“I hope you understand just how much trouble you’re in,” Agent Kennedy walked into the interview room with several papers in his hands. “And when I say trouble, I don’t mean the standard parental kind of trouble. I mean the kind of trouble which ends with this town under quarantine until it’s sterilized.”

Jacob sat in silence, unsure what to say. He was unsure about a lot of things. For starters, where he was.

After being led to the vans outside the tent, he’d been placed in the back of one of the windowless ones. During the whole trip, he had no idea where they were going. When they let him out, he was in the parking lot of a single building, surrounded by forest on all sides and with a single road leading in and out. The building itself was a mostly flat affair which looked like it had been made out of metal boxes.

He’d taken the guess it was brand new.

New or not, he had been taken into the building and left in what he knew was an interrogation room. He had seen enough TV to recognize the small, sterile room with a table in the center and a single wall that was just a mirror.

He also figured whoever came in to talk to him would probably put a bunch of files on the table and then sit across from him. Despite how specific the guess was, he had a feeling it would turn out to be true.

For some reason, Jacob didn’t feel any sense of satisfaction when Agent Kennedy walked in and did exactly what he had guessed.

“I’ll get to the point,” he sat in front in of him, files already on the table. “If you have any idea where the specimen has escaped to, then I suggest you tell us where it is.”

“She’s not a specimen, she has a name,” he looked Agent Kennedy right in the eye and refused to blink.

“So this is how it is,” Agent Kenney muttered to himself before addressing him. “Listen, despite what you might think, that thing you saw was not your friend. I know this may be hard to accept, but the girl you knew before she became that thing is gone.”

“I only met her after she became a big monster thing actually,” he succeeded at stopping Agent Kennedy in his tracks, if only for a moment.

“You met it for the first time while it was in that form?” he asked after taking a second to recover.

“Oh no, at first she was a lot more animalistic,” he explained like he was talking about the weather. “She used to look like a big dog with spider legs and tentacles. The human form with chitin armor is new.”

“The point remains, the thing you saw that day was a dangerous monster,” Agent Kennedy argued, trying to get the conversation back on track. “A dangerous predator that’s killed a lot of animals in the forest around your town.”

“So?” He argued back as Agent Kennedy failed to get the conversation back on track. “I eat chicken and beef all the time, am I a dangerous predator that has to be put down?”

“Well, no, but…” he rubbed his forehead in frustration. “Why are you defending it like this?”

“Because Eve’s my friend,” he told him. “And if she really wanted to eat me, then she had the perfect chance to do it on the very first night we met.”

Agent Kennedy looked at him with tired frustration. This wasn’t getting him anywhere. The agent would have to go a different route. The one he didn’t want to use.

He slowly opened the folder on the desk between them and then turned it around so Jacob could see its contents.

A small part of Richter’s soul died as he watched Jacob flinch back from the scenes of blood, gore, and ooze in front of them.

“These are photos from the Angel Eye Island incident,” he said calmly. “You ever heard of a company named Red-Stars incorporated?”

“Aren’t those the guys who are really famous for making a bunch of advanced medicine?” He asked as he thought back to ads he had seen on TV before coming to Oakwood. They were kind of hard to forget with their weird logo. Twelve red stars arranged in a circle didn’t exactly scream medicine. What did a company that made medicine have to do with pictures of people who’d been cut in half?

“Yeah, that’s them,” Agent Kennedy pointed to the pictures. “Angel Eye Island was a small island owned by Red-Stars. It’s where they did a lot of their… illegal research. Illegal research into creating weapons like your ‘friend’ Eve.”

“Eve’s a weapon?” Jacob repeated in disbelief. Agent Kennedy shuffled some papers in front of him to show what looked like a familiar formless orange ooze.

“They called it Strain-4. A weapon designed to bond with a human host and make them incredibly strong. However, trials went sour when it turned out strain-4 had a tendency to consume its host’s mind during the bonding process. The human mind was gone, and the only thing left was a monster that killed as easily as it breathed.”

“But Eve’s not like that!” Jacob yelled into the agent’s face. “She still remembers being human. She still has her human mind. She’s not a killing machine.”

“It moves like them,” Agent Kennedy argued back. “Its movements, the way it jumped from place to place. She’s just like the monsters I fought when I was sent in to investigate Angel Eye Island. I made it out of that research facility by the skin of my teeth. I’m not about to let her put anyone else through the nightmare I went through.”

The two looked at each other from across the table, eyes narrowed.

“You called Eve ‘her’,” Jacob said, breaking the silence.

“What?” Agent Kennedy replied as he also realized his error.

“You started out by calling Eve an ‘it’ then you started calling Eve a ‘her’. You know she’s human.”

“My personal feelings are irrelevant. The point is your ‘friend’ being a clear and present danger to everyone around her,” he paused, stumbling over his words. “It, to everyone around it.”

Agent Kennedy just sighed and rubbed his forehead before pushing the file toward Jacob.

“This file contains all the information on the Angel Eye Island incident you’re cleared to see,” he explained.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“I’m cleared to see this stuff?” he asked as he pulled the file closer

“As much clearance as any person who knows of the existence of Strain-4 has,” Agent Kennedy told him as he got up from the chair. “Read over that stuff, and remember, the longer you go without telling us where Strain-4 is, the more likely everyone in this town ends up like the people in those files.”

With that, he walked over to the door and left the room.

Jacob looked up at the ‘mirror’ and let out a frustrated sigh as he started leafing through the files.

Most of it was what he had been expecting, files explaining how a bunch of strain-4s got out, bonded to some people, and then started killing everyone. As he read over the descriptions and saw the pictures, he got the feeling someone his age was really not supposed to be looking at this kind of thing.

He did learn the reason why Eve was in Oakwood though. One last sample of Strain-4 was saved and sent on a plane for study… somewhere. Something happened on the plane, and the sample of Strain-4 somehow fell out while the plane was over Oakwood.

From there, he figured she found Strain-4 and… bonded to it without losing her mind? He wondered how that happened before realizing it didn’t matter. She was still his friend no matter what, and what was that sound coming from the vents?

Jacob got to his feet as a loud crashing sound came from the ceiling above him.

“Isn’t this place just one floor?” he asked aloud right before a large, black mass crashed through the ceiling. He put his arms in front of his face to block out the dust.

“Eve, is that you?” he asked as he tried to wave the dust away.

“You bet it is,” he heard her say as he cleared away the dust and saw Eve in her ‘human covered in black chitin armor’ form. “I’m here to get you out of… What is that?”

Jacob’s eyes followed her pointing finger to the files on the desk.

“Good news,” he said as his head snapped back to her. “I know why you have super-powers.”

“Oh?” she looked up excitedly.

“Bad news, you’re probably not going to like it.”

“Oh.” She looked down in disappointment.

The sound of someone trying to smash through the door snapped her out of it. She walked in front of Jacob and held her hand out. “Stand back.”

He did as he was told as Eve lifted her fist. He watched as her fist grew in size and her fingers fused together. When she punched the wall, there was a wrecking ball at the end of her arm instead of a fist.

“Hop on,” she yelled at him before she started changing into her dog-like form. He dashed forward and got on top of her as the door burst open.

“See ya,” Jacob told Agent Kennedy as she ran off with him on her back. The agent growled as he aimed his weapon on the feeling boy and monster, only to find himself unable to fire.

“I hope you know what you’re doing, kid…” he holstered his gun and turned to the other people behind him. “Get the rest of the team, we’re going after them.”

As Agent Kennedy got his team in order, Jacob told Eve what he had learned in the files.

“And that’s the gist of it,” he finished explaining as he rode her dog form through the forest. He wasn’t sure where he was taking her. In fact, he wasn’t even sure she knew where she was taking him. But at the moment, the best place to be seemed to be ‘anywhere but here’.

With not much else to talk about, he had asked Eve if she wanted to know what he had learned.

“Have to say,” she glanced upwards at him. He raised an eyebrow at her ability to talk in this form. She always had new tricks, didn’t she? “Wasn’t expecting mad science of all things.”

“Not really sure you can call it that.”

“If you have a secret lab on a tropical island filled with big monsters, then you’re doing mad science,” she argued back. “So what do we do now?”

“Why are you asking me? You’re the one who’s running through the woods,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, I’m heading for the cave. I still have some stuff there I want to grab before we do anything else,” she explained as she started slowing down. “We’re here.”

He got off Eve as she started shifting back into her chitin armor human form. He followed her into the cave. The remains of the cocoon were still there, the pieces scattered around. She walked to the far end of the cave and grabbed the green-and-bronze bag she’d gotten the day before.

“Okay, now we can go,” she told him with the bag in hand. He nodded before opening the curtain to reveal Agent Kennedy along with a wall of DOSP people surrounding the entrance. Every single one of them was armed with the green glowing weapons Agent Kennedy had on him earlier.

“Don’t you move,” he demanded as he eyed Eve carefully.

“How did you even find us?” Jacob demanded as he suddenly noticed a weird weight in his pocket he hadn’t before. He reached into it and pulled out a small metal disc. “Is this a tracking device? When did you even have the time to put it on me?”

“Kid, start walking towards me carefully,” Agent Kennedy barked as he motioned for him to walk forward.

“No,” Jacob moved to the side and put himself in-between Agent Kennedy and Eve. “She’s not one of the monsters you fought. I don’t know how it happened, but she managed to bond with strain-4 without losing her mind.”

“You don’t know that,” he argued back.

“Yes. I do,” Jacob declared. “I read those files, it said everyone who bonded with Strain-4 turned into rabid animals. That didn’t happen to Eve and…”

He was cut off as Agent Kennedy brought up the glowing, green gun he had used earlier.

“Kid, I don’t want to do this,” he said in a flat tone. “Just stand aside, and let the adult kill the big, scary monster so everything can make sense in the world again.”

“It’s not like that, how many times do I have to…”

Eve cut him off as she stepped forward. Gone was her chitin-covered skin, in its place was her normal human form.

“Go ahead,” she glared at him with her normal human eyes. She walked forward, never breaking eye contact as she did so. “I don’t care what you say, I’m just as human as you are.”

Instead of replying, Agent Kennedy kept his gun steady, even as Eve got close enough to touch the tip of it with her forehead.

“Go ahead,” she told him in an almost whisper. “Kill the little girl who never did anything wrong. I dare you.”

As she dared the agent to kill her, her bag dropped to the floor next to her. Jacob could see the contents spill out, but couldn’t tell what they were from so far away. Agent Kennedy, on the other hand, could see both the bag and what was in it all too well.

Jacob could only watch as Agent Kennedy’s hand started to shake. He flexed his fingers, keeping the grip steady before slowly lifting his arm and pointing the gun away from Eve.

“Weapons down,” he told the rest of the agents as they dropped their guns. “If she really wanted to kill any of us, she had plenty of opportunities to do so by now.”

“Thank you,” she collapsed to her knees. She chuckled as she looked down. “My legs feel heavy.”

Jacob ran up to her and helped her to her feet. As he did, he spotted what had been in the bag.

A single photo lay on the ground, of a little girl who looked just like Eve next to two older people who were probably her parents.

He wondered when she had gotten it before dismissing the thought. It wasn’t important now.

“We’re still going to need to take you in,” Agent Kennedy explained as he holstered his weapon. “Run some tests and make sure you’re really who you say you are.”

“And how do I know I can trust you?” she pointed out.

“It’s either this or keep running for the rest of your life,” Agent Kennedy pointed back as Eve gave a small nod of agreement. “You said your name was Eve, right? Any last name?”

She started laughing while trying to not look Jacob in the eyes.

“About that…” She spoke nervously. “My name’s not actually Eve.”

“What?” He said flatly.

“Well, you asked me what my name was and I realized I could just call myself anything I wanted so I said my name was Eve.”

“Oh. You know I always thought your name was a bit too cool to be real, but I never wanted to say anything about it,” he said, pretending to know all along.

“So how about your real name?” Agent Kennedy demanded.

“Samantha,” Eve finally said. “Samantha Evets. I’m from the town across the woods.”

“We’ll look into it,” he explained as he started leading them away from the cave. “Let’s get going.”

The two of them walked carefully as they were escorted away from the cave and soon led to the woods. They got back to the road where Samantha and Agent Kennedy got in one car and Jacob got in another.

He glanced at her one last time before the door closed and found she had done the same. He gulped as the door closed and he settled in for the drive home.

When he got out of the car, the agent who drove him let him know Jacob would be told of any updates should he be cleared for them. Jacob just nodded as the agent closed the door.

He watched as the black vans drove away. A heavy weight appeared in his gut as they drove out of sight.

“I hope we made the right choice, Eve.” he walked into his house while trying to ignore the void inside him.