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Chapter 16
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2025-05-16 18:38:51Chapter 16: Ghostlines
The soft hum of the air-conditioning was the only sound in the small storage unit, but Isla’s heartbeat thundered in her ears. Her fingers hovered above the last unopened box in the far back corner, aged and dust-covered like something that hadn’t been touched in years. Her skin tingled with the weight of hesitation.
Something about it felt sacred.
Or forbidden.
She reached for it anyway.
The cardboard crackled under her fingers as she peeled open the lid. Inside, a stack of aged photographs, paper-thin letters, and weather-worn notebooks. The scent of old perfume mixed with time hit her—a scent she recognized instantly.
Aurelia.
Her mother-in-law.
Her stepfather-in-law’s late wife.
But what truly made her hands tremble was the photograph resting at the top of the stack.
It was faded, but clear enough to see three people: a woman, striking and severe, arms wrapped around a man with an unreadable gaze. Between them, a child—four, maybe five years old. His features were delicate. But the eyes…
Those unmistakable eyes.
The same storm-gray hue as Christopher’s.
She stared at it, her breath stalling in her lungs.
There was no date, no label. Just a photo that felt like a time bomb.
Aurelia. Ethan. And a child Isla had never heard of.
She stared harder, almost willing it to change.
Then her fingers landed on a folded piece of paper tucked behind the photo. She opened it slowly, heart racing.
"Subject-317. Reassigned post-disappearance. No recovery. Presumed deceased. Terminated under Protocol-9. No further inquiry required."
The paper fluttered to the floor as she backed away from the box like it was a corpse.
No. No, no, no.
This wasn’t just family history. This was something darker.
She stumbled out of the unit, the photograph clutched to her chest like a talisman. Her vision was blurred from fear, from disbelief. The car ride back to the estate was a haze—just her and that photo on the passenger seat like a ghost whispering questions she couldn’t yet ask.
As she entered the mansion, everything felt sharper. The hallways longer. The lights dimmer.
And Christopher was exactly where she expected him—his study, half-lit, bourbon in hand, framed by the golden dusk streaming through tall windows. His back was turned, and he didn’t move when she entered.
“I found something,” she said, voice almost too steady for the storm building inside her.
He turned slowly, the glass still in his hand. His eyes flicked to hers, then to the object in her grasp.
“Where?” he asked.
“Aurelia’s storage unit. The private one.”
Silence. His lips parted slightly but no words came.
“You knew she had it,” Isla accused.
“I suspected. But no one was allowed access.” His voice was quiet, layered with hesitation.
She stepped closer, extending the photograph like a knife. “Then tell me who this is.”
Christopher looked down at the photo. And she watched his composure splinter. It was subtle—his jaw tightening, his fingers curling slightly around the glass—but it was there.
A shift.
“I don’t know,” he lied.
Her chest tightened. “Don’t do that. Not now. Don’t lie to me.”
He met her gaze then, and the weight in his eyes nearly unraveled her.
“I know the child,” he said finally, voice thick with regret. “He was… my half-brother. Ethan’s son. Aurelia’s too.”
She blinked. “Aurelia had a child before me?”
Christopher nodded. “Long before. No one talks about him because… he vanished. Officially, they said he died. But I never believed it.”
“And Ethan?”
He exhaled shakily. “He was a government handler. Aurelia worked for him. She was an asset, not a wife. Their marriage was strategic. Calculated. That child wasn’t love—it was control. A project.”
The word sent a chill through Isla’s spine.
“You’re telling me Aurelia had a child who was part of some—some operation?”
“They were experimenting with genetics. Intelligence enhancement. Psychological rewiring. You’ve seen the files. You’ve read the formulas etched in her journals.”
“I thought they were fiction,” she whispered.
“They weren’t.”
Isla shook her head, trying to hold on to a sense of reality. “So why keep this photo? Why hide it?”
“Because the child was erased. His existence was terminated, and everyone involved was warned. Ethan left after that. Aurelia broke. I think she never forgave herself.”
Isla sat down hard on the leather couch, the photo now resting in her lap. “Why did she take me in?”
“I’ve asked myself that since the day she died,” Christopher murmured, setting his drink down. “You reminded her of someone. Maybe of the child. Maybe of who she could’ve been without all of this. I don’t know.”
Her throat tightened painfully. “Do you think I’m part of it?”
“I think… we both are.”
The room fell silent, save for the slow ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner. Isla’s thoughts raced ahead of her, dark and knotted. Her gaze drifted back to the photo.
And then, softly, she said, “You and I… what does this make us?”
Christopher approached slowly. His expression was unreadable. Haunted.
“I don’t care what it makes us,” he said. “I care what we do now.”
His hand brushed her cheek, fingers warm and trembling. “I never meant to fall for you, Isla.”
“But you did.”
“Yes.” A whisper. A confession.
His lips found her forehead, lingering. Then her temple. Then lower, until he paused, inches from her mouth. “And I’d do it again, even if it damns me.”
She kissed him.
It wasn’t like before. It was deeper. Desperate.
All the secrets, the guilt, the twisted truths—they poured into the kiss like blood from an open wound. His mouth was bruising and soft all at once, his hands in her hair as she arched against him.
Clothes loosened. Her blouse slipped down her shoulder as he backed her into the couch, then lifted her into his arms like she weighed nothing at all.
Their bodies moved like they had no other choice.
This wasn’t about pleasure. It was about grounding. About clinging to something—someone—before the darkness swallowed them whole.
When it was over, Isla curled against him, skin flushed, hair tangled, chest rising and falling with each ragged breath.
Christopher rested his chin atop her head. “We need to find out what happened to that child.”
“I think… he might be alive,” she whispered.
“Why do you think that?”
She looked up, eyes glassy. “Because when I looked in his eyes… I saw me.”
---
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