Chapter 138

Chapter 138

If Victoria was just a "test subject," then Isabella's blood type had also been targeted by the Kitayama Biotech Institute.

The middle-aged man from the Kitayama Biotech Institute wanted her blood, not Victoria's.

This meant Victoria had already fulfilled her function as a test subject, and there was something on Isabella herself that they wanted even more… But what could it be?

Zachary cursed, "Fuck, that's disgusting."

Their organization had rescued people from foreign labs before.

Those experiments had been absolutely inhumane.

Even though Isabella had helped detoxify them afterward and tried to minimize the aftereffects,

the trauma from their time in those facilities—and the irreversible decline in their physical functions—had left scars that would haunt them for the rest of their lives…

Zachary's eyes darkened. What they hated most was human experimentation.

Isabella's expression grew grim as she instructed Octavia, "Keep an eye on Victoria. If she talks in her sleep or suddenly wakes up, write it down. Her memories might be coming back in fragments."

They hadn't actually tried to erase Victoria's memories—they'd only been running tests.

But even now, Isabella still didn't know what the Kitayama Biotech Institute was really doing, what they were actually researching.

Based on past clues, their research seemed to span multiple areas—toxins, genetics, you name it.

"Don't worry, I've got it." Octavia nodded, tucking the tablet under her arm before heading upstairs.

At 3 a.m., most people at the safe house had already cycled through their rest shifts, but Octavia was still on the second-floor hallway couch.

She was focused on a game on her tablet. Victoria's door wasn't fully closed—just left slightly ajar—and the sound of steady breathing drifted out.

Isabella had slept for two hours before emerging from her room, planning to go downstairs for some water.

Passing through the hallway, she spotted Octavia still sitting there and walked over to sit beside her. "How's Victoria?"

"Sleeping like a baby." Octavia shrugged.

Isabella glanced down and noticed a faint ring of red around Octavia's knuckles. She frowned slightly. "What happened? Why didn't you treat that injury?"

Octavia flexed her wrist dismissively. "The swelling's already gone down. I'll be fine by tomorrow. I braced myself in a drainage ditch at the nursing home today and twisted it. It's really no big deal."

Isabella studied it for a moment. "Let me get you an ice pack."

She went downstairs, returned with an ice pack, and pressed it gently against Octavia's wrist.

After a moment of silence, Octavia said, "Before Victoria fell asleep, she said something to me: 'By the water, a white house, glass ceiling.'"

Isabella adjusted the ice pack and looked at her. "When did she say that?"

"When you went down to check the reports… I wasn't sure if it was sleep talk or an actual memory fragment." She'd planned to mention it in the morning, but Isabella had come out in the middle of the night anyway.

Isabella thought it over. None of the Kitayama Biotech Institute's known locations in Zephyria matched that description.

Either Victoria had been moved during her captivity, or…

"Tomorrow, ask her again when she wakes up. You should get some sleep too—she probably won't wake up again tonight."

Victoria had run away before because she was scared and didn't trust them.

But now… she probably wouldn't do that again.

"Okay." Octavia nodded. The safe house was covered in cameras anyway.

And to prevent a repeat of last time, they'd specifically installed an alarm at the door.

If she tried to run again, it would trigger the alarm.

The next morning, Octavia knocked on Victoria's door.

Victoria was already awake and looked a bit more rested than yesterday.

"Do you remember what you said last night before you fell asleep?"

She frowned, thinking for a long time, then shook her head. "I only remember having a dream. I dreamed I was standing by the water. There were white stones under my feet, and glass reflecting light overhead…"

"But I can't tell if it was a dream or real, because that same scene appeared over and over while I was being held captive. Every time, it was the exact same setting, and every time I woke up, I felt so cold…"

"Every single time…" Just thinking about the dream made Victoria shiver.

"All right, go wash up. Come down for breakfast when you're ready."

"Okay." Victoria nodded slowly.

Octavia went downstairs to find Isabella. After hearing Octavia's recap, Isabella looked thoughtful.

By the water, a white house… It reminded her of that file in Oliver's study.

She remembered—the last page had a line of tiny handwriting, probably a note.

It had read something like "GLASS-ROOM, WATERFRONT."

She hadn't thought much of it at the time, but now, with these two pieces of information lining up, she was almost certain that the scene in Victoria's memory and the place Oliver knew about were one and the same.

Just then, Oscar looked up from his computer. "Boss, Selene's already entered the country, but she didn't go straight to the hospital. She stopped by a café in the south part of the city first…"

"She went in for less than ten minutes, then left through a side door. Five minutes after she left, a man in a gray trench coat came out the same side door."

"Facial recognition came back as Vincent—the guy Victoria contacted before…"

Zachary swallowed his rice ball. "Didn't she come to see her son?"

Isabella was surprised too. Selene had seemed so concerned about Bruce before.

But she hadn't gone to the hospital first thing.

Isabella walked over behind Oscar to look at the surveillance screenshots.

She saw that when Vincent came out, he was carrying a manila envelope—probably documents or something similar.

Oscar said, "I tracked him heading toward Maple Hill Township."

Isabella turned to Finnian. "Pull up his vehicle movements from the past two weeks. See if there's a similar exchange pattern before Selene came to Zephyria."

"On it."

Finnian's keyboard clattered for about ten minutes. When he turned the screen around, he tugged on his headset. "Over the past fourteen days, Vincent made three trips toward Maple Hill Township. All of them started from downtown, between 2 and 4 p.m.…"

Oscar added, "I looked into the café. The legal owner has a local name, but the registration address goes through a proxy company. Can't tell who actually controls it…"

"But this might be a meeting spot."

That afternoon, Isabella changed into a gray hoodie and dark jeans, then drove out in the safe house's most inconspicuous vehicle—a dark blue sedan.

Maple Hill Township was about twenty miles south of the city. Part of the route wound through the mountains, where the trees were already tinged with yellow.

She parked across from the nursing home at a convenience store, got out, bought a bottle of water, and sat down on a high stool by the window.

From this angle, she had a clear view of both the main entrance and the side door of the nursing home.

The main building was a three-story gray-and-white structure with a sign above the front entrance that read "Crestview Medical Clinic."

Elderly patients in wheelchairs were being pushed around the courtyard by caregivers, soaking up the sun. It looked like any other ordinary nursing home.

But next to the side door was a sleek black electronic access system—the kind of setup that seemed way too advanced for a small-scale facility like this.