Jackson woke sometime later in the infirmary. On the bedside table, his dinging task watch had been left upon the top.

He wanted to throw the thing across the room.

Instead, he picked it up and read the missed messages. Winslor wanted Jackson to contact him the moment he was cleared from the infirmary.

Sighing, he pressed a call button to let the nurses know that he was awake, and they sent in a doctor to do a psych evaluation on him. Obviously, they wanted to know what triggered his change.

Yet now there was that mountain inside of him that kept him from admitting the truth to them, as it could potentially jeopardize Clio’s safety, if he told them what Clio had done. He would have priousvly admitted the source of the trigger, while now he was a slave to his concerns for the boy.

So he kept the lie simple. The boy had wanted to see his wolf form, so he had shown them.

Afterwards, he arrived at Winslor’s office, wondering if the man would be better at detecting his lie than the doctors had been. When he entered, it appeared as though the man had been already staring at the door, as though calculating the exact moment Jackson would appear. Hard, wrinkled eyes focused on Jackson, devoid of emotion aside from a wordless, chilling assessment. 

Jackson cleared his throat, his mind once more flashing to Clio against all his efforts for it not to. “You wanted me, sir?”

Winslor stared at him for just a moment more. Then, “Did you fuck him, Jackson?”

Jackson’s eyes widened, his wolf nearly scrambling to the surface at the ignition of heat and emotion that erupted from the suggestion. It was confusing, and mainly disturbing, and he suppressed it. Through gritted teeth, he answered. “No.” He’d never before wanted so much to claw the man’s face off. He and Winslor had always been professional companions, respectful of one another, though he more than knew the other man was capable of crossing lines in a brutal fashion. He’d as soon shake Jackson’s hand as he would ask for his termination. 

Winslor finally nodded, though the hardness in his eyes went slack, as though he were disappointed. “You only wanted to, then.”

Jackson thought. Perhaps this was the only way to explain what had happened within Clio’s room without giving away the bizarre truth: that something devastating had happened. “I only wanted to,” he lied dejectedly. 

Winslor frowned thoughtfully, scratching his chin. “We could arrange it, you know.”

Jackson felt made of stone, his body going rigid. “What?”

Winslor rolled his eyes, capping a pen on his desk distractedly. “Don’t clutch your pearls too tightly there, son. You know exactly what we are testing him for. The change we are all theoretically expecting is taking too long. Though we’re going off of prehistoric mud-and-shit tablets, researchers think it should have happened by now. So. It’s been decided a while ago that an intervention is necessary. We have to observe the changes while he’s young, before we terminate him. We don’t want a full-grown incubus on PCA grounds.” He shook his head, his eyes haunted. “I bet you have no idea what they are capable of, do you?”

Jackson shuddered, his mind on the silhouette of an angelic figure before him, holding a cup to him, and telling him to drink. He was getting an idea. “So you’re going to force him to have sex?” he asked flatly, his voice dead as he continued to rage inside. He already knew that he wouldn’t allow it. He wasn’t sure what gave him the authority or the gall to claim such a position as to decide what was allowed and what wasn’t, but a newfound assertion overcame him, the mountain inside of him a colossal source of energy that came with assertion he hadn’t had before. 

He would fight to the death if someone touched Clio. 

Whether he wanted to or not. 

“Yes,” Winslor said, his eyes narrowing on Jackson. And that was all he said.

Jackson felt a growl in his throat and had to cough once to clear it, though he was sure he hadn’t fooled Winslor. “Then sign me up. No one touches him but me.” The last part came out against his will. He had no intention of actually touching Clio, but he’d be damned if he was going to let his Clio be raped by the PCA. 

Winslor shrugged. “Very well. I’ll give your name to the doctors.” He sighed then, frowning at the spread of documents on his desk as he looked over a map, squinting at it despite the bright light that illuminated it. “That’s not the only reason I called you to the office.”

Of course it wasn’t.

“These PCA resistant teams keep popping their ugly heads up, especially in the summer. We’re calling them Hydra.” Winslor chuckled once, mirthlessly. “They’re getting braver.”

Jackson knew of the resistant group, always attempting to hack into PCA systems, killing field agents, abducting cargo. If the PCA was taking the threat more seriously, now, then it must mean that they were gaining advances. 

He shrugged. “What do you want me to do about it?”

“Nothing. For now. They call themselves Delta. Just look out for their little triangle symbol when you go out on missions.”

Jackson nodded, his mind still on Clio as he left.

Clio, Clio, Clio…