Shouldn't

Shouldn't

“If your blood can save lives, it can also control them.”

The safehouse was quiet. Too quiet.

Luna slept in the other room, finally collapsing after hours of bandaging, stitching, cleaning. Silas still hadn’t woken again, though his breathing had stabilized — shallow, but there. For now.

I sat at the edge of the old wooden table, knees pulled up, arms wrapped tight around my legs. The file sat in front of me like a curse in paper form — thick, worn, edged with blood and ash from the escape.

I’d almost forgotten it was in my bag.

Silas’s words haunted me.

“Destroy it…”

But I needed to know why.

I unbuckled the clasp. It creaked open with the sound of old leather giving up a secret. Inside: yellowed pages, clipped photos, reports — most of it handwritten, some typed in faded ink. My hands trembled as I lifted the first document.

PROJECT REGENESIS

Phase I — Precursor Trials

Subjects: Type A female lineage, ages 10–30.

Status: Expired.

I blinked. Read it again.

Expired.

Not released. Not recovered.

Expired.

There were lists. Names. Ages. Blood types. Notes in the margins — “unstable vitals,” “spinal rupture post-infusion,” “hemorrhaging at 48 hours.” Every woman was marked “failed” or “deceased.”

There were thirty-six of them.

Thirty-six.

The ink smudged beneath my thumb. I hadn’t realized I was crying again.

They weren’t just patients. They were test subjects. Like livestock. Treated, monitored, and discarded when they couldn’t survive the process.

Each one was labeled not by name, but by generation. “Candidate 1A.” “Subject 2B.”

Until I saw a name I knew.

Lucia De Luca.

I froze. My mother’s name.

Beside it: handwritten words —

“Current carrier. Line may be viable. Offspring possibility: unknown.”

There was more. Scans. Bloodwork. Reports from almost twenty years ago. And a note dated just after I was born, clipped with a photo.

The picture was of me. Swaddled in a white blanket. Unlabeled. Anonymous.

I pulled the note closer.

Child born female. High probability of active gene expression. Recommendation: monitoring required. Consent not obtained. Proceed with caution.

Then, underneath — in a different pen:

Records falsified by L.DL. Tracking suspended.

L.DL.

Lucia De Luca.

My mother hadn’t just escaped the project.

She erased me from it.

She faked records, blocked surveillance, and buried the data. Probably at great cost — enough to end up hunted, hated… and killed.

I sat there, hollow.

All this time, I thought I’d just been lucky. That the nightmare had skipped me. That maybe it was all a lie, something twisted Vittorio made up to scare me.

But it wasn’t.

It was in ink, on paper, written by people who saw me not as a daughter — not even as a human — but as a resource.

Just like he said.

I flipped the page.

There were graphs. Diagrams. Maps of my anatomy, estimates on when the “mutation” would activate, based on pregnancy, stress, trauma. They’d been waiting for my body to trigger itself. Waiting for me to become useful. Marketable. Weaponizable.

They knew.

Even before I did.

The last page held a single typed paragraph. It looked recent.

RECOMMENDATION: SUBJECT TO BE RETRIEVED AT ALL COSTS. PRIORITY ALPHA. IF RECOVERY FAILS, SAMPLE EXTRACTION MANDATORY. LIVE CAPTURE PREFERRED. DEAD IS ACCEPTABLE.

My throat closed.

That was me.

That was about me.

And somewhere down the hall, the man who dragged himself through fire to save me lay unconscious. And the child in my stomach — the one they wanted to use, harvest, dissect — kicked softly beneath my ribs.

I closed the file.

I wanted to burn it. Wanted to scream, to tear the pages into ash and never look back.

But I couldn’t.

Not yet.

Because if I destroyed it without understanding everything in it…

Then someone else would come.

Someone worse.

Someone who wouldn’t need to ask.

I ran a hand through my hair, pulled the file tight to my chest, and stared at the door to the room where Silas lay.

I had decisions to make.

And no more illusions left to protect me.

A floorboard creaked behind me.

I turned fast, hand automatically reaching for the pistol tucked beneath the table. My heart hadn’t stopped hammering since I read the final page.

Luna stood at the doorway. Her braid was wet from the rain outside, skin pale under the flickering bulb.

“You read it,” she said quietly.

I didn’t answer. Just nodded once.

She came in slowly, sitting across from me like the table was a grave and the file between us was the body.

“I didn’t know all of it,” she said. “Not until it was too late.”

Her eyes dropped to the worn photo of my mother I’d laid out. A medical form with a government seal was still visible beneath it.

“You said nothing,” I murmured. “Not back then. Not when I needed you.”

“I was seventeen, Aria. I didn’t know what we were part of.”

Her voice was steady — not defensive. Just tired. But I heard the guilt underneath it.

“I thought your mom was just sick,” she added. “She never told me anything directly. But I saw things. Locked rooms. Iceboxes. The way your father… looked at her. Like she was something that could break and be replaced.”

My mouth was dry. “Why didn’t you leave?”

“I did.” Luna looked at me then, eyes sharp. “When I found out what they wanted to do to you — I ran.”

I blinked. “You knew?”

“Not until the last few weeks. I knew they were doing something, but I didn’t know you were the next target. When I found the updated records, I hacked in and wiped what I could. Vittorio caught on. So I went dark. Embedded myself inside under a different clearance level.”

I processed her words slowly. “So that day at the facility…”

“I’ve been moving up the ranks inside the estate for the last two years,” she admitted. “Guard rotation. Lab protocol. I memorized the floor plans just in case I ever had a chance to get you out.”

I leaned back in the chair, numb. “You were working for them.”

“I was surviving inside them. There’s a difference.”

The air between us buzzed with quiet rage and brittle understanding.

Then she said the name I didn’t expect.

“Rafa was part of the project too.”

I flinched.

“No,” I said. “No, Rafa—he raised me. He protected me from my father. He couldn’t—”

“He didn’t know it was you,” she interrupted. “Not at first. He was recruited during Phase II to manage test security. Surveillance data. He was one of the few with access to the vault where the subject files were kept.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“He left when he found out,” Luna added softly. “Walked out. Went completely off-grid. That’s why Vittorio’s kept him out of everything since.”

I shook my head. “That doesn’t make it better.”

“No. But it might make what happens next… possible.”

A sound outside — gravel crunching.

Luna stood, tense. My fingers reached again for the pistol, but she motioned me to wait. The tension in her shoulders dropped half a second later.

Then — a knock.

I opened the door with my gun raised.

And there he was.

Rafa.

Older. Weathered. Rain dripping from his coat. His eyes, always warm when I was a child, were cold now — but not cruel.

He didn’t move when I aimed at his chest.

“I know what I did,” he said.

The silence between us buzzed louder than any scream.

“I should’ve protected her,” he added. “Your mother.”

Luna didn’t say a word. She just stepped aside, letting me decide.

“Why are you here?” I asked, voice like steel.

He looked at me — and I saw something in his eyes I hadn’t seen in anyone since Silas.

Resolve.

“I can’t undo the past,” Rafa said. “But I can stop your father from repeating it.”

Then he raised his hand slowly — and dropped a small flash drive onto the table.

“Everything,” he said. “All the backups. Including the ones your mother never found.”

The storm outside howled louder. But inside, everything was still.

For the first time in days, I let myself believe we might have a chance.

A real one.

But I didn’t lower my gun.

Not yet.