CHAPTER 7 THE LITTLE GIRL THEY HAD BEEN HUNTING FOR FIVE YEARS
Six months after Project Phoenix was exposed, life looked almost normal.
Almost.
Sophie had started first grade.
Alexander was slowly rebuilding himself after years of captivity. The bruises had faded, but every loud noise still made him flinch. He often woke up in the middle of the night convinced someone was standing outside the window.
I wanted to believe the nightmare was over.
Then one rainy Tuesday, my phone rang.
The caller ID displayed only one word.
UNKNOWN.
I answered anyway.
No one spoke.
Only slow breathing.
Then a child's voice whispered,
"Patient Twenty-Seven..."
The line went dead.
Every hair on my arms stood up.
That evening I returned home to find the front door unlocked.
Nothing appeared stolen.
Nothing was broken.
Until I walked into Sophie's bedroom.
Her favorite teddy bear was sitting neatly on the bed.
We had buried that teddy bear with the evidence collected from Project Phoenix after the trial.
Attached to its neck was a small silver key.
And another note.
"The truth is buried beneath the lighthouse."
Alexander turned pale the moment he read it.
"I know that handwriting."
"It isn't Camila's."
"Then whose is it?"
He looked at me with fear I had never seen before.
"The man who created Project Phoenix."
"But he died twenty years ago."
Alexander slowly shook his head.
"No..."
"That's what they wanted us to believe."
The next morning we drove to the abandoned lighthouse where Camila had supposedly died.
Federal agents had sealed the area months earlier.
Yet someone had already cut through the security fence.
Inside the lighthouse, everything looked abandoned.
Until Sophie quietly pointed toward the floor.
"Mommy..."
"The stairs weren't here before."
There was a trapdoor hidden beneath years of dust.
Below it...
another underground laboratory.
Far older than the one the FBI had destroyed.
Every computer had been smashed.
Every file burned.
Except one steel cabinet.
Inside sat hundreds of children's files.
Each marked with a patient number.
Patient 3.
Patient 11.
Patient 19.
Patient 26...
Then...
Patient 27.
Sophie's file.
I opened it with trembling hands.
The first page stole the air from my lungs.
Status: Memory Replacement Failed.
Recommendation: Eliminate Subject Immediately.
The next page contained a photograph.
Not of Sophie.
Of me.
Holding a newborn baby.
The date was impossible.
It was taken two years before I had ever met Alexander.
I whispered,
"This can't be real..."
Then a slow clap echoed through the darkness.
Someone stepped out from behind the cabinet.
An elderly man in an expensive gray suit.
Perfect posture.
Perfect smile.
"I've waited a long time to meet you again, Elena."
May you like
His eyes settled on Sophie.
"My granddaughter."
