تسجيل الدخول“Your mother.”The words remained in Rebecca's mind long after Mercy's eyes closed.She knelt beside her, pressing her hands against the wound.“Stay with me.”Mercy didn't respond.“Mercy!”Gabriel dropped beside them.“Move your hands.”Rebecca did.Gabriel examined the wound quickly.“She’s alive.”Rebecca exhaled.“Can you stop the bleeding?”“I can try.”Sebastian was already moving toward the doorway.“Jonathan is still somewhere in this facility.”Claire shook her head.“He won't stay.”Sebastian turned.“What do you mean?”“Jonathan doesn't run from danger.”Claire looked toward the shattered shelves.“He creates it.”A distant metallic bang echoed through the archive.Everyone froze.Then another.Closer.Gabriel looked at the monitor.“Someone is accessing the main system.”Rebecca stood.“Jonathan?”Gabriel shook his head.“No.”He turned the screen toward her.A login request was appearing.USER: ETHAN BENNETTRebecca's heart stopped.“He's here?”Gabriel stared at the dat
Rebecca stared at the screen.The man walking through the corridor was unmistakably the boy she had seen inside the chamber.Except he wasn't a boy anymore.He was tall.Broad-shouldered.Older.Alive.Rebecca's lips parted.“How?”Nobody answered.The video continued.The man stopped beneath a flickering light and turned toward the camera.For a moment, Rebecca saw his face clearly.The scar above his left eye.The same scar from the childhood memory.Her brother.A message appeared beneath the image.HE IS WAITING FOR HIS SISTER.Rebecca stepped closer.“That's him.”Claire nodded.“Yes.”“His name.”Claire hesitated.Rebecca turned.“Tell me his name.”Claire's eyes filled with tears.“Ethan.”Rebecca repeated it quietly.“Ethan.”Something inside her responded to the name.A fragment of memory surfaced.A little boy holding her hand.Running beside her.Laughing.Then a woman screaming.A door closing.Ethan shouting her name.Rebecca pressed a hand against her temple.“I remember
Darkness swallowed the chamber.For several seconds, there was nothing but the sound of people breathing.Then something moved inside the glass cylinder.Rebecca heard a low crack.Crack.Another.The glass around the boy began splitting.“Everybody back!” Sebastian shouted.Rebecca couldn't move.The boy was awake.His eyes were open.And he was looking directly at her.A thin line appeared across the glass.Then another.Jonathan stepped backward.For the first time since Rebecca had seen him, he looked genuinely frightened.“Shut it down,” he ordered.David rushed toward the control panel.“I can't!”“Then cut the power!”“I already tried!”Claire grabbed Rebecca's arm.“Come with me.”Rebecca pulled away.“You knew.”Claire's eyes filled with tears.“Yes.”“You knew I had a brother.”“Yes.”“And you left him here?”Claire looked toward the chamber.“I didn't leave him.”“Then what did you do?”Claire swallowed.“I chose you.”Rebecca stared at her.“What does that mean?”Claire's
Rebecca couldn't move.The child's hand remained pressed against the glass.Small.Pale.Almost transparent behind the white mist.Your brother.The words echoed inside her head.“No,” Rebecca whispered.The boy's face became clearer.Dark hair.Sharp eyebrows.A small scar above his left eye.Rebecca stared at him.Something inside her shifted.Not recognition.Something deeper.A memory trying to surface.A little boy running through a garden.A red ball.Someone laughing.Her own voice calling a name.“Eli…”Rebecca gasped.The memory vanished.Mercy closed her eyes.“It's starting.”Rebecca turned sharply.“You knew?”Mercy said nothing.“You knew there was a boy here!”“I knew there was a child.”“My brother!”“I didn't know if he was still alive.”Rebecca stepped toward her.“How could you not know?”“Because Raven took him from me.”The door suddenly slammed shut.Gabriel rushed toward the control panel.“Someone locked us in.”Sebastian aimed at the door.“Jonathan?”Gabriel s
The door slammed behind them.Rebecca spun around and grabbed the handle.“Claire!”Nothing.She pulled harder.The door didn't move.“Open it!”Mercy ignored her.Instead, she moved deeper into the narrow passage, her cane tapping against the concrete floor.“Rebecca, we have to keep moving.”“My mother is back there!”Mercy stopped.Rebecca stared at her.“You said Claire wasn't my biological mother. Fine. But she raised me. She protected me. She is my mother.”Mercy's face softened.“I know.”“Then don't ask me to leave her.”“I am asking you to survive.”A deep vibration passed through the walls.The same low electrical hum Rebecca had heard beneath the research station.The specimen.She could feel it now.Not hear it.Feel it.A strange pressure moved through her chest.Her locket became warm.Rebecca pulled it from beneath her clothes.The tiny black fragment inside had begun to glow faintly.Mercy saw it.Her expression changed.“You still have it.”“You know what it is?”“I k
The words remained suspended in the darkness.Mercy Bennett is still alive.Rebecca stared at the screen, unable to breathe.For years, Claire had been the woman she called Mother.The woman who had held her when she was sick.The woman who had taught her how to read, how to defend herself, how to survive.And now a medical record claimed something different.MATERNAL IDENTITY: MERCY BENNETT.Rebecca slowly turned toward Sebastian.“Who is Mercy Bennett?”Sebastian didn't answer immediately.His eyes remained fixed on the photograph they had found.Claire.Mercy.Margaret.Three women standing outside the research station in 1987.All smiling.All apparently working together.Until something had happened.Something terrible enough to split them apart.“I don't know,” Sebastian finally said.Rebecca swallowed.“You're lying.”“I wish I were.”A metallic sound came from somewhere beyond the room.Clang.Both of them froze.Another sound followed.Footsteps.Slow.Measured.Coming down t
The hallway was quiet.Too quiet.The kind of silence that pressed in on you, waiting for something to break it.Lena stood by the door, her hand still resting lightly against the handle.And on the other side of that threshold—Sebastian Crouch.No audience.No interruptions.No distractions.Just
The desert heat didn’t wait for permission.By midday, Tucson burned.Sunlight poured through the glass walls of the executive floor, turning every surface into something too bright, too exposed. Shadows were short. Nowhere to hide.And yet—Sebastian Crouch stood in the one place that felt darker
Morning in Tucson arrived without apology.The sun rose fast, harsh and golden, spilling through the glass walls of the penthouse like an interrogation light. It didn’t soften edges. It exposed them.Lena stood by the window, barefoot, a cup of untouched coffee cooling in her hand.Below her, the c
The desert night carried a different kind of silence.Not the soft, rain-soaked hush Lena remembered from other cities—but something drier, sharper. The air in Tucson clung to the skin even after sunset, holding the day’s heat like a secret it refused to let go.From the top floor of the building,







