chapter 12

Serena POV

"What didn't my mother tell me about Lisa?"

The question clawed at the inside of my skull like a feverish nightmare. Was Lisa reborn too? Did she drag the memories of our bloody, terrifying past back into the present just as I had? How else could they have known about the secret underground bunker I had spent millions to construct in complete silence? How did Bianca manage to coordinate a high-level military-grade security breach with Marcus before my SUV even reached the driveway?

My eyes remained locked onto my mother, watching the chaotic, unhinged panic flickering across her face while Bianca stood casually in the doorway.

KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.

Lisa’s soft, rhythmic tapping from down the hall echoed through the doorframe, a slow, predatory countdown that mocked the desperate beating of my own heart.

"What does she mean, Mom?!" I demanded, my voice raw, jagged, and laced with the lethal crackle of blue electricity dancing across my right hand. "What are you hiding from me?!"

My mother tightened her white-knuckled grip on the heavy kitchen knife, her hand trembling so violently that the steel blade shivered in the harsh fluorescent light.

"Don't listen to her, Serena!" she shrieked, her voice pitching into a desperate, shrill panic. "She's trying to turn you against your own family! She's lying!"

"Then tell me the truth!" I roared, the air in the small security room vibrating with the sudden surge of my lightning. "Tell me right now, or so help me God, I will leave you both to the horde!"

My mother froze. The sheer, terrifying aura of my newly awakened power seemed to press against her chest, suffocating the manic arrogance out of her. For three agonizing seconds, the only sound in the room was the low, electric hum of the surveillance monitors and the heavy, rhythmic thud of rain pounding against the roof above.

She swallowed hard, her eyes darting nervously toward the shadows of the hallway before sinking to the floor.

"Lisa... Lisa didn't just disappear all those years ago," my mother whispered, her voice hollow, stripped of all its usual venom. "When the police stopped looking, when the whole world told us she was dead... we kept searching. But we never found a single trace of her. You know that part."

"I know that part!" I cut her off, taking a sharp step forward, my boots squelching against the wet floor. "Get to the point!"

"No, Serena... you don't know!" my mother cried out, tears of genuine terror finally spilling over her wrinkled cheeks. "When she walked through our front door three days ago, she wasn't the same girl! She told us... she told us someone had kept her hidden in the dark for all those years! Locked away from the world!"

My breath hitched. I stared at her, my pulse hammering against my ribs. "Who? Who kept her?"

My mother shook her head frantically, her teeth chattering. "She refused to tell us! No matter how much I begged, no matter how much I cried, she wouldn't say his name! But... but after she returned, Serena... strange, impossible things started happening around the house!"

"What kind of things?" I demanded, my voice dropping into a dangerous whisper.

"She knew things she shouldn't have known!" my mother sobbed, clutching the knife to her chest like a crucifix. "She knew the names of people she had never met! She predicted a pileup on the highway two hours before it happened! She told us the power grid would fail today! She told us about your shelter, Serena! She told us you were building a fortress and that we had to take it from you before the sky turned black!"

My heart pounded against my sternum like a trapped bird.

Danger prediction? Future sight?

What kind of monster had Lisa become during those lost years? What twisted, terrifying ability had she awakened while I was busy stockpiling canned goods and believing I was the only one given a second chance?

Before I could process the staggering horror of her words, Bianca stepped fully into the security suite, her face turning pale as she looked past my mother, her usual arrogant demeanor completely shattering into genuine alarm.

"Serena... you need to be careful," Bianca said, her voice dropping its venomous edge, suddenly filled with an urgent, desperate gravity. "Lisa is not who you think she is. She isn't just a survivor, Serena. She's the one who—"

"How come you suddenly care about me?!" I spat, turning a razor-sharp glare toward my former best friend. "You bribed my head of security! You opened my gates! You brought the dead to my doorstep, and now you want to play the concerned friend?!"

"Keep your mouth shut, Bianca!" my mother screamed, spinning toward her with the knife raised. "Don't you dare speak about my daughter!"

BZZZZT!

Without warning, the fluorescent ceiling tubes flickered violently, emitted a sharp screeching pop, and died.

The security monitors went pitch black simultaneously. The hum of the backup generators cut out. The room swung into absolute, suffocating darkness.

"Ahhhh!" my mother shrieked in the dark.

CLATTER.

I heard the heavy steel kitchen knife slip from her trembling fingers, bouncing against the concrete floor before rolling into the shadows. Heavy, wet footsteps sounded right behind me, moving with an impossible, unnerving speed that defied human anatomy.

"Who's there?!" I yelled.

Instinct took over. I spun around on my heel and raised my right hand into the pitch-black air, willing the dormant energy in my blood to ignite.

CRACK-BOOM!

A blinding, violent flash of blue lightning erupted from my palm, illuminating the room in a brilliant, terrifying white glare that cast long, grotesque shadows across the walls.

The light revealed a nightmare.

Lisa stood in the far corner of the security room, mere inches from where I had been standing.

Her pristine white dress was entirely drenched in thick, black, coagulated blood. Her long hair hung in matted, crimson-soaked strands around her pale face. But it was her eyes that made my blood run cold—they were no longer human. They glowed with an unnatural, luminous red light, burning through the dark like two embers from the depths of hell.

I stumbled backward, my boots catching on the leg of the control chair, barely keeping my balance as the lightning flickered out, leaving only the demonic red glow of her eyes to light the room.

"Lisa..." I gasped, my voice trembling with an agonizing, primal dread.

Lisa slowly lifted her head. Her neck cracked with a sickening, metallic pop as her red eyes locked directly onto mine.

Then, her lips curved upward into a wide, unnatural smile that stretched too far across her pale cheeks, revealing teeth that were stained with fresh, dripping gore.

"You were not supposed to survive this time, Serena," Lisa whispered, her voice echoing not from her throat, but from every corner of the room simultaneously—a layered, demonic chorus that vibrated straight through my bones.

My blood turned to pure ice.

Before I could raise my hand to strike, before my mind could even register the absolute impossibility of her words, Lisa’s body blurred.

She lunged toward me with terrifying, supernatural speed, her bloody hands outstretched like claws aimed straight for my throat.

And at that exact fraction of a second, the heavy steel security door behind her exploded inward with a deafening CRASH!