Chapter 39
Kenzi
My ears won’t stop ringing because the alarms are louder down here. The alarms wail in such a way they make it seem like the building itself has a heartbeat.
Sofia’s hand is clamped around mine as we move through the service tunnels. The light from her small flashlight flickers over pipes and dust and old warning signs. Restricted Access. Authorized Staff Only.
The thread runs ahead of us, barely visible as white against gray, trailing from somewhere deeper in the dark.
“Where does this go?” I ask, my voice too small against the roar of the alarms.
Sofia doesn’t look back. “Sub-level three. The archive.”
“Archive?”
“Where they kept the records they didn’t want the public to see.”
Of course.
We turn another corner, the air growing colder. The walls are damp now, painted with old mildew. I cover my mouth and nose, though my still lungs ache from the dust. But I keep going, because stopping means thinking, and thinking means remembering.
I just want all of this to end. It’s gone on too long.
I won’t stop until we’re finished.
The thread tightens around a drain and disappears into a side tunnel, which is both narrower and darker.
Sofia crouches, examining it. “It’s still being pulled.”
I can barely breathe. “By who?”
A faint hum rises from ahead. Not machinery, but a voice. It’s steady, low, and repeats something over and over.
I strain to listen.
My name. “Kenzi…”
Sofia looks at me sharply. “Don’t respond.”
But the voice keeps calling in a soft, coaxing, familiar way.
“Kenzi, you know the way. Follow the thread.”
It’s Dr. Radley’s voice.
My knees weaken. “Not again.”
Sofia’s grip tightens. “We end this now. Are you ready?”
I nod, though I’m not sure I’ll ever truly be ready.
We follow the thread. It leads us into a circular chamber lined with glass panels and old observation rooms. Inside them, I see outlines of equipment, restraints, chairs. Dust covers everything, but it’s not enough to hide what they were.
They’re identical to the ones at Radley.
I know because I remember.
But I don’t have time to make sense of that because in the center of the chamber stands Dr. Radley himself. He’s disheveled now, his perfect composure cracked. Blood streaks one side of his face where the glass cut him, but he’s still smiling.
On the floor beside him kneels the figure from before. The mask is cracked, hanging loose at the jaw. The thread is spilling from his hands, pooling across the floor.
Sofia steps forward, her voice steady. “It’s over, Radley.”
He glances at her, almost looking amused. “You always did confuse endings with beginnings.”
I move closer, my pulse pounding. “What did you do to him?”
“To Phoenix?” Radley gestures to him like a magician revealing a trick. “He was my test case. The perfect survivor. Programmed to remember everything and obey only the cue. He was supposed to prove we could rewrite trauma itself.”
Phoenix’s head jerks up. The mask slips, and I see his face. He’s pale, with glassy eyes, but alive. “Kenzi…”
I take a step toward him. “It’s okay. We can get you out.”
He flinches back. “No. You don’t understand.” His voice glitching on syllables. “The system… still running inside me.”
Sofia’s voice sharpens. “He’s wired into the controls. It’s him keeping the network alive.”
Dr. Radley’s grin widens. “So you see the beauty of it now? The experiment never died. No, it evolved. Now it’s something bigger and better.”
My skin prickles. “We have to shut it down.”
“I can’t.” Phoenix’s eyes fill with tears. “It’s all threaded together. You, me, the others. You pull one line and it unravels everything.”
Something snaps inside me, and I turn to the maniacal doctor. “You built this on children!”
He only tilts his head, his expression serene. “And the world applauded.”
Sofia runs at him, crossing the space in a blink. She seizes his arm and slams a syringe into his neck.
He staggers, shocked. “What?”
“Sedative,” she says. “You don’t get to monologue your way out of this.”
Radley crumples to the floor, breathing shallow.
The alarms slow. The lights dim.
For a moment, there’s blessed silence.
Then Phoenix looks at me, a flicker of awareness breaking through the static. “You can end it. You’re the last thread.”
I kneel beside him, hands shaking. “Tell me how.”
He gestures weakly to the console behind him. “Cut the signal, sever the feed.”
But I can’t move.
Sofia bolts over to me and blocks my view of the console. She turns around. “Destroying this should wipe everything. The data, the evidence. All of it. You just have to destroy it.”
Phoenix’s hand closes around my wrist. “If you don’t do it, it starts again. They’ll rebuild it somewhere else.”
My pulse thunders. Evidence or freedom. It’s a choice no survivor should ever have to make.
Sofia looks at me. “Kenzi, decide.”
The thread at our feet glows faintly, pulsing with light, as if it’s waiting.
I meet her eyes. “We end it.”
And before either of them can respond, I slam my hands down on the console.
The lights explode white.
Silence.
At first, I think I’ve gone deaf. There’s no sound, only light. It bleeds through everything, white and seemingly endless. Then it finally fades to gray.
I’m on the floor, the console smoking beside me. My hands are shaking, and my fingers are burning at the tips. The thread that covered the floor is gone. Only ash remains, soft and weightless against my palms.
Sofia kneels next to me, her voice raw. “You did it. The signal’s down.”
I blink through the haze. “Radley?”
She turns her head. The doctor lies crumpled against the far wall, still breathing but unmoving. The sedative held.
Phoenix is slumped near the console, mask shattered completely. His chest rises, shallow but steady. The light that had been pulsing beneath his skin has gone dark.
I crawl closer. “Phoenix?”
His eyes flicker open, and now they’re clear. “It’s quiet. Finally quiet.”
I take his hand. It’s cold, but not lifeless. “You’re free now.”
He shakes his head weakly. “No, just… finished.”
Sofia touches my shoulder. “We have to move. The emergency failsafe will trigger. This whole place will bury itself.”
I look up at her, voice low. “Go. You have to get the evidence out. I’ll get him.”
She hesitates, torn between sense and heart, then nods once. “You have five minutes.”
When she disappears down the hall, I look back at Phoenix. The hum of the collapsing systems fills the air, a low vibration through the floor.
I press my forehead to his wrist. Don’t feel a pulse.
My heart plummets.
Phoenix’s body is still, his face calm. The boy he once was, buried beneath the programming, finally at rest.
Sofia calls from the corridor. “Kenzi!”
When I stand, the walls tremble. Pipes groan. Dust falls like gray snow.
I look back one last time. Then I run.
The tunnel ahead glows red with warning lights, but every step feels lighter, freer. My body aches, my lungs burn, but at last, none of it matters.
We burst out of a side exit into the early morning air. The cold hits like a shock, and I collapse to my knees on the asphalt, gasping, the smell of smoke and mold clinging to everything.
Behind us, the building shudders, the ground trembling under the weight of its own destruction. Windows shatter outward, releasing plumes of white smoke into the fog.
Sofia stands beside me, breathing hard. “It’s done.”
I nod, staring at the building as it crumbles from within. “Not done. We ended it.”
She looks at me then, really looks, not as her patient but as her equal. “You ended it.”
The words settle inside me like truth and power.
I rise slowly, my knees trembling. The day feels new. Open.
In the distance, through the fading sirens and the crackle of fire, I swear I can hear a child’s laugh, soft and unbroken.
For once, it doesn’t haunt me.
It heals.