“You’re sure you’re ready for this?” Miles asked as we pulled through the security gate in the fence which bordered the vast compound. We had looked it up online in the hopes of scoping out the surroundings, only the address didn’t register as a documented area. Not a surprise. If secret government testing took place here, they’d hardly advertise it on Google.

“I’m more than ready,” I assured him. “I’ve been ready to take some sort of action on this ever since the heartbeats faded.”

“I guess we did get distracted, didn’t we?”

“Some of us did,” I muttered, looking out the window so he wouldn’t see the scowl on my face.

“We all did, and stop acting like you weren’t as distracted as the rest. It was no joke, letting those girls into our lives.”

“That’s the truth. Yet we did it anyway, didn’t we? Was there ever a choice?”

He sighed. “We’ll never see eye-to-eye on it, I guess.”

“I guess.”

“If there are mates out there for those two, there’s a chance our mates exist as well.”

“Mating is the last thing on my mind at the moment,” I replied as the compound loomed up before us. “I’m a bit more concerned with this right now.”

He nodded. “Understood. Though I don’t think there’s ever been a time when mating wasn’t on my mind.”

“There’s mating, and there’s mating,” I chuckled.

It was good, it broke the tension. It meant our last moments together for no telling how long weren’t sour.

“I guess I’ll drop you off here.” He swung up in front of the south entrance, just like Mary had instructed.

We’d figured it would be best to have someone drive me instead of driving myself and leaving the car untended in the lot. It would never leave the lot until I did, which might raise questions among people who worked there. Even though I had the feeling people working in a facility such as this learned to not ask questions, there was no telling. It was better to be careful.

I pulled my suitcase from the back seat and turned to him. “Thank you for indulging me on this. You and all the others. Tell them I said so, would you?”

“Why couldn’t you tell them yourself, before we left?”

I grinned. “Yes. That would go over well. We’re all so good at expressing our emotions, aren’t we?”

He laughed. “You’re right. Okay. I’ll do your dirty work for you and express your thanks to the rest of the family.”

“You’re a helluva brother,” I grinned.

We shook hands, and he waited as I walked in through the glass doors, to the security desk just inside.

The engine roared as my brother pulled away. I hadn’t realized until right now that I would miss my family, the way Pierce had joked about missing me.

Except, they had the advantage: they had each other. I’d be on my own. I had never felt so alone in all my life.

The guard showed me the way to the lab which would be my home. I’d be a living lab experiment, and I had walked into the arrangement of my own free will. Better yet, I had been the catalyst for arranging it.

Sometimes I wondered if I didn’t need a hobby. Back home, hours away, this had seemed like a good idea. The only thing to do.

Walking down a bright, white hall lined with doors behind which people did who knew what was another story. I didn’t feel nearly as confident all on my own.

Grow up, I ordered myself as I walked into the room designated as mine. I found myself standing in a laboratory, full of machines I’d never know how to use.

Maybe if given another thousand years in which to learn about them, I thought with a grim smile.

There was a deeply eerie quality to my surroundings, brought on by loneliness. Equipment and a closed laptop sitting on a table along with a rack full of test tubes. What I recognized as a microscope—that much I knew. A waist-high refrigerator. And plenty I was sure I would never touch.

Was I supposed to sleep in this cold, clinical space? I remembered Mary telling me about a fingerprint sensor, how only I would be able to get into the room assigned to me after programming my unique fingerprint into the system.

I went to the only other door aside from the one I’d entered in and pressed my thumb against the pad beside it. If there were cameras in the room and anyone was watching me, they probably thought I was the world’s biggest ass.

But the door slid open, and beyond it was a bedroom I supposed was mine.

It looked comfortable, too. The bed was large, soft, covered in pillows and a thick blanket. A flat-screen TV covered much of the wall at the foot of the bed. There was a bathroom to the right, serviceable if not quite as large as the one I’d used for so long. None of it looked half as clinical as the lab, and I was grateful for that. Whoever had arranged my accommodations was thoughtful of my needs. A good sign.

I unpacked, placing jeans and tees in the small chest of drawers beneath the TV and stacking a handful of books on top.

My toiletries went in the bathroom. There were even thick, new towels stacked in a narrow linen closet.

But that was it. I had nothing but a TV to keep me company until the next day.

I settled in to find something to pass the time and hoped Monday morning came faster than normal.