All Chapters of OUR LITTLE SECRET : Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

They found Elara’s broadcast chamber in the ruins of the old East Wing, hidden behind what used to be a music hall.The irony wasn’t lost on Ophelia.Elara appeared on every screen once again — not glitchy like before, but crisp and haunting.“You tore down Velgrave,” she said. “And left a hole the monsters are crawling out of.”“You want to lead? Then lead. But don’t be surprised when your crown cuts your throat.”“I was your friend, Ophelia.”“Now I’m your reminder.”She ended the message by detonating the old infirmary — once a secret research wing that tested experimental genome splicing on infants.The fire swallowed the courtyard.Ophelia stared at the flames, silent.Lilith stepped beside her. “She’s not just angry. She’s hurt. Broken.”Ophelia clenched her jaw. “So was I.”Carl touched her shoulder. “But you didn’t become a monster.”Ophelia didn’t answer.But she wasn’t sure he was right.The team argued for hours.Ezra wanted to strike Elara down now.Kai sug

Two nights later, they retaliated.Missiles hit the outer watchtower. Barrage drones stormed the southern defenses. Panic spread through the new base like wildfire.Carl leapt into the front lines, neutralizing wave after wave.Elara and Lilith covered the rear, shielding the younger students. Nina fought with two knives, every move precise, brutal.Ophelia ran straight into the heart of the blast zone.A masked soldier lunged at her — she dropped him with a single psychic pulse.Another aimed at Tobias — she rewrote his memory mid-trigger, making him forget how guns worked.The battle lasted twenty minutes.Long enough for the Vanguard to retreat.Long enough for the base to take damage they couldn’t afford.Later, sitting by the shattered balcony, Ophelia stared at the fires burning below.“We can’t win this forever,” she whispered.Carl sat beside her.“No,” he said. “But we can finish it.”She leaned against him, bruised and quiet.And for that moment, they allowed

Back at Velgrave, the campus felt hollow.Classes resumed. Security was doubled. But nothing felt the same.Maddox was gone. Ezra was in treatment. And Ophelia was… changed.She barely spoke.When Tobias scanned her, he found a dormant neural pattern nested inside her cortex.Not just hers.A copy.“You have a shadow,” he whispered. “Like a digital twin. It's part of Maddox’s backup plan. And if it activates…”Carl clenched his fists. “We kill it.”But Ophelia shook her head.“No. We find out why he left it inside me.”Then, one morning, Lilith didn’t show up.And Nina found her chamber door blasted open—no sign of a fight.No sign of her.Just one word carved into the floor:“Sleeper”With Lilith missing, suspicion turned inward.Tobias tracked her last comm signal to a hidden satellite loop — one that hadn't been accessed in years.Carl, Ezra, Elara, and Nina followed the lead, while Ophelia stayed behind to decode the neural imprint inside her head.And what she f

Tobias had secrets.He always did.But this one…He hadn’t even admitted to himself.When the Circle first recruited him — years ago, back when he was still a student — they promised him the power to reverse death. To bring back the brother he lost.He agreed.He betrayed them later, yes — turned whistleblower, fled, joined Velgrave’s rebellion.But the truth?He never stopped wanting what they offered.And now that Nina had unlocked the blood tomb…The Circle contacted him again.A voice in his comm.“We still have him, Tobias. Frozen. Preserved.”“Help us complete the Project, and he lives.”He turned off the signal.But his hand trembled.Because for the first time in years…He was tempted.Ophelia called an emergency council.The team assembled in the war room. Carl, Tobias, Nina (her eyes still black), Elara, and a silent Ezra.On screen: the map of the Circle’s movements. Dozens of labs, collapsing in the wake of Eira’s crusade.But at the center?A pulse.

The first sign came in the data logs.Random flickers. Inconsistencies in the power grid. Tobias noticed it before anyone.Lines of code appearing at midnight. Untraceable. Glowing like they’d been etched by thought.“ERROR: O.WOLFE//NODE_NULL//AWAITING RESTORATION.”He rubbed his temples.Either the system was malfunctioning—Or Ophelia was trying to come back.Meanwhile, Lena couldn’t sleep.She walked the empty halls of Velgrave at night, always ending up at the pod where Ophelia’s consciousness had once been housed.She didn’t know why she was drawn there.Until one night—It whispered.“Lena…”She froze.Her reflection blinked before she did.Elara was the first to collapse.In the middle of her lecture on emotional imprint regulation, she screamed and clutched her head.Everyone felt it.A wave of pressure, like time collapsing in reverse.It radiated from the basement.Where the pod used to be.Tobias and Nina raced down.And saw it: the pulse.A low throb i