Chapter 38 Recaptured

Chapter 38 Recaptured
The eastern tunnel was like an scary throat made of stone the air thick with damp earth and a bad smell. Iris ran fast with her heart beating one arm around Lila and Noah while Claire carried the new baby pod on her chest. Sophia and Serena ran on either side holding guns and looking dirty and hurt. Every step echoed loudly. Every explosion from above made the kids flinch and cry.

“Keep moving " Iris whispered, her voice rough. " A little further. The extraction point is close.”

Elias ran beside her holding her hand tightly trying to be strong. Theo stumbled along tears streaming down his cheeks. Iris felt like she was carrying the weight of ten kids on her shoulders. Ten lives depending on her in this scary place. She kept counting them in her head. Ten. Please God let it still be ten.

Behind them the sound of people following them grew louder. Boots on stone. Shouted commands. Victor Lang’s forces had found the tunnel entrance.

“Faster!" Sophia urged, firing a shot back into the darkness. The flash lit up the faces of the kids for a second.

They burst out of the tunnel into a clearing near the river. The extraction helicopter waited, rotors spinning, Adam’s team laying down covering fire. Iris felt a surge of hope as they sprinted toward it.

Then the trap closed.

Floodlights snapped on from three directions. Armored figures poured out of the trees. In the center of the ambush stood a woman who looked like Iris. But with colder eyes and a mean smile. The twelfth child. The original template. Grace’s darker mirror.

“Mommy " the clone said, using an imitation of Hope’s voice. "You left me behind again.”

Iris felt like she’d been punched in the gut. The kids froze. Lila reached out before Sophia pulled her back. Iris felt like her knees were going to buckle. This thing wearing a child’s face speaking with stolen innocence. It was the thing yet.

Victor Lang stepped out from behind the clone flanked by armed mercenaries. "Game over Iris. Surrender the children. We start executing the clones in front of you. One by one. Slowly.”

Lucien’s voice suddenly crackled through the comms in her ear, weak but fighting. "Iris… run. Don’t let them take you. I love—”

The transmission cut with a scream of static.

Iris’s world narrowed to anger. She pushed the kids behind her. Raised the pistol Lucien had given her. "You will not touch them.”

The clone smiled with Grace’s face. ". They already belong to us. Inside. Every dream you sang to them? I was there too. Whispering. Preparing them. The real Grace is with Victor now. She chose us.”

Iris felt like she was going to crack. She fired. The shot hit the clone in the shoulder. The girl didn’t fall. Instead she laughed with a child’s giggle that made Iris’s stomach turn.

Gunfire exploded across the clearing. Sophia and Serena fought hard. Captain Reyes. Who had caught up somehow. Took a bullet to the stomach. Kept firing. Adam’s team tried to reach them. More enemies poured from the trees.

In the chaos Victor’s men grabbed Lila.

Iris. Lunged after her daughter but a heavy blow to the back of her head sent her crashing to the ground. The world spun. She heard her kids screaming her name as rough hands dragged her away.

Lucien fought through a nightmare on the side of the valley.

He had drawn the bulk of the forces away as planned. The cost had been bad. Aurora was down with a bullet in her leg. Dawn carried her both girls bleeding. Hope walked between them eyes glowing as she fought the voices in her head. Adam covered their retreat his young face grim with determination.

They had reached a warehouse when Victor’s main force caught them.

Lucien stood in the center of the warehouse floor surrounded by clones of himself. Five of them. All wearing his face. All smiling with Victoria’s intelligence.

“Join us, son " one of them said. "Become what you were always meant to be. The perfect vessel.”

Lucien fired until his gun clicked empty. He dropped it. Charged with a roar using fists, elbows, knees. Anything. He broke one clone’s neck. Stabbed another with a shard of glass.. They kept coming. They were stronger. Faster. Upgrades.

One of the Lucien-clones grabbed him from behind pinning his arms. Another pressed a gun to his temple. "Your wife and children are already ours.. We’ll let the real ones live as pets.”

Lucien thought of Iris’s face. Of the way she had kissed him in the cave. Of the ten faces that called him Dad. The protective anger surged one time.

He headbutted the clone behind him broke free and fought like a man who had nothing left to lose. He killed two. Then a blow to the back of his head dropped him to his knees.

The last thing he saw before darkness took him was Victor Lang stepping out of the shadows smiling.

“Welcome home, Lucien. Your family is waiting.”

Iris woke up strapped to a chair in a pristine white room. Electrodes covered her temples. Monitors beeped softly around her. Victor Lang stood over her with a almost kind smile.

“Welcome back Iris. You fought beautifully.. It’s over now.”

She thrashed against the restraints. "Where are my children? Where is Lucien?”

Victor gestured to a wall of screens. Each one showed a bad thing.

One screen: Lucien on his knees in the warehouse surrounded by his clones, bloodied and broken.

Another: The kids in a barred room crying for their parents. Grace. The real one. Sat among them singing the lullaby Iris used to sing.

A third: Claire strapped down again her newborns in incubators beside her.

Victor leaned closer. "Here’s the final twist you’ve earned. The thirteenth child? The one we told you about? It was never real. It was a distraction. The real thirteenth is already, inside one of you.. It’s about to wake up.”