Chapter 4: Blood Memory

The air in the room didn’t just feel cold; it felt heavy, like the atmosphere before a lightning strike.

Lorenzo was still staring at me, his hand tightened on my arm, his eyes searching mine for a flicker of the girl who used to apologize for breathing too loudly. He didn't find her. He found a mirror that reflected his own darkness at him.

"You're tired, Alessia," he said, his voice a low, commanding rumble. "Go back to sleep. We’ll talk when the sun is up."

"The sun won't change what’s written in my marrow, Lorenzo."

I pulled my arm away. I didn't struggle; I simply applied a specific pressure point to the radial nerve in his wrist. I didn't know how I knew the nerve was there, or that a three-pound squeeze would cause his fingers to go numb. I just... did.

He hissed, his hand dropping as if he’d been electrocuted. He looked at his hand, then at me, the shock on his face bordering on terror. "Where did you learn that?"

"I didn't learn it," I whispered, looking at my own fingers. "My hand remembered it."

I walked toward the window again, but halfway across the room, I stopped dead. A sickening vibration hummed in the soles of my feet. It was a rhythmic thud, far below the floorboards.

"Get down," I said.

Lorenzo frowned, his hand moving toward the holster at the small of his back. "What? Alessia, what are you—"

"Get. Down. Now."

I didn't wait for him. I tackled him. My body moved with a terrifying, liquid speed, hitting his chest and driving him behind the heavy mahogany desk just as the world exploded.

BOOM.

The floor-to-ceiling glass window—the one I had been standing in front of seconds ago—shattered into a billion diamonds of lethal light. A high-velocity round tore through the air exactly where my head had been.

The sound was a physical blow, but I didn't scream. I felt a surge of cold, electric clarity. My heart rate didn't spike; it dropped.

"Sniper," I muttered, my cheek pressed against the carpet. "Northwest. The Vantage Point Building. 800 yards. The wind is gusting at ten knots. He’ll adjust for a second shot in four seconds."

Lorenzo stared at me from under the desk, his face pale, his gun already in his hand. "How the hell do you know the distance?"

"I just do it!" I snapped. "Three... two... one..."

Crack. Another round hissed through the room, thudding into the back of the leather chair.

"He’s using a suppressor," I said, my eyes narrowed, scanning the room. I wasn't looking for cover; I was looking for a way out. "But his thermal signature is leaking. He’s sloppy."

I crawled toward the closet, my movements so silent I felt like a ghost. I reached for a heavy velvet coat, but as I touched it, a memory flashed again.

I am standing on a rooftop in Berlin. It is snowing. I am holding a long-range rifle. I am wearing this same shade of blue. I whisper a prayer in a language that feels like jagged stones in my mouth.

"Alessia, stay low!" Lorenzo shouted, trying to reach for me as more glass rained down.

I turned to him, and my mouth moved before I could stop it. The words that came out weren't English. They weren't Swahili. They were a guttural, ancient-sounding dialect—something dead and forgotten.

"Dh'à dhuinn an t-slighe, a mharbhaiche."

Lorenzo stopped moving. His gun hand shook. He stared at me as if I had just grown wings and turned into a demon.

"What did you just say?" he breathed.

"I don't know," I said, my voice trembling for the first time. "I don't know what it means. But I know it’s true."

"It’s Gaelic," Lorenzo whispered, his voice full of a soul-crushing dread. "An old dialect. You said... 'Give us the path, killer.'"

The sniper fired again, but this time, I didn't hide. I stood up in the shadows, my eyes fixed on the distant building. I could see the heat haze of the barrel. I could see the pattern of the city lights reflecting in the scope.

But more than that, I could feel a presence in my mind. A cold, digital hum.

Subject A: Awakening 84%. Combat Reflexes: Active. Language Archive: Unlocked.

I looked at Lorenzo, and for the first time, I saw him not as a lover, but as a variable in a very dangerous equation.

"They’re coming for us, aren't they?" I asked. "The people who made me. The people who made you."

Lorenzo didn't answer. He just looked at the silver scar over my heart and whispered, "They never stopped coming, Alessia. We just keep forgetting."

*

A red laser dot appears on Lorenzo's chest—not from the window, but from the hallway door inside the penthouse.

Author’s Note:

The System is resetting! Alessia is speaking languages she never learned and predicting sniper shots like a pro. Is she a human or a weapon? And why does Lorenzo know Gaelic? Comment "RESET" if you want to see the first big showdown in Chapter 5!