Chapter 168: CHAPTER HUNDRED & SIXTY-EIGHT

LUCIAN

I didn’t realize I was crying until I blinked and felt salt sting my lip.

He looked thinner. Paler. Like they’d drained the color out of him. Like the fig tree and sunlight had never existed. His arms twitched like he was fighting something inside his own bones.

The men didn’t look at him.

They looked at numbers. Charts. Data streams. One of them scribbled something and nodded, like Ezra was just another experiment.

I couldn’t move.

Couldn’t speak.

I wanted to scream, to smash the grate open and throw myself down there like I could save him with nothing but the weight of my grief.

I’d found him.

I’d found the truth.

This wasn’t just some forbidden hallway.

This wasn’t an off-limits wing filled with broken pipes and peeling wallpaper.

This was real.

Clinical. Sterile. Engineered.

It wasn’t under renovation.

It was active. Alive with power and secrets and buzzing machines that hummed like they were chewing through silence.

And the East Wing?

It was a damn lab.

A hidden, humming, pulsing lab buried inside our house like a tumor. And my father—he hadn’t just known about it.

He’d built it.

He let us play in the gardens while kids were strapped to beds behind locked steel doors.

He laughed at dinner while machines whispered and clicked through walls we were never allowed to open.

He tucked us in at night… and then went downstairs to monitor this.

And I’d seen the monster my father really was.

Ezra wasn’t a secret. He was a prisoner.

I don’t remember moving.

One second, I was just… watching—frozen, pressed flat against the cold wall, my heart hammering loud enough I swore they’d hear it.

The next, I was crouched behind a half-open supply crate, closer than I should’ve been, barely ten feet from the lab door.

I couldn’t stop staring.

Ezra wasn’t just there. He was changed.

He looked smaller somehow. Paler. His skin had a grayish tint beneath the harsh fluorescent lights, and his arms—God, his arms—were covered in tiny bruises, like someone had been testing him, poking him, over and over.

The tube in his spine—thick, mechanical, grotesque—clicked in rhythm with the monitor beside him. Every click felt like a countdown.

His eyes flicked open for a moment.

Empty. Then glassy. Then—

They met mine.

I don’t know how. I was hidden. I was in shadow.

But I swear to God… he saw me.

And for a flicker—just a second—his mouth moved.

A whisper I couldn’t hear.

A plea I couldn’t answer.

Then one of the men turned, and I dropped down so fast my knee cracked against the floor.

I bit down on a gasp. Stayed still. Listened.

Nothing but footsteps. Clipped voices. The soft hiss of the door sealing shut again.

They hadn’t seen me.

But he had.

Ezra had seen me.

And now I had no choice.

Because whatever they were doing to him—it wasn’t medical. It wasn’t care. It was containment.

And I think… I think they’re planning to move him.

“Transfer scheduled for—”

God.

I can’t let them take him.

I don’t know what I’m going to do.

But I have to do something.

Because now I’ve seen it. The truth.

And no matter what Dad says… no matter what this family pretends…

This place is not a home.

It’s a lab.

And Ezra isn’t a boy to them.

He’s a test subject.

And I’m not leaving him behind.

I have to save him.

I didn’t remember making the decision.

My body moved before my brain did. One second I was crouched behind the supply crate, every breath catching in my throat, heart jackhammering against my ribs like it was trying to escape—and the next, I was creeping forward, drawn by something heavier than fear. Something that felt like gravity. Like Ezra was a star that had pulled me into orbit and now I couldn’t stop.

I didn’t have a plan. I didn’t even know what I was going to do when I reached him. But the sight of him—strapped down, trembling, eyes flickering open and closed like he was barely holding on—set something in me alight. Like a match against gasoline.

I moved fast. Reckless.

The second the two men turned their backs, I launched.

The lab door hadn’t sealed yet. It was still hissing, halfway to locking. I dove through it, shoulder scraping hard against the frame.

I was inside.

The lights burned brighter than the hallway. Everything in the room hummed like it was alive. Machines blinked. Monitors pulsed. The whole place smelled sharp—like antiseptic and metal and something sour beneath it.

And in the center of it all: Ezra.

His skin looked thinner up close. Translucent. Like you could see every vein beneath it. His lips were cracked. His cheeks sunken. The port in his back glinted under the overhead lights, and the machine it was tethered to clicked steadily like a clock made of teeth.

“Ezra,” I breathed, already fumbling for the straps. “I’m here. I found you. It’s okay.”

He blinked.

A whisper: “Lucian…”

One of the leather straps buckled under my shaking fingers. I started on the second.

“What the hell—”

A shout. Heavy boots. Then I was being hauled back by the collar of my sweatshirt.

“No!” I screamed, twisting. “Let me go!”

My shoulder hit the floor hard. One of the lab techs—a man with a shaved head and dead eyes—grabbed my arms and tried to pin me. I kicked. Screamed. Lashed out like a wild thing.

“You can’t keep him like this!” I cried. “He’s not some—some thing! He’s a person! Let him go!”

“Get him restrained!” the other snapped. “Call security!”

I swung my elbow into the first man’s gut. He grunted and staggered. For one brief, dizzy second, I thought I could make it. I lunged back toward the bed.

My fingers brushed Ezra’s wrist.

Then cold metal slammed against the side of my neck.

Not hard. Not a punch. A prick.

Sharp. Burning.

A needle.

I gasped, jerking away, but it was too late. The sting flooded through me like lightning under the skin. Fire in my veins. My vision lurched sideways—blurring, spinning. The room twisted like it had been pulled through water. Everything stretched and tilted and folded in on itself.

“No—no, no—” I mumbled, fumbling for Ezra’s hand. “Don’t… please don’t…”

But my arms didn’t listen.

My legs gave out.

I collapsed hard, shoulder-first into the tile. I could hear myself breathing—ragged, shallow. My tongue felt thick. My fingers twitched but wouldn’t curl.

Through the swimming haze of my vision, I saw them move past me. Back to Ezra.

One of the men re-secured the strap I’d managed to loosen. The other typed something into the machine.

Ezra didn’t move.

Didn’t blink.

But I swear to God… his eyes found mine again.

His lips moved.

One word.

Run.

I couldn’t.

My head thudded against the cold tile floor. My muscles locked. I tried to speak, tried to move, scream, anything.

The room darkened at the edges.

And the last thing I saw before it all slipped away—was my father.

Standing in the doorway.