The moment they stepped out of the server room, the air felt different—charged, heavier. Like the facility itself had begun to wake.
They moved quietly, backtracking through dim corridors. Every flicker of motion, every shift of shadow, set Elena's nerves on edge. She wasn't sure if the hum in her bones was adrenaline or memory.
Liam guided her with practiced precision. His posture changed—sharper now, tighter. He was falling back into the soldier, the weapon. But this time, he wasn't falling alone.
They passed through a decontamination hall, lined with old containment suits and broken scanners. Elena paused at one of the doors, fingers brushing against the cracked glass.
Inside, there were photos taped to the wall. Children. Soldiers. Test subjects?
"Liam," she said.
He followed her gaze, jaw clenching. "Control subjects. They used personal connections to trigger emotional spikes during trials. Fear was always the cleanest data point."
Elena stepped back, sick. "And they call that research."
"They called it necessary."
She turned to him, voice low. "That's why Sloan wants us back, isn't it? We're part of his control group."
"No," Liam said, pulling her down a side stairwell. "We're the anomaly. The variable he couldn't contain. That's why he's scared."
That's why he's here.
They reached a secured door at the lowest level—Level 0.
The keycard Liam had stolen from the surveillance desk trembled in his hand as he slid it through the reader. The light blinked red, then green.
Click.
The door hissed open.
The space beyond was colder, cleaner, newer.
Elena's breath fogged. "This wasn't here when you trained."
"No. This is where he moved after Ridgepoint 'shut down.' He never stopped. Just went deeper."
The hallway curved. At the end: a single steel door.
From behind it, a voice filtered through a speaker — quiet, clinical, and all too familiar.
"You came back," Sloan said. "I'm impressed. And disappointed."
Elena stepped forward, pulse thundering. "You should be scared."
"Oh, I am," Sloan replied. "But not of you. I'm scared of what you'll learn before you die."
The line cut.
The door opened.
Inside, darkness waited. And whatever was left of the program they thought they'd escaped.
The corridor beyond the steel door was sterile—too clean for a place abandoned years ago.
Liam moved ahead, scanning. Elena followed, her fingers unconsciously brushing the walls. It wasn't just cold—it was quiet in a way that made her teeth ache. Like the silence had weight.
Motion sensors clicked on as they moved, bathing everything in harsh white light.
Then they saw it.
A large glass chamber at the end of the hall, sealed with a biometric lock. Inside, a single chair, restraints bolted to the arms. Needles. A pulse scanner. A small screen still glowing with dormant data.
"What is this?" Elena whispered.
Liam approached slowly. "It's a memory chamber. They used to call it the 'mirror seat.' It pulls neural echoes from the hippocampus. Makes you relive things… over and over."
"But why keep it running?"
He didn't answer.
Not right away.
Because on the desk beside it sat a folder. New. Red seal. No dust.
Elena opened it.
It was a profile. Not hers. Not Liam's.
A child's.
Black-and-white images. A medical file. Marked: PROJECT: ASCENT.
The subject's name had been redacted—but the mother's hadn't.
Elena Rivera.
Her heart stopped.
"That's not possible," she said aloud, voice trembling.
Liam's face drained of color. "They lied to you."
"I was told I miscarried. That there was no heartbeat—"
"They didn't kill the child," Liam said, his voice thick. "They took them."
Elena backed away, the room spinning.
Pictures. Dates. Progress notes. The child would be—what? Eight now?
"No... this is a mistake. This is wrong."
Liam opened a second drawer. A photograph. Blurred, surveillance-style. A child walking in a controlled outdoor area. Too far to see clearly, but the shape—the stance—was familiar. Almost achingly so.
"Elena," he said gently. "We're not here because you ran."
Her hands shook as she clutched the file to her chest.
"We're here because they want the both of you back."
For a long moment, the only sound was the low hum of the server racks and the pounding of her pulse in her ears.
Then, she lifted her chin. Her voice was low. Deadly calm.
"We end this. All of it. And we find them."
They didn't speak for a while after leaving the chamber.
Liam led them into a secured maintenance tunnel—low-lit and narrow, the hum of the facility now more distant, almost forgotten. It was a quiet space tucked between what they'd just learned and what they would now have to face.
Elena sat on the concrete floor, her back against the wall, hands still clutching the file. It felt radioactive in her grip.
Liam crouched beside her but gave her space.
She finally broke the silence.
"I thought the worst thing they could take from me… was my freedom."
Her voice was hollow. Not broken—sharpened by grief.
"But it wasn't," she whispered. "They took something I didn't even get to hold. They let me live thinking there was nothing left."
Liam looked at her, eyes soft despite the hard angles of his face. "Sloan knew exactly what that would do to you."
Tears welled, then slipped silently down her cheeks. She didn't wipe them away.
"I don't know how to be a mother," she said. "I don't even know if they're safe, if they're—God—what they are now."
Liam's voice was quiet. "They're yours. That's enough to fight for."
She looked at him, vulnerable and fierce all at once. "Why didn't you leave? You could've walked away."
"I did leave," he said. "And I kept walking. Right into that coffee shop. Right to you. I didn't know what I was looking for until I found it."
Elena's breath hitched.
Liam reached for her hand, slow and deliberate. "We're not just running anymore. We're taking it back—your life, their life. All of it."
She gripped his hand like an anchor.
"Then let's go get what's ours," she whispered.
In that moment, with the weight of years pressing in from every side, Elena stopped being hunted.
She became the hunter.
The final door opened without resistance.
The room beyond was expansive, clinical. Glass panels lined the far wall, overlooking a dark observation chamber. Monitors glowed faintly, displaying biometric readings, neural scans, old files resurrected from cold archives.
And at the center of it all—standing like he'd never left—was Sloan.
Hair grayer than before. Face leaner. But the arrogance, the controlled posture, the predator's calm—that was exactly as Elena remembered.
"Well," Sloan said. "I was beginning to think you'd turn back. But you always did have a flair for dramatics."
Elena stepped forward, her voice low. "Where are they?"
Sloan tilted his head. "Who?"
"You know who."
A flicker of something passed through his eyes—displeasure, calculation.
"I gave you a chance to forget, Elena. A way out. I wiped the slate for you."
"No. You stole it. You made me forget something I never knew I had."
Liam stepped beside her. His gun was drawn but lowered, calm. "We found the files. We saw the chamber."
Sloan's gaze didn't even twitch. "And yet you walked into my lab anyway. Fascinating."
"You're going to tell us where they are," Liam said. "Or I'll start destroying everything you've ever built."
Sloan smirked. "Always the soldier."
He pressed something on a tablet near his hand, and the far wall screen flickered.
A live feed.
A child sat on the other side of reinforced glass. Not restrained. Not hurt. Just… sitting. Reading. Drawing in a notebook.
Elena's knees almost gave way.
"They've been raised with everything I didn't have," Sloan said. "Education. Precision. Purpose. They're special, Elena. And you—you're the variable that could ruin that."
Elena stepped closer, her voice shaking now with fury. "You took a child and made them your experiment. That's not purpose. That's control."
"You're emotional. That's why you'll always be weak."
"No," she whispered. "That's why I'll win."
Liam moved fast. He reached behind Sloan, disabling the wall control. Sparks snapped.
Sloan didn't flinch.
"You can't take them," Sloan said. "They won't even know you."
"Maybe," Elena said. "But I will. And they deserve to know the truth."
Alarms began to wail. Somewhere, the building's security grid finally caught up.
Liam turned to her. "We have five minutes."
Elena looked back once more at the screen. The child was turning the page, calm—unaware of what was coming.
Not for long, she thought.
She turned back to Sloan. "Goodbye."
Then she hit the last power relay with the butt of Liam's weapon.
The entire room went black.