The silence in the laboratory was heavier than the explosion that had just rocked the manor. I stood in the shattered remains of the glass chamber, but I didn't feel the cold or the cuts on my skin. Inside my chest, something was pulsing. It felt like a second heart made of ice and electricity.
The dark shadow was gone, but it hadn't vanished. It was behind my eyes. It was in my breath.
"Hello, sister," I whispered again, but this time, the voice didn't sound like mine alone. It had an echo, a ghostly resonance that made the air around me vibrate.
Arthur sat slumped against the wall, staring at me with wide, terrified eyes. He had spent years trying to control this power, and now that it was standing right in front of him, he looked like a broken child.
"What... what are you?" he stammered, his hand shaking as he pointed at me.
"I am the truth you tried to bury," I said, my voice cold.
I didn't walk toward him; it felt more like I glided. The metal floor groaned under my feet. I looked at the monitors. The data was streaming in red, warning of a total system collapse. Blackwood Manor was dying, and it wanted to take all of us with it.
"David!" I cried out, remembering the man who had risked everything.
I rushed to the corner where David lay. He was pale, his breathing shallow. I knelt beside him and touched his forehead. The moment my skin met his, a spark flew. A vision flashed through my mind—a memory that wasn't mine. I saw a young David crying in the middle of a burning room, holding a girl who looked exactly like me.
"Zoya..." David groaned, his eyes fluttering open. He looked at me, and for a second, he flinched. He could see the darkness swirling in my pupils. "You... you accepted it. You let her in."
"I had to save you," I said, my voice softening. "David, we have to get out of here. The Watchers are outside, and the building is unstable."
David grabbed my hand, his grip weak but desperate. "It's not just the building, Zoya. My mother... she's not here for the science. She's here to reset the world. If she gets her hands on you now, she won't just use you as a masterpiece. She will use you as a weapon of mass destruction."
"Then let them try," I said, a strange, dark confidence rising within me.
I helped David stand up. He leaned heavily on my shoulder. We began to make our way toward the secret exit, but the sound of heavy boots and barking dogs echoed down the hallway. The Watchers were inside.
"This way!" David whispered, pointing toward a narrow ventilation shaft hidden behind a row of servers.
We crawled through the dark, metal tunnel. Above us, I could hear the soldiers shouting. They were searching the lab, throwing equipment aside. Every time a flashlight beam swept past the vents, my heart skipped a beat.
Suddenly, the shaft ended at a high balcony overlooking the grand ballroom of the manor. The room was filled with soldiers in black tactical gear. In the center stood David's mother, looking calm and elegant despite the chaos.
"Find them!" she commanded. "I don't care if David is dead, but I want the girl alive. She is the only key left to the BlackwoodProtocol."
I felt David stiffen beside me. "We can't go through the ballroom," he hissed.
"We don't have a choice," I replied. I looked down at my hands. They were glowing with a faint, smoky purple light. "I can handle them, David. Trust me."
"Zoya, no! You don't know how to control that power yet! If you let it go, you might lose yourself forever!"
But I wasn't listening. The anger I had suppressed for years—the confusion, the fear, the feeling of being a puppet—it was all turning into a storm. I jumped from the balcony, landing in the middle of the ballroom like a fallen star.
The soldiers turned their weapons toward me. "Open fire!" someone shouted.
A hail of bullets flew through the air. But they never hit me. A shield of dark energy surged from my skin, freezing the bullets in mid-air before dropping them to the floor like pebbles.
The room went silent. Even David's mother looked stunned.
"So," she whispered, stepping forward. "The masterpiece has finally awakened. You look just like her, Zoya. But you have your father's eyes—cold and hollow."
"I am nothing like him," I snarled.
I raised my hand, and a wave of force threw the soldiers back against the marble walls. I felt a surge of adrenaline, a dark joy that terrified me. For the first time in my life, I was the one with the power. I was the one in control.
David scrambled down from the balcony, his face pale with horror. "Zoya, stop! You're killing them!"
I looked at the soldiers groaning on the floor. I didn't feel pity. I felt justice. But then, I looked at David. His eyes were filled with fear—not fear of the soldiers, but fear of me.
That look hurt more than any bullet. The darkness inside me recoiled, and the purple glow faded. I felt a sudden wave of exhaustion wash over me. I stumbled, and David caught me in his arms.
"We have to go," he whispered, pulling me toward the main entrance. "The mansion is rigged with explosives. My mother isn't leaving any evidence behind."
We burst through the front doors and into the pouring rain. The scarred man was waiting in the black sedan, the engine idling. We dove into the back seat just as a massive explosion ripped through the upper floors of Blackwood Manor.
The house where I was "created," the house filled with David's obsessions and my father's greed, was collapsing into a mountain of fire and stone.
As we sped away, I looked back at the ruins. A single figure was standing on the lawn, untouched by the flames. It was David's mother. She wasn't running. She was smiling.
She held up a small device—a remote. She pressed a button, and a sharp, high-pitched tone echoed in my head.
"Aaaah!" I screamed, clutching my temples. It felt like a needle was being driven into my brain.
"Zoya! What's wrong?" David cried out, grabbing my shoulders.
I couldn't answer. Images began to flash in my mind—not memories, but commands. Coordinates. A countdown.
Target Acquired. Activation Sequence: Phase Two.
"She... she has a kill switch," I managed to choke out. "David, she's in my head!"
The car skidded as we turned a sharp corner. The scarred man looked at us through the rearview mirror. "We have to get her to a safe house. Somewhere with a Faraday cage to block the signal!"
"There's no time!" David yelled. "The sequence is already running. She's trying to force Zoya to return to the Red Room in the city!"
The pain became unbearable. I felt my consciousness slipping away, replaced by a cold, robotic logic. I looked at David, but I didn't see the man I loved. I saw a target.
I raised my hand, and the dark energy began to swirl again.
"Zoya, look at me!" David pleaded, his voice cracking. "Fight it! You are more than a machine! You are Zoya! You are the girl who loved the rain! You are the girl who painted the stars when no one was watching!"
I froze. The word "stars" triggered something deep within me. I remembered the night in the studio, the smell of oil paint and the way David's hand felt on mine.
With a roar of agony, I turned the energy away from David and blasted it through the roof of the car. The metal peeled back like paper, and a beam of dark light shot into the stormy sky.
The signal was broken. The pain vanished, leaving me gasping for air.
"I'm... I'm okay," I whispered, collapsing against David's chest.
He held me so tight I could barely breathe. "I've got you. I'm not letting her take you back. Never again."
We drove in silence for miles, leaving the burning manor behind. But the feeling of peace didn't last long. I looked at the folder in my lap, and a single piece of paper caught my eye. It was a medical report I had missed before.
It was a DNA compatibility chart. It showed David's blood, my blood, and a third sample.
Sample C: The Donor.
The blood type wasn't O or AB. It was a rare, synthetic type. And beneath it was a name that made my blood run cold.
Eleanor Vane (Biological Sister of David Vane). Status: Deceased.
But below that, there was a second line:
Zoya Vane (Biological Daughter of Arthur and Eleanor Vane).
I dropped the paper. My hands were shaking so hard I couldn't pick it up.
"David," I whispered, my voice trembling. "If Eleanor was your sister... and I am Eleanor's daughter... then you aren't my brother."
David went still. He didn't look at me. He looked out the window at the passing trees.
"I know," he said, his voice a low, painful rasp.
"Then... then you are my Uncle?" I asked, the word feeling like a hot iron in my throat.
David finally turned to me. His eyes were filled with a dark, twisted sorrow. He reached out and touched my cheek, his fingers cold.
"In the eyes of the law, perhaps," he whispered. "But you were never born of a womb, Zoya. You were grown in a tank using her cells and Arthur's greed. You have no family. You have no bloodline. You are a ghost I tried to turn into a woman."
Before I could process the horror of his words, the car suddenly slammed on the brakes.
In the middle of the road stood a girl. She looked about ten years old. She was wearing a blue dress, and she was holding a teddy bear. She looked perfectly normal, except for one thing.
Her eyes were glowing with the same purple light that had been inside me.
She looked at the car and smiled.
"Mommy said you were coming home," the little girl said, her voice echoing inside all of our heads. "But she says Zoya has been a bad girl. So I have to take her back myself."
Behind the girl, dozens of other children began to emerge from the trees. Every single one of them had the same glowing eyes. Every single one of them looked exactly like me at different ages.
David looked at the army of clones and then at me. His face was a mask of pure despair.
"It's not just you, Zoya," he whispered. "She didn't just make a masterpiece. She made an army."
[To be continued in Chapter 12...]