Chapter 14 - What Was BuriedThe mansion was evacuated.
Fire crews surrounded the property.
Victor stood outside with Ethan and Lily.
The building was destroyed.
But the secrets beneath it remained.
Ethan handed Victor the key.
A tiny symbol was engraved on the back.
A door.
Victor stared.
“Where does this one go?”
Ethan pointed toward the garden.
“There.”
Victor looked.
An old stone fountain stood in the center.
He had seen it a thousand times.
Never noticed the lock.
The key fit.
The fountain shifted.
A staircase appeared.
Lily whispered:
“There’s more.”
They descended.
At the bottom was a chamber untouched by the explosion.
Inside was a single chair.
A camera.
And a safe.
Victor opened the safe.
Inside was one final letter.
From his father.
Victor read.
“I knew you would find this.”
His hands tightened.
“You want the truth.”
He continued.
“The children were never the experiment.”
Victor looked at Lily.
“The experiment was you.”
Lily frowned.
“What?”
Victor read further.
“You were the only one capable of rejecting the conditioning.”
He stared.
“You were the control subject.”
Lily’s face went pale.
“You mean…”
“You were never supposed to be part of Project Eve.”
The letter explained that Lily’s mother had discovered the experiments and secretly substituted her own daughter for another child.
Lily had escaped the project without undergoing memory conditioning.
That made her dangerous.
Because she could remember everything.
Victor looked at her.
“That’s why Evelyn hired you.”
Lily nodded slowly.
“To protect Ethan.”
“And to uncover the truth.”
She touched the wall.
“What about Adrian?”
Victor opened another file.
Adrian was alive.
Gabriel was alive.
Evelyn was alive.
But one file remained.
SUBJECT V-01
Victor.
The report described the memory manipulation.
The experiments.
The implanted false memories.
And one final procedure.
EMOTIONAL TRIGGER: IF SUBJECT ENCOUNTERS OTHER ORIGINALS, MEMORY WILL RESTORE.
Victor stared.
His memories were returning.
That was why he had been having headaches.
Why he remembered his mother.
Why he recognized things he had forgotten.
The final page contained a photograph.
Victor as a teenager.
Standing beside a girl.
The girl was Serena.
Victor’s eyes widened.
They had known each other long before she entered his home.
Lily looked at the photograph.
“Who is she?”
Victor whispered:
“Someone I loved.”
Ethan looked confused.
“But Serena is bad.”
Victor nodded.
“She was.”
Lily studied the photograph.
Then she noticed something behind them.
A shadow.
She turned.
Too late.
Someone struck her.
Victor fell beside Ethan.
Darkness.
When Victor woke, he was tied to a chair.
Lily was beside him.
Ethan was missing.
A voice came from behind them.
Victor looked up.
His father stood there.
Alive.
Bleeding.
Smiling.
“I told you, son.”
Victor’s eyes widened.
“You fell into a collapsing chamber.”
“And you thought that would kill me?”
His father stepped closer.
“Now we finish what your mother interrupted.”
He pressed a syringe against Victor’s neck.
Lily struggled.
“Leave him!”
His father smiled.
“I’m not here to kill Victor.”
He looked toward the camera.
“I’m here to activate him.”
Victor’s heart raced.
“What does that mean?”
His father injected him.
Pain exploded through his body.
The room blurred.
His father whispered:
“Remember who you were.”
Victor screamed.
And suddenly he remembered.
Everything.
Including the one person who had ordered Evelyn’s murder.
It wasn’t his father.
It wasn’t Serena.
It wasn’t Gabriel.
It wasn’t Adrian.
Victor opened his eyes.
And whispered a name.
His father’s smile vanished.
“No…”
Victor smiled coldly.
“You’re the one who killed her.”
His father stepped backward.
Victor continued:
“Not alone.”
Then he looked at Lily.
“We’ve been betrayed by someone else.”
Lily stared.
“Who?”
May you like
Victor looked toward the camera.
“Ethan.”
