Margaret stood behind the glass.
She looked completely calm.
Too calm.
I stared at her.
“You knew.”
She smiled.
“Of course I knew.”
My mother stepped forward.
“Mother, stop this.”
Margaret’s smile disappeared.
“You’ve always been sentimental, Evelyn.”
I froze.
“Evelyn?”
My mother looked at me.
“Margaret isn’t your grandmother.”
My stomach dropped.
“Then who is she?”
The woman behind the glass slowly removed a thin layer of makeup from her cheek.
Her face changed.
Not dramatically.
But enough.
The wrinkles vanished.
Her posture straightened.
And suddenly she looked decades younger.
Lily whispered:
“That’s impossible.”
The woman smiled.
“My real name is Eleanor Shaw.”
Dr. Shaw.
The same woman we’d been hunting.
The woman who had appeared to be somewhere else.
The woman who had controlled everything.
She had been standing beside us the entire time.
I backed away.
“Margaret…”
“Was a name I borrowed.”
My mother looked devastated.
“Why?”
Eleanor stepped toward the glass.
“Because your family trusted Margaret.”
She laughed.
“That was the easiest way to get close to all of you.”
Lily stared at her.
“You’re Subject Zero.”
“Yes.”
“And you created the treatment.”
“No.”
Eleanor shook her head.
“I discovered it.”
She looked at my mother.
“Your mother perfected it.”
My mother whispered:
“You murdered my family.”
“I preserved your family.”
“You experimented on children.”
“I saved them from death.”
“That isn’t saving.”
Eleanor’s expression hardened.
“You’ll understand when you’re old enough to fear it.”
I looked at the countdown.
00:04:17
“We’re out of time.”
Eleanor smiled.
“Exactly.”
She pressed her palm against a scanner.
The laboratory doors opened.
Guards poured inside.
Michael raised his weapon.
“Get behind me!”
Gunfire erupted.
My mother pulled Lily toward the server.
I grabbed the neutralizing vial.
The terminal flashed:
TERMINATION INTERRUPTED.
I shouted:
“What do I do?”
My mother looked at the vial.
“Inject it into the main system.”
“Where?”
“The central reactor.”
I ran.
Bullets struck the walls around me.
I reached the reactor.
There was a small opening.
I inserted the vial.
Nothing happened.
Then the terminal displayed:
BIOLOGICAL AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED.
My mother screamed:
“Emily!”
I placed my hand on the scanner.
The machine accepted it.
SUBJECT ONE CONFIRMED.
A needle pierced my palm.
I cried out.
Lily ran toward me.
“Mom!”
The system began analyzing my blood.
COMPATIBILITY: 100%
Then:
REVERSAL PROTOCOL AVAILABLE.
I pressed the button.
The laboratory shook violently.
Eleanor screamed.
“No!”
The machines began shutting down.
One by one.
The files disappeared.
The screens went black.
The countdown stopped.
00:00:00
Silence.
Then the central reactor exploded.
I was thrown backward.
Lily caught me.
“Mom!”
I opened my eyes.
“I’m okay.”
My mother rushed toward us.
Eleanor was on the floor.
For the first time, she looked frightened.
She stared at her hands.
The treatment had stopped.
And suddenly, her face began changing.
Her hair turned white.
Her skin aged.
She looked at me with disbelief.
“What did you do?”
I stood.
“I gave everyone something you never understood.”
“What?”
“A choice.”
Police entered the laboratory.
Eleanor was arrested.
This time, there would be no secret organization to protect her.
No hidden accounts.
No fake identities.
No Guardians.
Everything had been destroyed.
Or so we thought.
As we left the laboratory, Michael approached me.
“You did it.”
I nodded.
“It’s over.”
He smiled.
“Finally.”
But my mother didn’t smile.
She was staring at the old terminal.
“What?”
She pointed toward the screen.
One line remained.
SUBJECT ZERO — LOCATION: UNKNOWN
My blood ran cold.
“But Eleanor was Subject Zero.”
My mother shook her head.
“No.”
She looked at me.
“Eleanor was Subject One.”
I stared at the screen.
“Then who is Subject Zero?”
The terminal flickered.
A photograph appeared.
A woman.
Young.
Beautiful.
Standing beside Eleanor.
And beneath her photograph was a name:
Claire.
I stopped breathing.
“Claire?”
My mother whispered:
“She was never just a carrier.”
Lily looked at me.
“Then what was she?”
My mother stared at the photograph.
“She was the first person Eleanor ever experimented on.”
A message appeared beneath the photograph:
SUBJECT ZERO IS ACTIVE.
Then another line appeared.
LAST LOCATION: YOUR HOME.
My heart stopped.
Because we’d left our house empty.
And someone had been waiting there.
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