that her hair had extended itself to wrap around his head. 

He could feel it, slithering around the base of his skull, crawling all along the contours of his face and neck.

His body went cold as for the first time he truly feared the creature he had been tasked to watch. 

As if she could feel his fear--no, she could definitely feel his fear, he realized--she suddenly backed away without warning, her hair slowly unwinding from around him as he slumped to the dirty concrete floor of the garage, his legs full of pins and needles and losing all strength once her arm no longer propped him up.

Before he could blink, she was crouched in front of the bodies again, unabashedly allowing her hair to feel along the contours of the armor as she pried off a helmet and pressed her forehead to the corpse's. 

Randal's stomach curdled as he watched the way the head of the corpse moved like a separate piece from the rest of the body, attached only by the untouched expanse of skin that now acted more like a body bag than a body.

She let out a sharp tsk as she threw the body from her and brought her hair back to her side.

It must be rather difficult to read the mind of a dead man, after all.

"What will you do now?" Randal asked, his face numb as he watched. He wondered how much longer the experimenters would hold off before intervening, or if they'd watch this little drama play out until the very end. 

His end, most likely. 

"I will stay," Lyly said, turning back to him, still in her crouch.

"Why?" it was his turn to ask.

She tilted her head as she looked at him. 

"I have lost my nest," she said slowly, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "I will make a new one." 

"A nest?"

"Yes. Here," she said, waving one arm expansively in the air.

But what was a nest? he continued to wonder blearily as the elevator dinged open and a man and a woman in business attire screamed at what they saw.

Part II

Theodore McComb had not been feeling like himself lately.

It was understandable, to a certain extent. He had gone through a traumatic experience, lost his home and his sense of security in the same fell swoop.

Heck – he had almost lost his life, if he remembered correctly. Although he wasn't too sure that he did. He rubbed his chest ruefully. 

He had been sleeping almost non-stop since the time he had found himself in his truck with his family on the way to Lincoln, and every time he awoke it was to unbearable hunger. To top it off, he felt how acutely that every moment he spent sleeping or eating became a moment he lost with his family, and they needed family more than ever at the moment.

After he ate today, he'd force himself to stay awake as long as he could to read to Cherry or to try to talk through options with his wife, he decided.

They couldn't stay here forever, he knew. And although he appreciated Agent O'Lane's frank admission to the long and unsuccessful pursuit of the group that had attacked his family, it did not inspire confidence that this ordeal would be over any time soon.

He had a farm to care for. Charlotte had school. Shaun, thankfully, was able to work remotely for the time being, but it wouldn't be long before she was sent on another consulting trip and either had to leave the relative safety of the agency's building or her job.

Theodore stared at his reflection in the foggy mirror of the bathroom in the apartment-style rooms that the agency had lent them. He was freshly showered, with a white towel wrapped around his waist, his chest exposed to the steamy air. 

There was nothing at all on that chest to suggest that he had been shot, twice, in the recent past.

Nothing, that is, except for the two strangely smooth patches of skin exactly where he remembered the searing pain of the bullets.

He had investigated these areas time and time again. The two sections – one, just below his heart, the other, in the center of his chest – were different from the rest of his body. Sure, he could feel the rough edges of his fingertips when he traced his hands over the new skin. But there was no hair, no texture to the strange smooth patches.

Rather, there was something indescribably alien to him about these parts of his body, and he didn't know what to do about it.

He shook his head, turning away from the mirror to shrug on a soft cotton t-shirt and some sweats, also on loan from the agency. A pang in his stomach told him it was time to eat, again, and he opened the door to the bathroom. A rush of steam followed him into the small living room the McCombs now shared.

Theodore didn't even blink at the sight that greeted him, of the collie with the long pink antennae that wrapped around his daughter's waist and bounced her in the air. Cherry's laughter punctuated the matter-of-fact tone of the news reporter that droned on the television behind her.

Curled up on the scratchy, small couch, Shaun greeted him with a smile. Next to her lay Ruff with her head on her lap, the four new appendages the dog now sported tucked in around her legs.

Yup, just a perfectly normal afternoon. 

Theodore moved to the couch, tapping Ruff lightly on the haunches. "May I sit next to my wife, please?" he asked with a half smile, and the collie huffed a sigh before sliding off of the cushions and padding over to go sit by the door.

Theodore sank down, stretching and arm out for Shaun to come cuddle. She sighed into his chest, wrapping an arm around his waist.

"How're you feeling?" she asked.

"Hungry," he said with a chuckle. "And tired."

"Do you want to see the doctor again?"

"They've looked me over three times now, keep saying they can't find anything unusual. Just fatigue from the scare we all had, I suppose."

She snorted. "The doctors here are under orders. I'm sure they're hiding something. We can go somewhere else - maybe to the city hospital, get a second opinion?"

"You saying there's something wrong with me?" he said in a teasing tone as he hugged her tightly. 

"I'm serious," she said, twisting around to look him in the eye. 

He knew she was. But he also knew that the agency had ample reason to try to keep the family under their watch for as long as possible. 

Frankly, he didn't know just how free they really were to leave the agency's building, and for now, he simply wasn't ready to open that can of worms.

A hard, sharp knock rapped against their door, and Theodore started.

"I'll get it," Shaun said, patting his stomach lightly as she rose to her feet. She made her way to the door, pausing to scratch Ruff on the forehead as she did so. The dog was standing at attention, pink appendages spread out across her back.

Like a threatened spider, Theodore thought with a snorted chuckle. 

Shaun opened the door widely, putting Ruff on full display. The person at the door - an early-fifties white man in a very nice suit - visibly blanched at the sight.

"Hello, can I help you?" Shaun asked, amusement lacing her worlds. Ruff tucked her head around Shaun's hip, sniffing at the man at the door. Theodore stretched his neck to see several other men, these ones in what looked like coveralls, behind the suit.

"Mrs. McComb?"

"Yes."

"I'm Martin Harper. I've recently taken over as supervisor of this case." He reached out a hand to shake, but Shaun hesitated.

"Agent O'Lane never mentioned you," she said wearily.

"He wouldn't have. My presence here is above his pay grade," he replied matter-of-factly.

Theodore couldn't see it, but he could hear the sour twist to his wife's lips in her reply. 

"What can I help you with, Mr. Harper?" she asked, words pleasant but voice flat. 

"Unfortunately, miss, we are going to need to take those...dogs of yours into custody," he said. "Not only are they valuable evidence for the case, but they are also clearly a danger to everyone here." 

Ruff peeked her nose out to try to sniff Martin's hand, and the man curled his upper lip as he jerked his arm away. 

"Oh," Shaun said with a tight, amused smile. "You really are new here."