Chapter 149 The Ghost in the Wires
I stood up. My legs shook, but I didn't fall. I walked to the door and pressed my ear against the metal. I didn't hear boots. I didn't hear voices. I heard a hum. It was the sound of a building that never slept.
"The lock is electronic," Evan’s voice whispered in my head. "I can trip it, but only for three seconds. You have to be fast. Once you're out, go left. Do not look at the cameras."
"How are you doing this, Evan?" I asked in my mind. "Where are you?"
"I don't know," he said, and I could feel his confusion. "I remember the silver claws. I remember the pain. Then I woke up in a world of numbers. I can see the whole facility. I can see the Board members in the boardroom. They think I'm dead, Cassia. They think they won."
"They haven't won yet," I said.
The red light over the door turned green. Click.
I pulled the door open and sprinted into the hallway. It was white and bright. It hurt my eyes. I turned left, my bare feet making no sound on the tile.
"Stop," Evan said. "Guard around the corner. He’s looking at his watch."
I pressed my back against the wall. My breath was coming in short gasps. I looked at my hands. The nails were still long. The tips were black. The wolf was still there, waiting for a reason to come out.
"Now. Move."
I stepped around the corner. The guard didn't even have time to look up from his wrist. I hit him with a strength I didn't know I had. My hand found his throat, and I slammed him against the wall. He slumped to the floor, unconscious.
I didn't feel bad. I didn't feel anything but the hunger to find my child.
"Room 402," I whispered.
"End of the hall. The big double doors. Cassia, be careful. Your father... he’s in there."
I reached the doors. They were thick glass, reinforced with wire. I looked through.
The room was full of machines. In the center, sitting on a high pedestal, was a glass basin. My son was inside. He wasn't a wolf now. He looked like a normal baby, except for the golden fuzz on his head and the way his eyes glowed even when they were closed.
And standing over him was Henry Marlowe.
He wasn't wearing the silver armor anymore. He was wearing a lab coat. He was holding a needle, moving it toward the baby’s arm.
"No!" I screamed.
I threw myself against the glass. It didn't break.
Henry looked up. He didn't look surprised. He looked disappointed. "You were always too fast for your own good, Cassia. The recovery time for a hybrid mother is supposed to be six hours. You did it in two."
"Get away from him!" I hammered on the glass.
"He’s a miracle," Henry said, looking back at the baby. "His blood is the perfect blend. It doesn't hunt. It doesn't crave. It just... evolves. With this, the Board can live forever. No more fever. No more hair and claws. Just the power."
"He is a baby!" I shouted. "He is your grandson!"
"He is an asset," Henry replied. He turned a dial on the basin. "And you are the prototype that worked. I should thank you, really. Most of the other girls didn't even survive the first month."
"Other girls?" The words felt like ice.
"Did you think you were the only Marlowe?" Henry smiled. It was a cold, empty thing. "I’ve been trying to find the right match for the Thorne bloodline for twenty years. You were just the one who was stubborn enough to fall in love."
I felt the growl rising in my chest. It wasn't a sound. It was a vibration that shook my bones. The glass in front of me began to spiderweb.
"Cassia, don't," Evan’s voice warned. "If you break that glass, the alarm will lock the whole sector. You’ll be trapped."
"I don't care," I thought.
"I do," Evan said. "Look at the ceiling. See the red fire pipe?"
I looked up.
"I’m going to over-pressurize the system," Evan said. "When it blows, the room will fill with foam. Henry won't be able to see. That’s when you go in."
"What about you?"
"I’m already gone, Cass," Evan said, and his voice sounded like it was breaking. "My body is in the morgue on Level 1. I’m just a ghost in the machine now. I’m just the music in the wire."
"No," I whispered. "We were supposed to have the garden. We were supposed to have the sun."
"Save our son," Evan said. "That is our sun now."
The pipe above Henry’s head exploded. A thick, white foam sprayed everywhere. Henry shouted, stumbling back, blinded.
I threw my weight against the cracked glass. It shattered into a million pieces.
I ran through the foam, my nose leading the way. I could smell the milk and the lilies. I could smell my son.
I reached the basin. I scooped the tiny, warm body into my arms. He opened his eyes. They were amber. They were beautiful. He didn't cry. He reached out a tiny hand and touched my cheek.
"I’ve got you," I whispered. "I’ve got you."
"Exit to the right!" Evan shouted in my head. "The service elevator is open. Go, Cassia! Go!"
I ran for the elevator. I could hear Henry coughing and screaming for the guards. I ducked into the small metal box just as the doors began to close.
"Evan, come with me," I pleaded.
"I can't leave the network," he said. "If I leave, the doors will lock. I have to stay to hold them open for you."
The elevator moved down. Level 3. Level 2.
"Level 1," Evan said. "The morgue is across the hall. If you want to say goodbye... You have ten seconds."
The doors opened. The air was freezing. I saw a row of metal drawers. One was open.
I ran to it.
Evan lay there. He looked peaceful. The wound on his chest was closed, but his skin was blue. He wasn't breathing. He was just a shell.
I leaned down and kissed his cold forehead. I held our son close so his warmth could touch his father one last time.
"I love you," I whispered.
"I know," the voice in my neck replied.
Then, a new voice boomed over the intercom. It wasn't my father. It was a woman. Cold. Sharp.
"Director Marlowe is compromised," the woman said. "Initiate the Purge. Burn the network. Delete the Ghost."
"Evan!" I screamed.
"Go, Cassia!" Evan’s voice was distorted now. It sounded like static. "They are deleting my files! I’m losing the connection! Run to the woods! Don't look back!"
I saw the exit sign at the end of the hall. I ran. I burst through the doors and into the night.
The forest was there. The real forest. I could smell the pine and the rain.
I didn't stop. I ran until my lungs burned. I ran until the lights of the facility were gone. I ran until I reached the Great Oak tree at the edge of Willow Lane.
I sat down under the tree, clutching my son. He was asleep.
I waited for the vibration in my neck. I waited for the whisper.
"Evan?" I thought.
Silence.
"Evan, are you there?"
Nothing.
I reached up and touched the skin of my neck. It was smooth. The needles were gone. The silver had been pulled out by the Board's "Purge."
I was alone.
I looked at my son. He shifted in his sleep, and a tiny, golden tail flicked from beneath his blanket.
I looked back toward the facility. A huge explosion rocked the ground. A pillar of fire rose into the sky. The Board was burning their evidence.
I stood up. I had no home. I had no husband. I had a child that the world would call a monster.
And then, I felt a hand on my shoulder.
I turned, my claws out, ready to kill.
But it wasn't a guard.
It was a man with white hair and a scar on his chin. The old man from the cave.
"He isn't gone, Cassia Marlowe," the old man said. "The music doesn't die. It just changes key."
He held out a small, wooden box.
"What is that?" I asked.
"The second half of the map," he said. "The part your father didn't know about. The part that tells you how to bring a ghost back to the flesh."
I looked at the box. I looked at the fire in the distance.
What is the price for bringing a soul back from the wires, and why does the old man look exactly like the man from the "simulation"?