Chapter 157 The Real No. 07

Chapter 157 The Real No. 07

Sebastian's words detonated like a bomb in the terrifyingly silent core monitoring room.

Sam's hands froze mid-keystroke, suspended in the air. His eyes went wide as he stared at Sebastian, his breathing grinding to a complete halt.

Penelope sat in her chair, her normally ice-cold eyes contracting violently as they locked onto the file in Sebastian's hand.

She didn't even register the searing pain from her freshly bandaged feet as she gripped the armrests and hauled herself upright.

Penelope snatched the classified document from Sebastian's grasp.

Her hands shook uncontrollably as her gaze dropped to the yellowed black-and-white photograph on the final page.

The boy in the photo looked no more than seven or eight years old, wearing a tattered orphanage uniform, so thin he was practically skeletal.

His deep-set eyes held a deadness far beyond his years, and a vicious old scar cut across the corner of one eye.

The moment Penelope saw that face, her brain felt like ten thousand tons of explosives detonating simultaneously. A sharp ringing filled her ears.

That was Dominic as a child.

"Sebastian, you better start talking. What the hell is this? Why is he Subject 07?!"

Penelope whipped around to face Sebastian, her eyes instantly flooding red as if they might bleed. Her voice came out raw and hoarse, barely recognizable as her own.

Sebastian swallowed hard. Cold sweat dripped from his forehead down his jaw onto the pristine glass tabletop.

"According to the classified internal records, Liam did intend to inject the entire supply of X-3 neural toxin into your body."

"But Dominic, who was at the orphanage with you at the time, discovered their sick plan. He took advantage of the guard shift change and broke into the underground laboratory."

"To save your life, he smashed the specialized containment vessel and forced nearly ninety percent of the raw toxin directly down his own throat."

Sebastian's voice was trembling noticeably by this point. He couldn't bring himself to look at Dominic's frighteningly cold eyes.

"The residue left in your system was nothing more than trace amounts from what remained in the syringe."

"You have no idea what that file says. When that toxin enters the human body, it ravages the nervous system. Pain receptors get amplified a hundred times over."

"Dominic was just a kid. He survived seventy-two hours of acute rejection syndrome. Screamed himself voiceless."

"Preston's so desperate to capture you because he thinks you're the 07 who escaped all those years ago."

"He has no idea the perfect antibody carrier has been right beside you all along. Protecting you with his life."

"The real Subject 07, the 'monster' Preston sees as the perfect antibody vessel—it's been Dominic this entire time!"

Hearing these brutally cruel words, Penelope felt like her internal organs were being torn apart by rusty hooks.

Her stomach convulsed violently. That familiar neurological pain struck again, but this time she felt no physical sensation at all.

She finally understood why Dominic had unleashed that inhuman, terrifying strength during that fire years ago.

She remembered the vicious old scar on Dominic's abdomen. That wasn't a knife wound at all—it was a surgical incision from live tissue extraction.

She remembered how Dominic would unconsciously massage his joints. That was chronic rheumatic pain from years of toxin erosion in his bones.

She remembered Dominic's extremely restrained portions at meals. His stomach lining had been completely destroyed by the toxin.

She remembered how at the abandoned pawn shop, Dominic had shielded her body with his own, refusing to let go even as he was battered bloody.

She'd thought her own suffering was enough to break anyone. But compared to Dominic's, what she'd endured was nothing.

This idiot had shouldered all the deadliest curses for her. He'd forcibly lifted her out of hell's abyss.

Penelope turned, her gaze moving with excruciating slowness to Dominic's face.

His oversized black hospital gown was soaked through with fresh blood again. Large patches of dark crimson spread across the fabric in horrifying blooms.

But he sat there quietly as if nothing was wrong, his fathomless eyes showing not the slightest ripple.

As if the tragic monster documented in those files wasn't him at all, but some unrelated stranger.

"You knew all along, didn't you? You've always known Preston was really after you."

Penelope's tears finally broke free completely. Large, scalding drops cascaded down her ashen face.

She reached out with her blood-stained hands and grabbed the front of Dominic's hospital gown, her fingernails nearly digging into his flesh.

"What gives you the right to make that call? You think you're some kind of savior? What gives you the right to decide whether I live or die?!"

She sobbed as she screamed at him, pounding her fists against Dominic's broad chest. Her movements carried a heartbreaking desperation and helplessness.

That suffocating terror of losing him crashed over her like a tidal wave, drowning all rational thought and shredding her carefully maintained composure.

Dominic didn't dodge. He let her vent, even allowing an incredibly gentle, weak smile to curve his lips.

He lifted his rough hand and wiped away the tears at the corner of Penelope's eyes with exquisite tenderness. His fingertips burned with fever.

"Penelope, I told you—as long as I have breath in my body, I won't let you suffer even the slightest injustice."

Every word carried that irresistible obsession and devotion.

Looking at his resigned acceptance, Penelope's heart ached so badly that breathing itself became an unaffordable luxury.

She lowered her gaze back to the file, wanting to see exactly what inhumane experiments those monsters had performed on Dominic.

The pages were densely filled with records of inhuman torture. Words like 'bone marrow extraction' and 'nerve dissection' stabbed at her eyes like knives.

Just as her vision was about to land on the rows of rejection syndrome data, a burning hand suddenly reached over.

Dominic pressed his palm firmly over Penelope's eyes, completely blocking her view of that brutal file.