Chapter 4 - The Betrayal of Blood
The struggle was short. Jonathan was pinned against the glass wall, looking out over the city that he thought he owned. Lily was snatched from his side, her small scream echoing in the cavernous office.
"You can't do this!" Jonathan shouted, his ribs aching from the guards' boots.
"We aren't doing anything that isn't for the 'greater good'," Evelyn said, her eyes cold. She tapped a command into the wall panel. A containment unit descended from the ceiling.
Inside the unit, Jonathan saw something that stopped his heart. Dozens of other children, all with the same pale hair and blue eyes, were hooked into glowing conduits. They were prototypes. Lily wasn't unique; she was the 'Final Version.'
"Elena didn't die trying to save a child, Jonathan," Evelyn sneered. "She died trying to sell you out to the competition. She was greedy. She wanted a piece of the pie for herself. You were just the puppet in the theater."
The truth hit him harder than any blow. The woman he had mourned, the woman he had kept a shrine for, had been just as monstrous as his mother. He wasn't a hero saving an innocent; he was a man caught between two warring factions of a global conspiracy.
He looked at Lily, who was now trapped inside a secondary glass cage, her eyes fixed on him. She wasn't looking for help; she was looking for a command. She had been programmed to react to his voice.
"Jonathan," Lily said through the speakers, her voice echoing throughout the floor. "The override code. Use it."
May you like
He remembered. A string of numbers Elena had whispered to him in a dream, or perhaps a memory he had suppressed. He punched the code into his hidden smartwatch.
The lights went black.
