Chapter 228
The surgical theater is sterile, cold, and pulsing with an eerie hum of machinery. The air smells metallic, tinged with something chemical, like antiseptic and ozone.
Overhead, a single spotlight glares down, bathing the room in an icy glow. The light refracts off the glass walls of the cryochamber, illuminating the autopsy table positioned ominously beside it.
A shiver rolls down my spine.
Marina is inside the cryochamber, her body suspended in the familiar, shimmering blue fluid that Enigma uses to keep its specimens in stasis. Her arms are limp, her hair fanned out around her like silver ribbons, her form weightless and fragile. For a moment, she almost looks peaceful.
Almost.
Cora shifts beside me, her breathing harsh with barely contained rage. She starts toward the door, ready to storm in, but Peter clamps a hand on her arm.
“We have to be smart about this,” he hisses, his voice a frantic whisper. “If we go in now, we’ll trigger the alarm. That’ll send security barreling down on us, and the security down here? They’re not like the ones upstairs.”
Cora clenches her jaw. She doesn’t like waiting. Neither do I. But we have to be careful.
One of the scientists inside steps forward and clears his throat. “We are beginning the termination process of Specimen Zero.” His voice is flat, detached, the kind of tone you use when you’re dissecting something, not executing a living, sentient being.
Above them, through the observation glass, a figure shifts in the shadows.
Lily St. Cloud.
She leans forward, resting her chin on her hand. The dim lighting gives her an almost spectral appearance, like a bored goddess watching a sacrifice. Her voice, cold and devoid of care, echoes through the intercom.
“Proceed.”
The scientist nods. He reaches for a control panel, pressing a series of buttons. Tubes shift, redirecting the flow of liquid inside the chamber.
I suck in a sharp breath.
The crystal-blue liquid—the only thing keeping Marina stable—is draining.
In its place, a thicker, green liquid floods into the chamber, curling through the fluid like smoke.
Marina’s body shudders violently.
Then it jerks, her limbs twitching violently. Her back arches, her mouth parting as if to scream—but no sound escapes, only a burst of desperate bubbles. Her form shifts, flickering uncontrollably between human and mermaid, flesh and scales rippling in a grotesque, unsteady transformation.
Her tail thrashes once before snapping into rigid paralysis.
Peter exhales sharply. “No, no, no,” he whispers, eyes darting frantically over the console. “That’s wrong. That’s not a sedative—”
I already know.
I can feel it in my gut.
They’re killing her, right here and now.
Cora has seen enough.
With a furious snarl, she kicks the door in.
The heavy metal door slams into the wall with a thunderous crash, sending scientists scrambling like startled rats. Alarms shriek, pulsing red light casting jagged shadows across the room.
The security lockdown is immediate.
Metal shutters slam down over the observation window, sealing Lily St. Cloud away from us. But I see her—just before the glass disappears. She watches with a bored expression, chin resting on one hand.
She doesn’t care.
She never does.
The room flashes with red emergency lighting, bathing everything in a hellish glow.
“Get the hell away from her!” Cora roars, lunging forward.
The scientists surrounding us scatter, knocking over carts and instruments in their panic. One of them lunges for the kill switch, a frantic look in his eyes.
I move without thinking.
Electricity crackles down my arm, searing white-hot. My fingers clamp around his wrist just as he reaches the control panel.
"Don't," I snarl.
I let the charge loose.
A jolt of power surges through his body, his muscles locking up as he convulses violently. His scream is brief—cut off as he slams into the row of monitors behind him, sending a cascade of sparks into the air.
That’s when the real threat arrives.
The security doors slide open, and they pour in—a team of five, all clad in sleek black wetsuits with reinforced armor plating over their torsos and limbs. They move too fast, their motions too fluid, too perfect.
Not human.
The first lunges at Cora with inhuman speed, aiming a vicious strike at her ribs.
Cora barely has time to react. She twists, her knife flashing upward in a quick slash. The blade bites into the guard’s side, but—no blood.
"What the hell?" she mutters.
The guard doesn’t even flinch.
Instead, he grabs her by the throat and lifts her off the ground.
She chokes, struggling, her legs kicking wildly.
Arista reacts instantly, yanking a pulse rifle from one of the fallen scientists. She spins, aims, and fires a shot directly into the guard’s back.
The energy bolt slams into him—but he keeps moving.
“Shit,” Arista hisses. “They’re Enkian. They must be!”
The guard whirls, flinging Cora into Arista with incredible force, sending them both across the room like a couple of rag dolls.
Arista tumbles head over heel, her head slamming into a computer terminal with a sickening crunch. Cora slams into the metal surgical prep cart, her body crashing against the sharp edges before hitting the floor with a hard thud. She doesn’t move.
“No!” I scream.
Peter rushes to her, sliding to his knees, pressing his hands against her side. Her suit is torn open, and blood blooms through the fabric, a deep, angry crimson.
She groans, trying to push herself up. “I’m—ugh—fine.” But her voice is strained, pained. “Arista!”
I glance up—through the failing light and beyond layers of steel, I still feel it.
Lily St. Cloud is watching.
She’s watching us try and fail, waiting to see the exact moment we give up. Another experiment, another observation. I look around myself and see the end closing in fast — the super freak guards are circling like sharks, meanwhile half of my team is incapacitated or worse. Arista might be dead, my grandmother could well be on her way to bleeding out, and my aunt…
Delphinium convulses again, her form shifting wildly between human and mermaid, bones warping, muscles twisting in grotesque, unnatural ways.
I know what I have to do.
I shove past Peter, ignoring his shouts of protest. I slam my fist into the glass. It cracks—spiderweb fractures racing outward. I hit again. And again.
The chamber bursts open.
Blue and green fluid explodes outward, drenching me as Marina collapses into my arms, her body still flickering—scales forming and vanishing, fins becoming legs and back again.
Peter shouts, “Phoebe, STOP!”
I don’t stop. I turn to Cora. She’s clutching her wound, her expression wrought with pain. I throw out my free hand, reaching for her.
“Grandma!” I shout.
Cora lunges toward me.
A shot rings out.
I whirl.
Cora staggers forward.
A wound gapes open in her back.
No.
I reach for her.
Our hands brush.
For the briefest moment, my grandmother, her sister and I are connected.
A blinding pulse of energy erupts from my fingertips.
Time fractures.
And then it breaks.
Log in with Google Account
Chapters
Favorite
Settings
