The room was white.
Not the comforting white of clouds or cotton. The sterile white of the Architect facilities—the white of walls that had seen too much, the white of lights that never dimmed, the white of a space designed to hold things that weren't meant to leave.
Jenny Damber had been in this room for three days.
She'd counted. Of course she'd counted. Time was the only thing they'd given her, and she'd learned long ago that time was a gift, not a punishment. Three days of sitting on a thin mattress, staring at white walls, waiting for someone to remember she existed.
They'd given her white clothes to wear. A simple tunic and pants, soft against her skin, utterly impractical for anything but waiting. She'd worn them without complaint. Clothes were clothes. Blood washed out of white just as easily as anything else.
Three days.
She'd spent them thinking. Remembering. Planning.
Mostly, she'd spent them thinking about him.
Wolfen. Her baby boy. The one who'd gotten away.
She smiled at the memory—him, younger then, so young, with those golden eyes that hadn't yet learned to hide what they were feeling. She'd found him in the ruins of a city, alone and scared and trying so hard not to show it. She'd pretended to be lost too. Pretended to need a friend.
He'd believed her.
For months, they'd traveled together. She'd taught him things—how to fight, how to survive, how to tell the difference between prey and predator. He'd been a good student. Eager. Trusting.
And then he'd found the children.
She'd been so careful. So subtle. But he'd followed her one night, seen her with the little ones she'd been saving for later. The look on his face... she still dreamed about it sometimes. The betrayal. The horror. The dawning realization that his friend, his only friend in this broken world, was something else entirely.
He'd tried to kill her.
She touched her side, where his blade had found her. The scar was still there, a pale line against her skin. She'd kept it. A souvenir. A reminder.
He'd almost succeeded. Would have, if she hadn't been faster, smarter, hungrier. She'd escaped, barely, leaving him with the children and a wound that should have killed her.
But it hadn't. Nothing killed Jenny Damber. Not then. Not now.
And now—now—he was close again. The grey-masked ones had found him, tracked him, confirmed it. Her baby boy was somewhere out there, all grown up, probably still carrying that righteous anger, still trying to save people who didn't matter.
She couldn't wait to see him again.
The thought made her blush—actually blush, heat rising to her cheeks. What would he look like now? Older, obviously. Harder. Those golden eyes would have lost their softness, replaced by something colder. Something that matched what she'd tried to teach him all those years ago.
I made you, she thought. Even if you don't know it. Even if you hate me for it. I made you who you are.
The door slid open.
A grey mask stood there, his posture rigid, his voice flat through the modulator. "Follow me."
Jenny stood. Smoothed her white clothes. Smiled.
"Finally," she said. "I was starting to think you'd forgotten about me."
She followed him through corridors of white, past doors that led to rooms she couldn't see, past other grey masks who stepped aside as she passed. They were afraid of her. She could smell it—that particular sharpness in the air, that tension in their shoulders. It was delicious.
In the corridor, she saw another figure. A woman, bandaged from head to toe, her face twisted with a fury so pure it was almost beautiful. Their eyes met for just a moment, and Jenny knew.
Scylla. One of the twins. The one who'd escaped.
And the bandages, the fury, the barely contained violence—that was his work. Her baby boy had done this. Had hunted one of the Architects' deadliest weapons and left her broken, bleeding, alone.
Jenny's smile widened.
"He's grown up so much," she murmured, more to herself than anyone else.
The bandaged woman—Scylla—didn't respond. Just glared with those burning eyes, promising violence, promising revenge.
Jenny laughed. Soft. Pleased.
"I can't wait to meet him," she said, and there was something in her voice that made even the grey masks flinch.
---
They took her to a room. White, like everything else, but larger. A table dominated the center, surrounded by ten chairs. Ten people sat in those chairs—survivors, by the look of them. Scavengers. The kind of people who'd learned to live in the cracks of the broken world.
Their eyes tracked her as she entered. Fear. Suspicion. The particular wariness of prey that sensed a predator in their midst.
The Superior who'd escorted her spoke: "Apologies for the waiting. Food is ready."
Jenny turned to him, her smile warm, genuine. "Thank you."
She walked to the table. The survivors shifted, making room, not meeting her eyes. She sat among them, looking at the food spread before them—real food, not paste, not scavenged scraps. A feast, by the standards of this world.
She didn't reach for it. Not yet.
Instead, she looked at the person beside her—a man, middle-aged, his hands rough from work, his eyes holding the particular exhaustion of someone who'd outlived everyone he'd ever loved.
"Are you afraid?" she asked softly.
He looked at her. Swallowed. Nodded once.
Jenny's smile became something else. Something that didn't reach her eyes.
"Good," she said, and reached for the bread.
The man exhaled, relief flooding his features. He reached for his own portion, thinking the moment had passed.
It hadn't.
Jenny's hand kept moving—past the bread, past the plate, past everything except his throat.
He didn't even have time to scream.
The others watched, frozen, as she fed. As she smiled. As she did what she'd always done, what she'd been doing since the world ended, what she'd do until the world ended again.
Somewhere out there, her baby boy was waiting.
And Jenny Damber always came home.