Chapter 6 - Shadows of the Past
The damp air of the underground tunnel clung to Cameron’s skin like a cold sweat. She shifted Leo to her other hip, her muscles burning from exhaustion, but her mind was racing faster than her racing pulse.
"Genetics division?" Cameron repeated, her gray-blue eyes narrowing in the dim emergency light. "What does that even mean, Matteo? Are you saying my resemblance to Sofia isn't just a freak coincidence of being an identical twin?"
Matteo slid the encrypted drive into a rugged tactical tablet he had pulled from his holster pocket, tapping the screen until a holographic projection flickered against the damp brick wall.
Green lines of code, medical charts, and encrypted financial ledgers scrolled past.
"Look at the date of birth on this file," Matteo instructed, pointing to a highlighted line of text.
Cameron squinted at the glowing text. October 14.
"That's my birthday," Cameron said, her voice dropping to a whisper.
"It's also Sofia's birthday," Matteo replied grimly. "And it's the exact day the Bellini family labs in Zurich were shut down following an illegal human cloning and genetic sequencing scandal that made international headlines before being buried by hush money and federal bribes."
The words hung in the damp air like a death sentence.
Cloning.
Cameron stepped back as if the word itself had physical weight. Her entire life—the foster homes, the shifting memories of a childhood she could never quite place, the strange gaps in her personal history that she had always chalked up to trauma—suddenly fractured and reassembled into something monstrous.
"No," Cameron whispered, shaking her head, her hands tightening protectively around Leo. "No, that's impossible. People aren't... I’m a person. I grew up in Chicago. I have scars, I have memories..."
"Implanted memories, or the natural life of a child raised by proxy guardians on a payroll funded by Bellini Pharma," Matteo stated bluntly, though there was a strange, haunting flicker of empathy in his dark eyes. "Sofia’s father was a pioneer in genetic duplication. When the board discovered Sofia had a terminal degenerative heart condition three years before her supposed death, they needed a viable donor. An identical biological duplicate raised off-grid... until the clone started asking questions, broke away, and tried to disappear into the foster system."
Cameron stared at him, the horrifying puzzle pieces locking together with sickening precision.
She wasn't Sofia's twin sister.
She was Sofia's clone.
Before Cameron could process the crushing weight of the revelation, a distant metallic clank echoed from the far end of the Prohibition tunnel.
May you like
It wasn't water dripping. It was the distinct sound of heavy tactical boots striking the concrete floor.
They had found the tunnel entrance.
