The road was a dark blade cutting through the fog.
Luca drove with both hands locked on the wheel, his eyes fixed on the narrow strip of asphalt ahead. The engine hummed low and steady, like the pulse of something waiting to break.
In the back seat, Clara and Adrian sat close together, hand in hand. They didn't need words, every thought she had slid into his mind, every restraint he held guided her away from the edge. It was a closed circuit, a current running between two poles.
Clara felt a hollow ache. Each mile pulled her farther from the last trace of Aurora, and closer to a place that could either return her daughter or take her away forever. Her fingers tightened around Adrian's until it hurt.
"Breathe with me," he murmured, not turning.
She obeyed. One breath. Then another. Their heartbeats found the same rhythm, steady and deep. Within that shared pulse, her power began to shape itself, no longer a scream, but a blade.
"Whatever happens," she whispered, "when we find her… nothing will ever separate us again."
"Not even death," Adrian said softly.
Dawn pushed pale light through the mist. Ahead, a perimeter of steel unfolded, high fencing, guard towers, cameras that tracked every movement. At its center, a sign: Military Zone – No Entry.
Luca slowed. Two sentinels approached. Clara squeezed Adrian's hand. The touch was a trigger.
She closed her eyes. The outside world dimmed. Inside, her mind became a hallway lined with doors. Behind each, the thoughts of the soldiers: fatigue, boredom, the ache in their backs, the memory of a child not sleeping. She entered, touched each, rearranged them gently.
It's all right. They're authorized.
The guards blinked once, twice. Then, in perfect synchrony, they saluted and stepped aside.
The gate slid open.
Luca's voice shook. "How the hell did you…"
"Drive," Adrian cut him off. "Now."
They passed through. The base swallowed them whole, concrete and glass, corridors and codes. The air smelled of ozone and antiseptic.
Every step Clara took felt heavier. The beat of her heart echoed inside Adrian's ribs. They moved like a single organism. When a doctor crossed their path, she looked at him for half a second and he froze, eyes suddenly lucid, voice distant.
"Sublevel three. Sector D. The child is there."
They didn't know if it was truth or illusion. It didn't matter. They followed.
Doors opened at their presence. Cameras shut off.
Luca followed behind, pale. "You're not just reading minds," he whispered. "You're rewriting them."
Adrian's reply was low, grim. "We're what Rinaldi wanted to create. But we're still alive."
The elevator opened with a jolt. Sublevel -3. The sign above the door glowed: Silence Sector.
Clara's stomach turned. That word, Silence, had once stood between her and her daughter. Not anymore.
The hallway stretched long and sterile. Behind the glass walls, four technicians monitored streams of brain activity. One graph pulsed brighter than the rest.
Aurora.
Clara's palm burned inside Adrian's. Together, they felt the scent that shouldn't exist in the air: soap, paper, honey. A sensory memory. Her child.
"Here," Clara breathed.
The last door was sealed with a double lock. She laid her hand on it; Adrian laced his fingers through hers. The code flickered, scattered, dissolved. The lock released.
The door slid open. The room was empty.
A child's bed. Sheets still warm to the touch.
A star-shaped plush toy. A blue notebook on a small table. A crayon drawing on the wall: a sun, a house, three figures holding hands. Two with brown hair. All three with blue eyes.
The air smelled faintly of honey.
"Aurora?" The word cracked in Clara's throat.
She moved frantically, pulled at the blanket, checked the cabinet, looked beneath the bed, behind the curtain. Each movement grew sharper, more desperate, less human.
Aurora wasn't there.
The world stopped. The sound dropped away.
Adrian reached for her, and the instant his hand brushed her shoulder he felt it, the vibration beneath her skin, the heat of a volcano about to erupt.
"They took her," she said, and her voice was made of glass.
Two doctors appeared at the doorway, hesitant. Clara turned her head. She didn't shout.
She thought.
The base groaned. A high, invisible hum filled the air. Lights flickered. Screens burst into static. One technician screamed as sparks leapt from his headset.
The wave started from their joined hands, Adrian holding, shaping; Clara feeding it with pure white fury. It rippled down the corridor. The doctors froze mid-motion, eyes glassy, chests locked.
"Clara!" Adrian caught her arm. "You're choking them!"
"I want answers," she said, her voice cold and metallic.
A third man stumbled into view. Adrian seized his arm before Clara's energy crushed him.
"Where is the child?" he demanded.
The man's mouth twitched. "Transferred… Level Zero…"
"What does that mean?"
"Access… denied… beyond… the Sanctuary…"
The word fell like a key. Sanctuary.
Clara's pulse spiked. "Where?" she hissed.
Adrian tightened his grip, dampening her power.
The man's voice came again, broken. "Remote order… relocation… Sector S…"
"S for Sanctuary," Luca said, stepping into the doorway, gun drawn but lowered. He looked around the wreckage of light and glass, terrified. "Clara, stop. You're burning them out."
She inhaled sharply. The wave retreated just enough. The men collapsed, gasping for air.
Adrian's hand trembled inside hers. "Like that," he whispered. "Use it. Don't let it use you."
Her eyes shimmered, tears mixing with light. "If they've hurt her, Adrian…"
"Then we'll burn the world," he said. "But first, we find her."
Luca slipped into a control room. Two technicians lay unconscious. "Give me a second," he muttered, fingers flying over the console. Lines of data raced across the screens. "Someone tried to wipe everything, but nothing is ever truly erased."
He opened a hidden window: Transfer Log L-01. The authorization read: Class A – Remote Access.
"L-01," Clara whispered. "That was her ID bracelet."
Luca dove deeper, bypassing locks, until a faint window blinked open: External handshake – encoded string.
Coordinates.
An alarm screamed. Security inbound.
"Time's up," Luca said, shutting down the monitor. "Two minutes, tops."
Clara's gaze fixed on the tiny bed. The blanket. The drawing. The starlight plush.
"No," she said softly. "We're not running anymore."
Adrian knew that tone. He turned to Luca. "Thirty seconds more. Then we go."
Clara placed her hand on the pillow. She closed her eyes.
She reached into the faint warmth the air still held, the memory of a small heartbeat, the ghost of breath. And she heard it, faint, almost imaginary: I see you.
Her breath hitched.
"Aurora…"
The sound of footsteps. Orders shouted.
Luca appeared at the door. "They're coming!"
Clara opened her eyes. "Then we go to the Sanctuary."
"We don't even know where that is," Luca shot back.
"We will," Adrian said quietly. "You took something."
"I've got a fragment," Luca admitted. "Coordinates, white zone, off every civilian map. Northeast. Old military coverage. A place that doesn't exist."
"The Sanctuary," Clara whispered. The word no longer scared her. It gave her direction.
"Take us there."
"They'll be waiting," Luca warned.
"So will we," Adrian replied.
He lifted her hand and kissed the back of it. "When I hold you like this, nothing can stop us."
Clara closed her eyes. In the dark behind her eyelids, she saw a flash of blue, an eye, a smile, a voice small and clear across the silence.
Daddy.
Adrian flinched. He'd heard it too. They stared at each other, stunned and trembling with hope.
"It was her," Clara whispered.
"It was her," he echoed.
Outside, the hills rolled past. The base behind them folded in on itself, a wounded beast retreating underground. Ahead, the road bent toward the horizon, toward the place no one was meant to find.
Clara squeezed Adrian's hand tighter, feeling the rage turn into something sharper, cleaner, alive. Not destruction, direction.
"Aurora," she whispered to the dawn, "we're coming."
And for the first time since she'd learned her daughter's name, the pain gave way to certainty: silence would not win.