Chapter 52

Beneath the surface.

I didn’t sleep that night. Not really. I lay in Damian’s bed, my back to him, and my eyes fixed on the faint crack on the ceiling.

The moonlight washed over my bare shoulder, cool and indifferent. His arms lay draped across my waist, warm and heavy, grounding me like an anchor I’d never ask for now clung to me.

I didn't move.

Not when he stirred in his sleep. Not when his breath ghosted across my neck.

I only closed my eyes and whispered a promise I never knew how to keep.

I’ll destroy every ghost you ever loved…even if one of them is me.

Morning in Edenfall was never quiet.

Today, it was unnaturally loud. Gunfires crackled in the southern yard. It was just a training drill, Rourke assured me.

Explosives echoed in the distance. Supplies are being tested.

Yet all of it felt like a distraction. A cover.

Because silence wasn’t the only thing missing. The nameless one was gone.

“You’re joking,” Damian growled, slamming a fist onto the table.

Rourke shook his head, pale. “I went in for the vitals. Cryo-seal was intact. But the body was…empty. Clean. Like she was never there.”

I stared at the surveillance footage looped, corrupted. Exactly like before.

She’s not dead, I muttered. She’s activated.

“By who?” Damian demanded.

No one had an answer. But I knew.

There was always someone pulling the strings. I just never thought they were pulling mine too.

By midday, three different agents reported sighings of “me.” On opposite ends of the compound.

Each described me with absolute certainty.

Same height. Same walk. Same voice. But I haven’t left the war room once.

Paranoia spread like wildfire.

Loyalty checks were reinstated. Damian ordered a lockdown. Yet nothing felt safe. Not even my own reflection.

I stood in front of the bathroom mirror, watching myself as if I were waiting for something to shift.

My fingers touched my pulse.

Still mine. Still real.

But the questions scratched me like claws under skin.

What if I’ve been compromised and didn’t know?

What if I were the replacement?

Damian entered the room without knocking.

He always did when he was worried. I didn't flinch. I didn't even turn around.

You think I’m her? I said quietly.

“No,” he said after a beat. “But I think she’s in your head. And if she’s in there long enough, you might become her anyway.”

I finally turned.

I don’t trust myself. His voice dropped. “Then trust me.”

We revealed the data together. Everything we had. Footage of the original abduction.

Clone growth files.

Recordings of the nameless one’s interrogation. Something didn’t add up.

She knew things I only knew, I whispered. Childhood things. The lullaby my father used to hum. The name I gave my first stuffed wolf.

Damian frowned. “Memories can be stolen.”

Not one I ever spoke aloud.

A chill settled between us.

“You think she’s not just a copy,” Damian said.

I think she’s me. In some ways, I can’t explain.

Damian’s jaw tightened. “That’s not possible.” Isn’t it?

Later that night, I sat on the cold floor of my quarters, staring at the tracker Damian had retrieved from the nameless one’s collar.

It was still blinking. Still sending out signals. Not to an enemy base.

But inward to Edenfall’s command servers. Someone inside the walls had activated her.

The betrayal wasn’t from the outside anymore.

It was bleeding from within.

At 3:27 a.m.., an alert came through.

Rourke’s voice buzzed through the comm. “We’ve got a code black. East wing lab breached. It’s…you need to see this.”

By the time I and Damian arrived, the lab was empty. Saved for one thing.

A message carved into the steel wall with surgical precision.

The devil never leaves empty-handed.

I stared at the signature beneath the message.

Not a name. Just a number. 37.

My knees went weak.

Not because of what it meant. But because of what I remembered. The name wasn’t new.

I’ve seen it once in the old folder buried in the syndicate archives. 37.

My prototype designation. I wasn’t the first. I was the thirty-seventh. And if someone had access to that…

Then this isn't a war. It was a culling.

I didn’t sleep that night. And neither did Damian.

We sat together on the rooftop, and the wind was sharp and restless.

I looked at him, with my eyes rimmed in darkness and said.

Tell me something true. Anything.

He didn’t hesitate. “I love you.” I flinched. It wasn’t the first time he’d said that.

But it’s the first time I didn’t doubt he meant it.

I don’t know who I am anymore, I whispered.

He reached out, brushing a loose strand of my hair behind my ear.

“Then we’ll figure it out together. And if the world burns, we’ll burn it. Side by side.”

I exhaled shakily.

Even if I’m not the girl you first met? His gaze didn’t waver.

“You were never just a girl. You were a fire waiting for a reason to rage.”

I leaned in, resting my forehead against his.

I think I’m ready to rage now.