Chapter 12 - SofiaDaniel was dying.
There was blood on my hands.
“Stay with me!”
He tried to speak.
“Clara…”
“I’m here.”
“She never died.”
“Sofia?”
He nodded.
“Where is she?”
“Under the city.”
“What does that mean?”
“Station…”
His eyes closed.
Ricardo grabbed his shoulder.
“Which station?”
Daniel forced out one final word.
“Mercy.”
Then he stopped breathing.
I screamed.
Ricardo pulled me back.
“We have to move.”
“No.”
“They'll come for us.”
“I’m not leaving him.”
“You'll die too.”
I looked at Daniel.
Then at Leo.
Ricardo was right.
We escaped through the tunnel.
Hours later, we found an abandoned train station beneath Brooklyn.
Mercy Station.
It had been closed for decades.
The tunnels were empty.
At least they appeared empty.
Then Leo whispered:
“Mommy.”
We followed his voice.
A steel door opened.
Inside was a small medical room.
Machines.
Monitors.
And a woman lying in a hospital bed.
I froze.
Sofia.
Older.
Pale.
But alive.
Ricardo couldn't breathe.
“Sofia.”
Her eyes opened.
“Ricardo?”
He fell to his knees.
She looked at Leo.
“My baby.”
Leo ran to her.
She embraced him.
He cried against her chest.
“Mommy.”
I stood frozen in the doorway.
Sofia looked at me.
Tears filled her eyes.
“My Clara.”
My whole body shook.
“You knew me.”
“I never forgot you.”
“Why didn't you find me?”
“I tried.”
“You let me grow up thinking I had no mother.”
“I was trying to keep you alive.”
“Daniel said Vesper wanted me.”
Sofia nodded.
“They wanted all of you.”
“Why?”
She looked at Ricardo.
Then at Elena.
Then at Isabella.
“Because you were born from an experiment.”
Ricardo stood.
“Experiment?”
Sofia nodded.
“Vesper studied memory, identity, and behavior in children.”
My stomach turned.
“They wanted children who could be conditioned.”
“Why?”
“Control.”
She looked at me.
“You resisted.”
“I was a child.”
“That was the problem.”
Sofia explained.
When I was twelve, I had seen too much.
I remembered names.
Faces.
Locations.
Vesper feared I would expose them.
So Daniel hid me.
But another child had been selected.
Elena.
Then Isabella.
And another girl.
The fourth.
“The fourth child,” I whispered.
Sofia closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
“Who is she?”
Before she could answer, the lights died.
A voice came from the hallway.
“You really should have stayed dead, Sofia.”
Ricardo drew his gun.
A woman stepped through the doorway.
Elena.
But not the Elena we knew.
This woman smiled.
She looked at me.
Then at Sofia.
“It's time to finish what you started.”
Sofia whispered:
“That's not Elena.”
I stared.
The woman laughed.
“I’m not Elena.”
She pulled off a small mask.
The face beneath it was different.
Older.
Sharper.
And still disturbingly familiar.
Sofia whispered her name.
“Isabella.”
I looked toward the woman beside me.
The woman I thought was Isabella.
She stepped back.
“No…”
The imposter smiled.
“There are no sisters left.”
She raised her gun.
“Only one original.”
And suddenly I realized the worst truth of all.
May you like
One of us had never been a daughter.
One of us had been sent to find me.
