Chapter 50

The Trap.

The voice haunted my sleep. Her voice. Mocking. Cold. Perfect like a reflection with no soul behind it.

I didn’t tell anyone about the recording. Not yet.

I needed to be sure I wasn’t walking into a game the nameless one had already rigged.

So, I started building a game of my own.

The war room was off-limits. Only three people had access now. Me. Damian. And Rourke.

I leaned over the circular table, where the hologram of Edenfall flickered, glowing softly. On the southern wing of the base, I pointed to a long-unused tunnel.

That hatch leads outside, through a storage route. It’s unguarded because we stopped using it a year ago.

Damian frowned. “You want to draw her there?”

No. I want to make her think I’m going there. Alone.

He crossed his arms. “You’re baiting her?”

She already knows my patterns. My weaknesses. It’s time I fed her a lie.

Rourke stepped forward. “We’ll need misdirected. Something convincing.”

I smiled faintly. Good. Then let’s put on a show.

The next morning, whispers began.

“Claire’s planning an escape route. She doesn’t trust the scanners. She thinks the nameless one has already replaced someone at command.”

I let the rumors spread.

I even left code notes in my quarters. Scribbled. Phrases only someone watching me could find.

“The blood isn’t enough. I need to run.”

“She knows I remember everything. But so does she.”

“I can’t trust Damian anymore.”

Every lie was a hook. And me? I was the baited line.

That night, I moved alone through the compound. My boot echoed against the steel floors. The security cameras were looped by my own hands.

No guards. No backup. Only me.

I reached the southern tunnel and paused. It was dark. Silent. Damped with forgotten air. And behind me…

A sound. Soft. Almost careful. I didn’t turn around.

She just whispered. “Took you long enough.”

The voice came from the shadows.

“You’re predictable. Even when you’re pretending not to be.”

Then she stepped out.

Same face. Same eyes. Same build.

I took a breath. You’re not that impressive up close.

The doppelgänger smiled. “I don't have to be. I just have to be you, long enough.”

I turned my face to her fully.

No one will believe you.

“Oh, but they will. I have the voice. The memories. The DNA. And soon…I’ll have your death, too.”

She pulled a blade from her boot. A short, curved combat blade.

No poison. No gun.

This wasn’t an execution. This was a replacement. I pulled mine too.

I’ve bled more than you ever will.

“Good,” she purred. “Then you’ll know how this ends.”

The fight was fast. Brutal.

Two shadows dancing in a tomb. Steel rang against steel. Blood sprayed against the concrete. Neither of us hesitated.

Every move was mirrored. Every tactic was predicted.

Until I did something unexpected. I dropped my blade.

And head butted her hard enough to make her stumble back.

Emotion, I said, breathing hard, isn’t a weakness.

The nameless one snarled and lunged again but this time, I dodged and slammed my elbow into the clone’s throat.

And then, said coldly.

You forgot one thing. Nameless gasped. “What?”

I stood over her, blood on my face, and said….

Game over.

But she smiled once again. “I’m not the only one.”

Behind me, I heard a click. A second clone? Another traitor?

No. Damian. But the gun in his hand wasn’t pointed at me. It was aimed at the nameless one.

He looked down at the body twitching on the ground, eyes hard. “Is it over?”

No. I whispered. She said she’s not alone.

We locked the nameless one in a cryo-chamber beneath Edenfall.

Damian watched through the glass, fist clenching.

“She’ll never speak.”

She doesn’t have to, I said, voice tight. Her blood already told me everything.

Damian blinked. “What?”

I let her cut me, I explained. We both bled onto the concrete. But I penetrated the blade with nanotracers. One drop was all I needed.

Rourke stepped into the room, a data slate in hand.

“The scan picked up the anomalies in her system's genetic enhancers….and a tracker.”

I turned slowly.

“She’s not the final piece. She’s just the beginning.”

Hours later, alone in the lab, I stared at the monitor displaying the genetic scan. I touched the screen.

Two strands of DNA matched mine almost perfectly.

Almost.

One of them was Elise. One of them was the nameless one.

But behind them both, woven in a code, was a third signature.

A master code. Aveline’s. Or something beyond even hers.

Who are you really? I whispered.

And I stared into the double helix on the screen, I felt it.

A presence. Not watching… waiting.