Chapter 15 - Ryan woke to darkness.For a moment, he couldn't remember where he was.
Then he heard sirens.
Smoke filled the room.
Emergency lights flashed red.
He pushed himself upright.
“Noah?”
A weak voice answered.
“Dad.”
Ryan turned.
Noah was beside him.
Alive.
Ryan grabbed him.
“Where are the girls?”
Noah pointed toward the doorway.
Ryan ran.
The laboratory was half destroyed.
Machines sparked.
Glass covered the floor.
Victor was gone.
Emily was lying unconscious beside the console.
And near the exit stood one girl.
She was holding the other girl's hand.
Ryan stopped.
“Lily?”
The girl looked at him.
Then smiled.
“Daddy.”
Ryan stared at her face.
He knew her.
But now he understood something.
He had spent the entire night trying to determine which girl was his daughter.
He had been asking the wrong question.
The girls weren't simply identities.
They had been manipulated.
Copied.
Merged.
Separated.
But they were still children.
Children who had survived something no child should ever have known.
Ryan walked toward them.
“Are you okay?”
The girl nodded.
The other one looked at him.
“I'm Grace.”
Ryan's chest tightened.
“And I'm Lily.”
He looked between them.
“Which one is…”
Both girls interrupted.
“Both.”
Ryan closed his eyes.
They were smiling.
Not because everything was fixed.
Because they were finally free to decide who they were.
Police flooded into the laboratory.
Detective Cole arrived minutes later.
Victor was captured three hours afterward while trying to cross the state line.
Daniel was found dead in the underground tunnel.
No one knew whether he had been killed by Victor or the collapse.
The investigation lasted two years.
The hospital closed.
Project Mirror became one of the largest criminal investigations in the state's history.
More than a dozen missing children were identified.
Some had survived.
Most had not.
Ryan testified.
Emily testified.
And eventually, Emily told the whole truth.
She admitted what she had done.
She admitted she had hidden Lily.
She admitted she had lied.
She admitted she had been afraid.
But she also confessed something else.
She had never stopped trying to save her daughters.
Sometimes the truth is ugly because people make impossible choices inside impossible cages.
That didn't erase what she had done.
It only explained it.
The Mercer house was demolished.
Not renovated.
Not sold.
Destroyed.
Ryan refused to let anyone live there again.
Six months later, he and Noah moved to a quiet town three hours away.
The girls lived with them.
They had separate bedrooms.
Separate clothes.
Separate school records.
But they shared one rule.
No one would ever tell them who they were supposed to be.
One evening, Ryan was making dinner when Noah walked into the kitchen.
“Dad?”
Ryan looked over.
“Yeah?”
Noah hesitated.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Do you remember what the girl under the floor said?”
Ryan smiled faintly.
“Which part?”
“That she was hungry.”
Ryan nodded.
“She was.”
Noah looked down.
“Do you think she was really asking for food?”
Ryan stopped stirring.
He looked at his son.
“What do you mean?”
Noah stared at the kitchen floor.
“She was asking you to find her.”
Ryan felt a chill.
Before he could answer, one of the girls entered.
Lily.
Or Grace.
Ryan still sometimes had to look twice.
She placed a folded piece of paper on the table.
“What's that?”
She didn't answer.
Ryan opened it.
Inside was a drawing.
A house.
A family.
Two girls.
A boy.
A father.
A mother.
Ryan looked at her.
“Who's this?”
She pointed to a black figure standing beneath the house.
“Him.”
“Victor?”
She shook her head.
“No.”
Ryan's smile disappeared.
“Then who?”
The girl whispered:
“The first one.”
Ryan unfolded the paper completely.
At the bottom was a name.
One he'd never heard.
ADAM MERCER.
Ryan's hands went cold.
“Who is Adam?”
The girl looked at him.
“My brother.”
Ryan stared.
“We don't have a brother.”
She nodded.
“I know.”
“Then why did you draw him?”
She looked toward Noah.
Noah had gone pale.
Ryan turned.
Noah was staring at the picture.
“Dad…”
“What?”
Noah pointed to the name.
“I remember that name.”
Ryan felt the room grow colder.
“From where?”
Noah swallowed.
“From the white room.”
Ryan looked back at the girl.
“Where is Adam?”
She didn't answer.
“Where is your brother?”
She slowly pointed toward the kitchen floor.
Ryan froze.
“No.”
The girl nodded.
“He's still under the house.”
Ryan stared at the floor.
The house was gone.
There was no basement.
No laboratory.
No hidden room.
Nothing beneath them.
Ryan slowly lowered himself.
He pressed his ear against the wooden floor.
At first, he heard nothing.
Then…
Three soft knocks.
Ryan stopped breathing.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
Noah backed away.
The girl started crying.
Ryan stared at the floor.
A tiny voice came through the boards.
Weak.
Frightened.
Almost familiar.
“Daddy?”
Ryan's blood ran cold.
The voice continued.
“You found my sisters.”
Ryan looked at the two girls.
They were both crying.
Then the voice beneath the floor whispered the final sentence.
“Now you have to find me.”
The lights went out.
May you like
And somewhere underneath the house that was supposed to be gone forever…
something knocked again.
