216. THE TRUE CULPRIT

216. THE TRUE CULPRIT
SELINE
His eyes didn’t leave my stomach.
“You…are you….you….are having twins?” He asked me.
The first thing Mateo did when he met me was apologise. Then he asked me not to forgive him, never to forgive him in this life. And then, his eyes fell on my stomach.
He looked petrified for a second before he slumped in his seat.
Kade chose a cafe which is surprisingly empty on a weekend to meet Mateo.
He is sitting next to me, with one hand resting over my seat, the other holding my hand.
Mateo kept staring into his untouched coffee. “Why did you bring me here?”
“Your husband’s men didn’t even give me the time to pack.”
I looked at Kade. Kade looked everywhere but at me.
“Do you know Celia?” I asked him.
“Your sister.” He answered.
“That’s it? That’s all?”
Mateo suddenly found the coffee very interesting. He started drinking it.
“This isn’t the conversation we should have with a coffee,” he muttered.
I showed him my stomach.
“You are pregnant.” He says, as if saying it out would make it more real than watching it. “With twins. Like you and Celia.”
“Like my sister and me. Yes. What do you know about her?”
I thought he would feign innocence, but he surprised me by saying, “What do you want to know?”
“Everything,” Kade said.
"We were kept together. Not all the time. But enough. They wanted to observe how children interacted after prolonged isolation."
His laugh held no humour.
"We became another experiment. But we had each other then.”
Kade pointed a finger at his scar. “Why the fuck would you give me this scar?”
Mateo visibly shuddered in his seat. “You were taking her away. That’s not the plan.”
“What’s the plan? Burning the island down and die?” I asked him.
His eyes were red when he looked at me.
“No. No. Kade has to take you away. Or Arthur. You have two options. But for all of us—,”
“All of us? Who is all?”
Mateo started to shake his head. You don’t know. You don’t know at all. You don’t know anything.”
"The fire..."
He swallowed.
"...was never part of the original plan."
Kade's attention sharpened. "What was the plan?"
"We had help. There was an undercover agent. He had spent months moving children out. One. Then another. Then another. They disappeared so quietly, Delmere thought they were dying during experiments."
Kade frowned.
"So the children..."Were already gone."
Mateo nodded. "The night everything happened...there were barely any children left inside."
I froze. "What?"
"The evacuation was almost complete. The last ship left with children. The plan was to create a small fire accident to distract everyone. The plan was never to burn the island down.”
Mateo looked at Kade.
"...you would take Seline. That’s what Celia told me. Or Arthur would come to take Seline and Hana. You were late. Arthur took Seline and Hana.”
“Did Arthur know about the undercover agent?” I asked Mateo.
He nodded his head. “He does. He was there to take you. Celia made a pact. I wasn’t aware of it, then. He should take you and Hana away. Then, she would burn the island down. So there will be no proof to say it exists in the first place. I didn’t know that. Then Kade arrived. The fire was spreading. He is trying to take her away. Because he thought it was you. I couldn’t let her take it away. I should have.”
For the first time since we'd sat down...
Mateo cried silently. “She didn’t leave with me either. I wasn’t strong enough to drag her. I should have let Kade take her. She would have been alive.”
“Why didn’t she leave with you?”
"The experiments would've continued. On you."
My blood ran cold.
He looked directly at me.
"You weren't just another child. You were Project Kairo. The most successful asset they'd ever made. If Delmere survived...They would've hunted you forever."
I couldn't move.
"Or that’s what she thought. So..."
His voice broke.
"...she locked me in the transport truck after I fought with Kade. Just like how she locked you in a trunk until Arthur got to you."
"What?"
"I fought her. I screamed. I told her we'd find another way. I told her to come with me."
He laughed bitterly.
"She smiled."
A tear rolled down his cheek.
"Celia didn't burn Delmere because she wanted revenge."
He closed his eyes.
"She burned it because she loved you. She believed..."
His voice completely gave out.
"...that if the island disappeared...they'd stop chasing her sister. She felt guilty for swapping places with you. It was my idea. I got her the lens.”
Tears.
Lots of them slipped down his face. “I told her that if she swaps her place with you, she can escape. She never liked it. She tried to stop. But when the pain gets too much, she would send you in her place.”
She roamed like you. No one really dares to touch you. You were an asset. A girl with great DNA, photographic memory, and the most resilient one. So when Arthur visited once, she learned everything about their experiments. She made a pact with him. He only has one condition. That undercover agent must not step out of Delmere alive. There were rumours about this project already. Arthur thought it would be best to have it burn down to ashes. When Celia remained, the man who came for us remained. They both died along with the other staff.”
“And the children?”
Mateo shook his head. “Only, I survived. Arthur has everyone one of them killed. We were fools to believe him. Children are the living proof of his atrocities.”
"Do you know..."
Mateo wiped his face. "...I'd spent four years trying to make her smile."
He laughed. "I failed every single day."
"Then..."
"The day she decided to die..."
"...she smiled."
Silence.
"I hated her for that."
I licked my lips, trying to form some words. Nothing came out. It was Kade who broke the silence.
“Arthur made a murderer out of a child. We granted him an easy death.”
I close my eyes, letting the tears fall freely.
“I wanted to protect Celia. I didn’t want to hurt you, Seline. I was a child, too.”
He looked at me as if truly looking at me.
“Celia and I were so full of guilt. That’s why we wanted to leave together. You would have gotten a great. That’s what she thought. She died. Celia dies,” He gripped his shirt as if the thought of her dying made his chest ache, “It still hurts.”
“You eventually met Kade. You were happy. You were losing focus. Suddenly, I forgot what you had to go through because of us. All I remembered is Celia died, trying to save you.”
“I am sorry.”
Mateo was on his knees, “I am so sorry for framing you for a murder I committed. I am sorry I didn’t let Kade take her away. I was worried that—”
“That Kade would recognise you?” I asked him. “That I would know the truth?”
Mateo didn’t answer.
“I am sorry,” he kept murmuring.