Chapter 65

Chapter 65

Cassian hit the floor hard.

His scream echoed through the warehouse like something ripped straight from a nightmare.

Blood poured from his nose while his body convulsed violently against the concrete.

The second division operatives around him began collapsing one after another.

Some clawed at their own heads.

Some screamed.

Some simply dropped motionless.

The recall protocol wasn’t activating them.

It was destroying them.

Luca’s entire body went cold.

“No…”

Because he remembered the procedure.

Not fully.

Not consciously.

But enough.

The protocol embedded deep inside division operatives wasn’t designed for long-term activation.

It was a failsafe.

A termination mechanism disguised as obedience.

Dr. Vale watched the chaos calmly from the upper walkway.

Like this was all expected.

“You’re killing them,” Damon said sharply.

Vale looked mildly surprised by the accusation.

“They were never designed to age beyond usefulness.”

The words turned the entire warehouse silent for one horrifying second.

Even Hale looked disgusted.

“You built a suicide trigger,” Seraphine whispered.

Vale corrected her immediately.

“A containment protocol.”

Cassian screamed again.

More violently this time.

Luca moved before thinking.

Crossing the warehouse floor rapidly toward him.

“Luca!” Damon shouted instantly.

Too late.

Luca dropped beside Cassian as the other man shook violently against the ground.

Cassian grabbed Luca’s jacket desperately.

Eyes wild.

Terrified.

Human.

And suddenly

Luca saw it.

Not a monster.

Not an enemy.

Just another child Hale and Vale destroyed.

“You knew,” Cassian gasped painfully.

Blood stained his teeth.

“You remembered this…”

Fragments exploded through Luca’s head instantly.

A white room.

Children strapped into chairs.

Vale standing behind glass observing neurological responses.

And Cassian

Screaming beside him.

Luca physically flinched.

“Oh my God.”

He remembered now.

The second division wasn’t created to improve the first.

It was created to remove emotional resistance completely.

No empathy.

No attachment.

No fear.

Because Hale considered Luca unstable after he returned to Damon’s childhood crime scene years ago.

They tried fixing the flaw.

They created Cassian instead.

Luca grabbed Cassian harder.

“Stay awake.”

Cassian laughed weakly through the pain.

A terrible broken sound.

“You always were the sentimental one.”

His body jerked violently again.

Vale observed them with detached fascination.

“Interesting,” she murmured.

“He still attempts emotional preservation under distress.”

Damon’s rage finally snapped.

“You don’t get to talk about them like objects!”

The warehouse shook again from another distant explosion.

But nobody cared anymore.

Not now.

Because suddenly the truth felt bigger than survival itself.

Hale slowly turned toward Vale.

“You activated the recall without authorization.”

Vale looked at him calmly.

“You lost control of the assets.”

“They are not assets.”

The words slipped out before Hale could stop them.

Silence followed instantly.

Even Luca looked shocked.

Because Hale never corrected dehumanization before.

Never.

Vale noticed too.

And smiled faintly.

“There it is,” she said softly.

“The infection.”

Hale’s expression darkened instantly.

“You misunderstand me.”

“No,” Vale replied calmly.

“You became emotionally compromised.”

Damon almost laughed at the irony.

The man who destroyed countless lives…

Now being accused of feeling too much.

Cassian grabbed Luca’s arm again suddenly.

Hard.

“Listen to me.”

Luca leaned closer instinctively.

Cassian’s breathing was becoming uneven.

Weak.

“The protocol center…”

He coughed violently.

“Sublevel three.”

Luca frowned immediately.

“What?”

Cassian forced the words out through visible pain.

“She connected all surviving divisions to the same neural system.”

Damon’s stomach dropped.

No.

“If the protocol fully activates…” Cassian whispered.

Luca realized it before he finished.

Every surviving operative would die.

Including Luca.

Because despite resisting more conditioning

He still carried the original architecture inside him.

Seraphine swore sharply.

“How long?”

Cassian’s eyes unfocused briefly.

“Maybe an hour.”

Silence detonated through the warehouse.

Damon looked immediately toward Luca.

Luca already knew.

If the system stayed active

He would die too.

Vale spoke again calmly from above.

“Correction.”

A pause.

“Forty-three minutes.”

Damon looked at her with pure hatred.

“Deactivate it.”

Vale tilted her head slightly.

“Why?”

Damon nearly moved toward her.

Seraphine stopped him immediately.

“She’s trying to provoke you.”

Vale smiled faintly.

“Not provoke.”

A beat.

“Observe.”

Luca slowly stood from beside Cassian.

Every instinct sharpening now.

Because there it was again.

The feeling from years ago.

Being trapped inside someone else’s experiment.

Only this time

He wasn’t alone.

Damon stepped beside him instantly.

“We shut the system down.”

Luca looked at him sharply.

“You don’t even know where sublevel three is.”

“Then you’re showing me.”

Luca’s chest tightened painfully.

Because Damon said it so simply.

Like survival together was obvious.

Like there was never another option.

Vale watched the interaction closely.

Too closely.

Then softly

Almost curiously

She asked:

“Why do you keep choosing him after learning the truth?”

Silence spread through the warehouse.

Everyone looked toward Luca.

Luca looked at Damon.

Really looked at him.

The man who lost his mother because of him.

The man who should hate him.

The man still standing beside him anyway.

And suddenly the answer felt terrifyingly simple.

“Because he looked at me,” Luca said quietly.

A pause.

“And saw a person before I remembered how.”

Something flickered across Damon’s expression.

Pain.

Love.

Devastation.

Vale stared at Luca silently.

Then for the first time

Her calm expression cracked slightly.

Confusion.

Like she genuinely could not understand the answer.

And that

That was proof she would never understand humanity at all.

Suddenly alarms blared louder overhead.

A distorted automated voice echoed through the warehouse:

“Protocol synchronization at sixty-two percent.”

Cassian’s body convulsed violently again.

And Luca realized they were running out of time fast.