Chapter 281
There’s a pounding at the main door—sharp, mechanical, angry. A human voice bellows from the other side, distorted slightly by the lockdown system.
“Open this door! Shoal is here! What the hell is going on in there?”
Cora doesn’t flinch. Miore shifts his stance slightly. Silo doesn’t even blink.
I can barely keep my eyes open. The machine hums louder, steadier, pulsing in time with my heartbeat—or maybe Lily’s. Hard to tell. Our blood’s too tangled now to know where one ends and the other begins.
Wake moves to the door like he’s been waiting for this.
“It’s over,” he shouts back. His voice echoes through the chamber like thunder cracking overhead. “This farce is over.”
There’s a brief pause. Then a softer voice answers, one I know all too well—Shoal. Calm. Earnest. That old mix of pleading and superiority that somehow still gets under Wake’s skin.
“Don’t do this, brother,” Shoal says. “It doesn’t have to be this way.”
Wake’s whole body tightens like a cable about to snap. His teeth flash. “Look at what your bitch has done to my mate.” He gestures to me without turning around. “This is an act of war.”
Another pause. Then Shoal’s voice again, gentler now. “I don’t know what’s happening in that room. Please—help me understand. Let me in.”
The silence that follows stretches. Even the machine slows down for a breath, like it’s waiting to see what we’ll do.
Wake turns to Cora. “Can you open just that door?”
She nods, presses a few buttons. The heavy steel slides back halfway with a hiss and a jolt.
Shoal steps inside alone, the corridor behind him still locked tight. He freezes when he sees the setup—two pods glowing, wires and tubes pulsing with blue light, blood snaking through crystal veins, me barely upright, and Lily strapped in like she’s taking a joyride straight into godhood.
“What the hell,” Shoal says, blinking, “were you thinking, Liliana?”
Lily doesn’t even turn to face him. Her hands tremble, but her voice stays sharp. “You can’t stop it now. If you interrupt the transfer, we’ll both die. We’re too weak.”
Wake steps forward, close enough that I feel the fury rolling off of him like steam. “That’s the only reason you’re still breathing.”
He turns on her fully, jaw set hard.
“You’re a pathetic blight on the footnote of our people’s history. You’ll never reach the heights you crave so desperately. You’re too narrow-minded. Too obsessed with the edge of the microscope to see the whole damn universe.”
His voice rises, savage and clear.
“You and Shoal—you don’t respect the natural order. You think you can engineer your way into divinity. That’s what’s going to get you killed. And I’m not letting you take the rest of the world down with you.”
Lily’s eyes flick to Shoal. Searching. Pleading. But he doesn’t look at her.
And for a moment, just one heartbeat, she looks like a girl caught in a lie instead of a scientist trying to rewrite reality.
The hurt floods her face. Her ice-blue eyes shine with betrayal. “You don’t understand—”
“If my mate dies because of this,” Wake growls, “I will personally make sure this entire island sinks into the deepest trench of the sea, and I will not lose sleep over it.”
Shoal staggers back a half-step, like Wake’s words physically landed. His gaze flicks between me and Lily. There’s panic in his eyes now. Desperation.
He spins on her. “What the fuck were you thinking, Liliana?! You’ve put everything we worked for in jeopardy—for what? So you can play at being Enkian?!”
Lily’s lips part, but no sound comes for a second. Then she swallows, hard, and her voice comes out cracked and thin. “This isn’t a game. It’s not a whim.”
She coughs, and a fleck of blood stains her lips.
She keeps going.
“The genetic markers Phoebe found… they’re in my blood too. Not as strong. Mutated. But they’re there. The bad genes must’ve been purged generations ago, but the traces survived. And that’s why—” she shudders “—why I’ve dedicated my life to this. I have a calling. This isn’t just theory. This is destiny.”
Shoal stares at her like he’s seeing a stranger for the first time. “So this was it. Your real goal all along. The reason you agreed to work with me.”
“I never lied to you,” she says, breathless.
“You used me.”
She flinches. “We used each other. What does it matter if we both get what we want?”
Shoal throws out his arms, voice booming. “LOOK AROUND, LILIANA! Neither of us are getting what we want! You ruined it!”
A string of warning beeps blare from the machine. Rapid. Panicked. The kind that scream something is going very, very wrong.
Lily coughs again. This time, it’s worse. A wet sound, deeper in the lungs. A string of blood trails from the corner of her mouth. But she smiles anyway.
“On the contrary,” she whispers, “I’m so very close to getting exactly what I want.”
And then my world tilts.
I try to sit up, but my head won’t follow.
The edges of everything blur—light, sound, people. The beeping stretches into a single high-pitched note.
I hear Wake call my name.
Feel his hand on my face.
But I’m already gone.
Gone into a warzone.
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