The silence was deafening.
Elias stared at me like I was a stranger. I didn't blame him.
Because I wasn't the Amara he knew.
Not fully.
I stood slowly, hands trembling as memories surged through me. Two timelines. Two lives. Merging.
"Amara," he said again, his voice cracking. "Say something. Anything."
I turned to him.
And I said the one thing that would break him:
"Your mother didn't die in the lab explosion. She was taken."
His face went pale.
"How do you know that?"
I swallowed. "Because she helped create me. Both versions."
He stepped back. "What… what are you talking about?"
I tapped the glowing panel that now pulsed beneath the console.
The chip—the final failsafe—had rewritten every clearance code in the system.
"I accessed the mainframe," I said quietly. "My father stored a backup of everything—every project, every betrayal, every cover-up."
And what I found…
Made me wish I'd never looked.
There were more of us.
More copies.
More girls.
Hidden underground. Frozen. Numbered.
Like dolls on a shelf.
Only I had survived the merge.
"What do we do now?" Elias whispered.
I looked up.
"The lab isn't the only place they're operating from. Project Dreadlight spread to schools. Camps. Hospitals. They used teens because we were easier to reprogram."
I handed him a small black device from the console. "This is the only key that can shut it all down."
He held it. "Then let's go."
But as we turned to leave—
The screen flared to life again.
And Mason appeared.
Alive.
But different.
He wore a black suit, his eyes now silver.
"Hello again," he said. "Welcome to Phase Two."
I stepped forward. "I don't play your games anymore."
He smiled.
"That's fine. But you should know… someone else escaped."
"What?"
He tapped a screen behind him.
A girl—my age. My face.
But it wasn't a clone.
It was the first successful hybrid.
"She's already on her way to your school."
My blood ran cold.
Elias looked at me. "Who is she?"
I stared at the screen.
And whispered:
"She's everything I would've become… if they'd never taken me away."