Helena
The door opened.
She didn't look up. She'd stopped looking up days ago. Weeks. She'd lost count of the days. The nights. The hours spent staring at the same four walls of the room they'd put her in.
Not a prison. Not quite. A holding room. A waiting room. A place to keep her quiet while they decided what to do with her.
Dr. Helena Voss. Epidemiologist. Former Project consultant. Mother of a monster.
"Dr. Voss."
A voice she didn't recognize. A man in a dark suit. No lab coat. No uniform. Something else. Someone from higher up. Someone who'd been hiding while the facility burned.
She looked at him. His face was clean. His hands were clean. He hadn't been there. He hadn't seen anything.
"What do you want?"
"There's been an incident."
"I know."
"Your daughter—"
"Where is she?"
He didn't answer. He just stood there. Holding a tablet. His thumb hovered over the screen.
"You need to see this."
---
The video was shaky.
Security footage. Camera somewhere in the main laboratory. Helena recognized the room. She'd helped design it. The reinforced walls. The backup generators. The failsafes that were supposed to prevent exactly what she was watching.
The image was grainy. Black and white. But she could see everything.
The chair. The prongs. Marlow standing beside it, tablet in hand, her mouth moving with words Helena couldn't hear.
Riley on the chair. Strapped down. Her head was bleeding. Her hands were stumps.
Helena's breath caught.
Her hands.
"What did they do to her?"
The man didn't answer.
The video continued.
The machines hummed. Lights flickered. Marlow stepped back. Something was happening. Riley's body was convulsing. Straining against the restraints.
Then the screaming.
Even through the grainy audio, Helena could hear it. A sound she'd never forget. A sound that would live in her nightmares for the rest of her life.
Her daughter. Screaming.
"Turn it off."
"You need to watch."
"I said turn it off."
He didn't.
---
The machine malfunctioned.
Helena saw the sparks. The smoke. The way Marlow's face went from calm to panicked in less than a second.
Someone hit a button. The electricity stopped.
Riley went limp.
Then she sat up.
The restraints didn't break. They tore. The metal buckled like paper. Riley stood up. Her hands were no longer stumps.
Helena watched her daughter's fingers grow back.
Bone. Muscle. Skin. Nails. All of it. In seconds.
"That's not possible."
"Watch."
---
She watched.
She watched her daughter kill.
The first scientist. Throat crushed. The guards. One with his heart pulled out. One with a scalpel through his skull. One torn apart like a doll.
She watched Riley's face. The emptiness. The coldness. The way she moved like something that wasn't human anymore.
Then Marlow.
Riley didn't kill Marlow right away. She stopped. Closed her eyes. When she opened them again, something had changed.
That was Riley. Not the thing that had been killing. Riley.
Helena watched her daughter beat a woman to death with her bare hands.
Punch after punch after punch. Even after Marlow stopped moving. Even after her face was unrecognizable. Even after the floor was slick with blood and teeth and pieces of bone.
Riley didn't stop.
Until someone pulled her away. A girl. Dark hair. A scar on her jaw.
Sasha.
Helena had seen her in the files. Riley's group. The one who stayed.
"Turn it off," Helena said.
This time, the man listened.
---
"Your daughter killed thirty-seven people."
He was reading from the tablet. Numbers. Facts. Things that didn't capture any of what she'd just watched.
"Scientists. Security personnel. Medical staff. All of them."
"They were going to kill her."
"That doesn't excuse—"
"They cut off her fingers. They stopped her heart. They tried to erase her mind and replace it with something else."
Helena stood up. Her legs were shaking. She didn't care.
"She's fifteen years old. She's a child. And you put her through hell and now you're surprised that she fought back?"
"She tore people apart with her bare hands."
"Because you turned her into something that could."
The man was quiet.
"Where is she now?" Helena asked.
"We don't know. She freed the other subjects. They're somewhere on the island. We've lost track of them."
"Good."
"Dr. Voss—"
"I hope she kills every last one of you."
She walked to the door. It was unlocked. They'd never locked it. Because she'd never tried to leave.
She left.
---
The hallway was empty.
Helena walked. She didn't know where she was going. She didn't care. Her feet carried her forward. Past doors. Past windows. Past the memories of every terrible thing she'd helped build.
She'd designed the parameters.
She'd run the simulations.
She'd known what kind of child would be selected.
She'd never thought it would be Riley.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. To no one. To everyone. To the daughter who couldn't hear her.
"I'm so sorry."
No one answered.
---
She found a window at the end of the corridor.
Outside, the sun was rising. Pink light bleeding through the trees. The island was quiet. The facility was damaged. Smoke rose from somewhere in the distance.
Somewhere out there, Riley was alive.
Changed. Broken. Remade into something Helena didn't recognize.
But alive.
Helena pressed her forehead against the glass. The window was cold. Her breath fogged the surface.
"I'll find you," she said. "I don't know how. But I'll find you. And I'll make this right."
The sun rose higher. The light got brighter.
Helena stood at the window. Alone. Waiting.