Chapter 277
The dread hits before I even open my eyes.
It’s not the aftermath of a nightmare—no thrashing, no gasping, no cold sweat. Just a pit of unease lodged in my chest like a stone. I’m lying still, staring at the ceiling, and I know something is wrong.
Then I feel it—the empty space beside me. No warmth. No rhythm of breath. Wake isn’t here.
I sit up, quietly pushing the covers back. Maybe he’s just gone for a run. Maybe he couldn’t sleep. But I don’t believe that. Not this time. Something’s shifted. I feel it in my blood, electric and wrong.
If our time here is ending—and it has to end soon—it’s going to be on our terms. But to do that, I need to know what we’re really up against. I need proof. Evidence.
Answers.
I get dressed in silence, soft movements honed by months of needing to be invisible. I slip into the hallway, my footsteps light, every sense on high alert. No guards. No sounds. Perfect.
Lily’s lab is in the west wing—three floors down and two corridors over, locked behind security that should be impenetrable.
But I’ve been watching. Listening. I know how to get in now.
It takes me twenty minutes to reach it, dodging motion sensors and keeping to the shadows. When I reach the door, I do what I’ve watched Lily do countless times—press the right sequence on the panel, flick the tiny wire-thin chip Wake tucked into my pocket two weeks ago against the lock’s side, and whisper the override code under my breath.
The door clicks open.
The moment I step inside, the air changes.
It’s colder here. Still. Sterile in a way that goes beyond just science. There’s something else layered beneath the antiseptic tang—a faint metallic note that smells too much like blood.
I move slowly, scanning the lab’s long counters, the rows of glowing screens, the cryo tanks lined like trophies along the far wall. And then I see it.
A tray of blood vials.
Each carefully labeled.
I step closer. My breath catches.
They’re marked with my name.
Not just one. Half a dozen. Dated. Catalogued. She’s been collecting me.
A chill crawls down my spine.
I search the nearby drawers. Notes, files, diagrams. Anatomical sketches—Enkian and human spliced together. Cell counts. DNA sequences mapped out and annotated with surgical precision.
She’s not just researching the Enkians. She’s trying to become one.
To turn herself divine.
A spiral-bound notebook catches my eye. Inside—drawings of old relics, ritual symbols, ancient underwater scripts I recognize from Cora’s stories. Pages and pages of hypotheses. She’s not just chasing evolution. She’s chasing transcendence.
I close the book and step away, heart pounding.
I’ve seen enough.
I’m halfway to the door when I hear it open.
Panic flares. I dart behind the nearest column of equipment, crouching low just as two sets of footsteps enter the lab.
Shoal and Lily.
I hold my breath and listen.
“You’re slowing everything down,” Lily snaps, pacing furiously across the room. “They’re slipping through our fingers.”
Shoal sounds calm, almost bored. “It’s called patience, Liliana. Something you used to value.”
“I value results. Do you really think your brother and his little hybrid are just going to stick around forever? They’re planning something.”
“Undoubtedly,” Shoal says. “But we don’t keep them here by force—we keep them here by trust. That’s the difference.”
“Trust?” she scoffs. “From them? They’d drown this facility if it suited them.”
“Then give them a reason not to.”
Lily rounds on him. “I want more than promises, Shoal.”
His tone cools. “And I’ve given you more than that. My backing. My protection. My collaboration.”
“That’s not what I mean,” she snaps. “I’ve stood by your side. I’ve risked everything—my career, my humanity—for this mission. I’ve given you everything.”
Shoal sighs. “Liliana—”
“I want to be queen.”
A pause. Then, silence.
Shoal’s voice, when it comes, is clipped. “You know how I feel about that word.”
“It’s just a word.”
“No, it’s her word,” Shoal says, sharply. “Elena was my queen. That title belongs to her.”
“Elena is dead.”
“And you dishonor her by pretending otherwise.”
The room drops ten degrees.
“I’m right here,” Lily says, quietly. “Not in some memory. Flesh and blood. And I would give anything to be by your side, to build this future we keep dreaming about.”
Shoal’s voice turns quiet—dangerously so. “Unless you can grow gills, Liliana, this conversation is over.”
His footsteps echo away. A door opens. Closes.
Lily stands in the silence that follows.
And I see her face—what Shoal couldn’t see.
Not pain. Not heartbreak.
Rage.
She turns toward the exit.
And locks the door.
My stomach drops.
“I hope you enjoyed the show,” Lily says softly.
I freeze.
She doesn’t turn.
“Because now I suspect there won’t be any questions about why I’m doing this.”
She lifts her hand—and pulls a gun from her lab coat.
Then, she turns—her eyes locking straight onto the shadows where I’m hiding.
“Come out, Phoebe.”
I don’t move.
“Don’t bother playing dumb. I knew you’d follow me eventually. You and your friends are nothing if not predictable. Now move.”
I rise slowly, every muscle tense, heart thundering in my ears.
Lily lifts the gun higher. “Step into the light.”
I do.
And the look on her face is not madness. It’s certainty.
She’s not unstable.
She’s convinced.
“I warned Shoal not to trust you,” she says. “But I was wrong. Trust isn’t the problem.”
Her voice drops to a whisper.
“It’s envy.”
And in that moment, with cold metal aimed at my chest, I understand exactly what she means.
She doesn’t want to destroy me.
She wants to be me.
Log in with Google Account
Chapters
Favorite
Settings
