Chapter 8: The Escape That Shouldn't Have Happened
The cemetery fell silent again.
The only sound was the soft hiss of rain striking old stone.
Theodore stared at his phone.
The call had lasted four seconds.
No caller ID.
No trace.
Just the same little girl's voice that had warned him about the key days earlier.
"Rosalie escaped ten minutes ago."
Grant looked at him.
"Who was it?"
"The little girl."
"What little girl?"
"The one who called after I found Locker 27."
Grant frowned.
"You never told me that."
"There wasn't time."
Grant's expression hardened.
"From now on, there has to be."
Meanwhile...
Thirty-eight miles north of Manhattan.
The underground medical facility was in lockdown.
Red emergency lights flashed through sterile white corridors.
Security alarms echoed behind reinforced steel doors.
A voice repeated over the intercom.
Security Breach.
Subject has escaped.
Level Four containment activated.
Mercer stood in the center of the control room, staring at dozens of surveillance monitors.
Every camera replayed the same impossible sequence.
Room C-12.
Rosalie lying motionless.
Nurse enters.
Nurse checks IV.
Nurse leaves.
Twelve seconds later...
The camera rotated away.
When it turned back...
The bed was empty.
No struggle.
No opened door.
No visible escape.
She had simply... vanished.
Mercer replayed the footage again.
And again.
Nothing.
He slammed his fist onto the console.
"Where is she?"
No one answered.
One technician hesitated before speaking.
"Doctor..."
Mercer turned sharply.
"What?"
"We found this."
The technician placed a tiny object on the table.
A silver queen chess piece.
Identical to the one left beneath Rosalie's hospital bed.
Mercer's face darkened.
"No..."
Someone else was playing the game.
Elsewhere in the complex...
Rosalie crouched inside a narrow maintenance tunnel.
Every breath hurt.
The sedatives still clouded her muscles.
But her mind had never been clearer.
She wasn't alone.
Across from her sat a little blonde girl wrapped in an oversized gray hoodie.
The same girl from Subject Nine's file.
Emma Brooks.
Officially dead.
Actually alive.
Emma smiled.
"I knew you'd wake up."
Rosalie stared.
"You're Subject Nine."
Emma nodded.
"They don't call me Emma anymore."
"What do they call you?"
The little girl's smile disappeared.
"An experiment."
Rosalie looked closely at her.
She couldn't have been older than nine.
Yet her eyes carried a strange sadness.
One no child should ever possess.
"You called Theodore."
Emma nodded.
"I wasn't supposed to."
"How?"
"I know their phone system."
Rosalie blinked.
"You hacked it?"
Emma shrugged.
"They taught me."
Before Rosalie could ask another question...
The tunnel lights flickered.
Emma's face changed instantly.
"They found us."
Back in Manhattan...
Grant and Theodore had returned to the temporary operations room.
The evidence wall now covered nearly every surface.
One section held photographs.
Another displayed timelines.
A third contained names.
At the center...
One question remained.
WHO IS THE CURATOR?
Reeves wasn't the leader.
The Collector answered to someone.
Alexander answered to someone.
Mercer answered to someone.
Even White Raven seemed to answer to someone.
Theodore stared at the board.
"We're missing the top."
Grant nodded.
"The person who built all of this."
A knock interrupted them.
Three short taps.
Pause.
Two more.
Grant quietly reached for his pistol.
Nobody should know this location.
He approached the door.
"Who is it?"
A familiar voice answered.
"Open the door, Lucas."
Grant froze.
"No."
The voice came again.
"It's Sarah."
Theodore felt every muscle tighten.
Grant looked through the peephole.
His face drained of color.
Standing outside...
was Sarah Monroe.
Exactly as she had looked twelve years ago.
Same dark hair.
Same leather jacket.
Same scar beneath her left eye.
Alive.
Grant whispered,
"...Impossible."
He unlocked the door.
The woman stepped inside.
She smiled sadly.
"Hello, partner."
Before Grant could speak...
She hugged him.
For a long moment...
He didn't move.
Then...
Very slowly...
He hugged her back.
"I buried you."
"I know."
Theodore watched silently.
Something felt wrong.
Not obvious.
Tiny.
Sarah released Grant.
"I'm sorry."
"I couldn't contact you."
"They watched everything."
Grant stepped back.
"I don't understand."
"You will."
She reached into her pocket.
Removed a small brass key.
Placed it in Grant's hand.
"It opens the archive."
"What archive?"
She looked directly at Theodore.
"The first one."
Theodore's heartbeat quickened.
"First?"
Sarah nodded.
"There wasn't only one White Raven."
Silence.
Grant frowned.
"What are you talking about?"
Sarah took a slow breath.
"The organization you're chasing..."
"...is Version Two."
Neither man spoke.
She continued.
"The original White Raven collapsed twenty-two years ago."
"What replaced it..."
"...was worse."
The room suddenly lost power.
Darkness.
Emergency lights activated.
Red.
Exactly like Locker 27.
Theodore whispered,
"Not again."
A laser sight appeared on the wall.
Then another.
Then five more.
Every red dot settled onto Sarah.
Not Grant.
Not Theodore.
Only Sarah.
She smiled sadly.
"I guess they found me."
The window exploded inward.
Suppressors coughed.
Grant tackled Sarah to the floor.
Bullets tore through filing cabinets.
Theodore overturned a steel desk for cover.
Glass rained across the room.
Outside...
Black-clad shooters surrounded the building.
Grant shouted,
"Back exit!"
Sarah shook her head.
"No."
"They're not here for you."
"They're here for me."
She pulled a folded photograph from inside her jacket and shoved it into Theodore's hand.
"Don't lose this."
Theodore barely glanced at it.
The picture showed six people standing in front of an old mansion.
One face immediately caught his attention.
A young Sebastian.
Beside him...
Alexander.
And between them...
Rosalie.
She couldn't have been more than eight years old.
Theodore stared.
"No..."
Rosalie had always told him she'd met Sebastian for the first time at a charity gala five years ago.
Yet this photograph had been taken nearly twenty years earlier.
On the back, someone had written a single sentence in blue ink:
"The children who survived Project Lazarus."
Theodore slowly looked up.
Sarah met his eyes.
Then whispered the words that shattered everything he thought he knew.
"Rosalie was born a Vale."
At that exact instant, a sniper's bullet pierced the wall.
The round struck Sarah squarely in the chest.
She staggered backward into Grant's arms.
Blood spread rapidly across her jacket.
Grant screamed her name.
But Sarah wasn't looking at him.
She was looking at Theodore.
With the last of her strength, she whispered one final sentence:
"Ask Sebastian... who Rosalie really is."
May you like
Her eyes closed.
The room fell silent.
