.
---
---
Chapter Thirty-Seven
It was not supposed to go this way.
The warehouse was colder than she expected, even with the heat of panic creeping up the back of her throat. Isla's fingers throbbed from how tightly she had been holding the ledger—her mother's ledger, the very one men had bled for and lied for and killed for. She could barely think past the thump of her heartbeat.
Christopher hadn't said a word since they got here. Neither had Marcus. Only the scuff of their boots on concrete, and Isla's panting every other step.
Victor Kane stepped out of the shadows like he'd been waiting. Always waiting. He didn't look surprised. Of course not. He looked. bored. Like she was just another story on repeat.
"So. You finally came."
His voice was smooth, familiar in a way that crawled along her skin. As if he'd been there all along—standing behind her memories.
Isla shifted, unsure what the hell she was doing, only that she had to do something. "It's over."
Victor cocked his head to one side, laughing. "You really think that book is the end of something?"
Christopher shifted then, just one step, but it was enough to remind her she wasn't alone. Victor picked up on it.
Oh. The new guard dog," Victor sneered. "She always finds someone, doesn't she? My mother found me. Look where that got her."
Isla's stomach turned. He needed her to react. He fed on it. However, the words didn't come.
"She believed people could change. She was mistaken in you."
Victor laughed. "She believed she could win. That's the joke.".
There was something in that laugh. it cracked something open within her. All those nights crying into her pillow, the shouting silence in her own chest when her mother had passed away, the years running and pretending she wasn't shattered. And then this man, this monster, standing there like he hadn't torn it all down.
She didn't think. She threw the ledger.
It hit him square in the middle of the chest, splatting on the floor with a wet smush. Pages burst out like feathers. Victor blinked in surprise—and Isla rushed at him.
But she missed him.
Christopher grabbed her, stopping just in time. Victor didn't move. He just glared at her like she was some wretched little kid throwing a tantrum.
Marcus stepped forward, uncertainly. His voice was gruff.
"You destroyed everything. Everything we built."
Victor turned to him as if he'd forgotten there was a Marcus. "You killed yourself."
And then—Lord, it was over so fast.
Victor pulled out a gun.
Christopher screamed. Marcus hit the ground.
Isla wasn't even aware she had screamed until her throat burned.
The shot echoed through the warehouse, hard and final. It went wide of everyone. Thank God. But close. Too close.
Victor did not run. He walked. As if he had all the time in the world. Walked to the book on the floor and dropped to his knees.
He flipped a page. And another. With a grin.
"You think this will bury me? This is paper and ink. You desire justice?" he looked up at her, face afire with emptiness, "You'll need something more than specters and pen.".
Isla moved closer, forbidding herself to acknowledge the trembling of her legs. "I don't want justice," she breathed. "I want you to be forgotten."
He froze. Briefly. Then he laughed again—not funny, but hollow.
"You believe forgetting is worse than being locked up? You're correct."
And then, in a burst of rage, he flung the ledger into the shadows of the warehouse and walked into the darkness. Marcus tried to follow, but Victor dodged behind one of the steel pillars and disappeared.
Just like that.
Gone.
The ensuing silence was excruciating.
Marcus swore. Christopher placed his hand on her shoulder and she flinched—she didn't know she was shaking. She didn't want to cry, but her body didn't care what she wanted. She rubbed at her eyes roughly and turned away.
"Take it," Christopher said gently. "Before someone else does."
They found the ledger. The spine was torn. Some of the pages had ripped. Isla cradled it as if it were a wounded thing.
"I don't know if it's enough," she said.
"It's a start," Christopher said.
And maybe that was all they had. A broken beginning. An open wound. A war no
t won, not even close—but a battlefield they lived through, at least for a while.
Chapter 61: Shards of the MirrorThe silence was unbearable.Isla sat alone in the observation room of ECHO-3, a vast, high-ceilinged chamber lined with sleek glass panels and flickering holo-screens. A distant hum vibrated beneath her boots—the sound of a hidden world still turning.She stared at the holographic projection of her DNA spiral spinning slowly in midair. It glowed violet, like a cursed constellation. Data poured beside it—words she could no longer make sense of. Words that used to belong to scientists, not to monsters.Behind her, footsteps echoed. Steady. Purposeful.Christopher.“I thought you might come here,” he said quietly.Isla didn’t turn. “It’s strange. Seeing yourself... and realizing you're not entirely yourself.”“You’re not a thing, Isla. You’re not just a blueprint someone rewrote.”She let out a bitter laugh. “Tell that to the report I just read. Lyra didn’t just give birth to me—she embedded herself in me. Consciously. She planned it.”Christopher stayed
Chapter 60: The Vaultbound RiseThe air in the underground chamber was thick—heavy with dust, expectation, and centuries-old secrets that clung to the stone walls like ivy. The Vault of Remnants had not been opened in over four decades, and its presence felt more myth than matter. But tonight, it pulsed.Isla stood in front of the vault door, her fingers twitching unconsciously. Behind her, Christopher and Ethan watched in silence, the tension among them as brittle as ancient parchment. No one spoke. Even the hum of the generators seemed to hush.She could feel it now—the magnetic tug that seemed to know her name. The lock on the vault was encoded to Lyra’s genetic signature, but the tech didn’t account for what Lyra had become. What Isla had become. Half her mother’s legacy, half... something else.Christopher stepped forward. "Are you sure you want to do this tonight? You’re still healing."She shook her head. "Healing is a luxury. And time is a blade pressed to our throats. I can f
Chapter 59: The Threshold ChildrenThe outpost was silent long after the file closed.No one moved. The shadows seemed to cling tighter to the corners, as if even the walls needed time to process what had just been revealed.Threshold Children.Subject Zero.Ark.None of them said it aloud, but the same question hung heavy in the air:What had Lyra made Isla into?And more terrifying—why?---By morning, they were moving again.They left the outpost behind with only a faint heat signature trailing in the snow, covered fast by the wind. Isla walked ahead, wrapped in her insulated gear, hood pulled low, but even now, the light from her hand flickered faintly beneath the glove.Like a heartbeat refusing to slow.The journey to ECHO-3 was brutal.Ice plains gave way to jagged mountain spines. There were no roads. No settlements. Just sky and snow and silence.Ethan navigated using the drive’s coordinates. It pointed to a location that wasn’t on any public map—a place scrubbed from known c
---Chapter 58: Echoes of What WasThey didn’t speak for a long time.The snow muffled their steps as they moved through the tundra, putting distance between themselves and the buried ruin of the vault. The wind whispered around them—soft now, almost reverent, as if the storm itself were holding its breath after what had been unleashed.No one said it aloud, but they all felt it:Something had changed.In Isla.In the world.In what was coming.Ethan was the first to break the silence. “We need shelter. This isn’t the kind of cold you just outrun.”“There’s an outpost thirty miles east,” Christopher said. “Old Cartel relay. Abandoned.”Isla barely heard them.The glowing lines on her hand hadn’t faded. The faint pulse beneath her skin continued, rhythmic and unsettling, like the ticking of a new clock.Inside her, memories surged like tides.Not just hers.Not just Lyra’s.Others.Children’s voices. Screams in sterile corridors. An old song, sung out of tune. A name spoken like a pray
Chapter 57: The Vault of SilenceThe ground trembled again as the vault door split down the middle with a groan older than time. Snow slid from its curved surface like dust falling off forgotten bones. The low-frequency hum built into a thrumming pulse, a sound that didn’t just echo in their ears—it resonated in their chests.Isla took the first step forward.“Wait,” Christopher said, still gripping his rifle. “We don’t know what’s in there.”She glanced at him. “We do. We just haven’t remembered it yet.”Behind them, the sentinel—the pale man—stood still, unmoving. “Only the awakened may enter,” he said, monotone.Christopher looked ready to argue, but Ethan, bleeding from a shallow cut above his brow, stopped him. “He’s not going to stop her. He’s waiting.”Isla crossed the threshold.And the world changed.As she stepped inside the vault, the air grew thicker. Not heavy—dense. Like walking through time itself. The interior walls shimmered, not metal, not stone—something between the
Chapter 56: The Ghost in the SkyThe shadow was fast.It didn’t fly like a drone or a standard aerial unit—it glided, almost silent, but with a strange distortion trailing behind it, like light warping around something not meant to be seen.Ethan’s hands moved rapidly over the controls, flipping off the main nav to manual override. “They’re jamming passive radar. I’m flying blind.”Christopher was already at the rear hatch, rifle ready, eyes scanning the external screens. "Do we engage?""Not unless they do first," Isla said.But she didn't sound sure.Because something in her bones told her this was no ordinary hunter. The pressure in her head was building again, like hands squeezing inward. Her fingers curled into fists."I've seen this thing before," she snarled.Ethan looked back. "Where?"In a dream. Or a memory. I don't know any longer."The shadow dropped altitude. Now it flew alongside them, just out of vision—a shimmering echo on the edge of the skimmer's screen.Then it spok