Chapter 57
Seraphina
There was something hollow about the morning after survival.
The quiet wasn’t peace—it was the kind that came before another storm. The kind that hummed under the skin and whispered that things weren’t done unraveling.
I sat at the edge of the porch with a mug of coffee that had gone cold in my hands.
My body still ached, but it was background noise now.
Callum hadn’t said much since sunrise. He sat on the steps behind me, one hand lazily brushing against my back—steady, silent, like he knew I needed the contact more than words.
I think I did.
Emerson finally emerged from the shack, a tablet tucked under his arm and his mouth set in a grim line. One look told me what I already knew: whatever was coming… it was worse.
“You should hear this,” he said, tapping the screen.
The video feed was grainy, time-stamped from weeks ago. Surveillance from inside Facility E—but not the lower levels. This was from deep below, where even the soldiers didn’t roam freely.
It showed a man entering a sealed room. Tall. Military stride. Gray at his temples but sharp, calculated. And even in the poor lighting, I knew that profile .
My stomach flipped. “No.”
Emerson turned the tablet to show me the name tied to the retinal scan.
Tristan.
The man who taught me to fire my first weapon. Who told me I was a prodigy. Who whispered that my mother would be proud. Who I thought died in the incident that took her.
My throat closed around something jagged. “He’s alive?”
Emerson nodded grimly. “Not just alive. He’s running Phase Three.”
Callum sat up straighter behind me, tension bleeding into the air around us. “What’s Phase Three?”
Emerson’s voice dropped. “Mass replication. Using the bio-mapping data they got from your mother’s work—her DNA markers. And yours.”
The world tilted sideways.
“They’ve cracked it, Sera,” he said. “And they’re moving fast. Facility E wasn’t the end. It was a testing ground.”
I stood too quickly, the mug crashing to the floor, but I didn’t care. My mind raced.
“He used me,” I whispered. “Everything he taught me—every test, every check-in… He was cataloging my evolution. Not training me. Prepping me. Weaponizing me.”
Callum stood and came to my side, jaw clenched. “Where’s he operatin’ from?”
Emerson hesitated. “We’re still trying to trace it, but he’s mobile. Looks like he’s using old military stations. Hidden. Rotating. But I intercepted a signal—something is going live within the next forty-eight hours.”
“Then we move,” I said automatically, but my knees wobbled and the heat drained from my limbs.
Tristan had held my hand after my mother died. He’d told me it wasn’t my fault.
I’d believed him.
Callum caught me before I crumpled completely. His arms circled around me, grounding me again. Not just in the moment—but in the choice we were about to make.
“I’m done hiding,” I said, the words like fire on my tongue. “He made me a tool. He took everything from my mother and turned it into this. I won't let him do it again.”
Callum’s voice was low but sure. “Then we finish it. You and me. No matter what it takes.”
I looked up into his eyes. There was no fear there—just that same quiet rage, that protective storm he carried like a second skin. But this time, it wasn’t just about keeping me alive.
It was about making them pay.
“No more running,” I said, resting my forehead against his.
He nodded. “No more lookin’ over our shoulders. We go right through ‘em.”
We stayed like that for a long beat—foreheads pressed, breath shared, hearts steadying in sync .
And for the first time since it all began, I didn’t feel like I was drowning in it.
I felt ready to burn it down.