For a moment, Ava couldn't move.
Her mind refused to make sense of what she was seeing. The man in front of her looked older, thinner, and there was a scar running along his jaw that hadn't been there before but the eyes were unmistakable.
Her father.
Her voice trembled. "You're supposed to be dead."
He gave a weary half-smile. "That would have been easier for everyone."
Ava's heart quickened. "Easier? We spent our whole lives in isolation! You left us!"
"I did not leave you," he said quietly. "I hid you."
The words fell like stones between them.
Ava's head moved, outrage and bewilderment struggling inside her. "Hide us from what? From whom?
Her father's eyes flicked to the door, then back to her. "There are people who think you're a solution to something they made. They were never supposed to find you again."
Ava swallowed. "You mean the other me."
He didn't answer right away, but the way his jaw tightened said enough.
"She's not a twin," Ava whispered. "Is she?"
"No." His voice cracked. "She's the first attempt.".
The room slewed sideways. Ava grabbed the edge of the desk, breathing irregularly. "You… you experimented on your own children?"
He took a slow step toward her, hands out in a placating gesture. "We thought we could stop something before it ever started. But when you were born, that changed. You were"
He checked himself, glancing again toward the hall. "There isn't much time. They'll realize I'm here."
"Who?"
The people who kidnapped your brother."
The floor seemed to drop out from under her as she exclaimed, "Adrian's alive?"
"For the moment," he said. "But they won't keep him that way if he gets too close to you. They don't want the two of you together."
"Why?"
He hesitated, then met her gaze. "Because together, you're proof that what we did worked."
The lights dimmed before she could say anything.
A muted alarm began to pulse somewhere above them.
Her father grabbed her wrist. "We have to go."
"Where?"
"Up," he said, pulling her toward a side door. "Before they seal off this level. You have to reach your brother before"
A voice cut through the alarm, cold and even over the intercom.
"Dr. Hale, step away from the girl."
Her father stopped.
The same voice that had spoken from the glass room the man who had ordered her capture.
"You've broken your own protocol," the voice continued. "You know what that means."
Ava looked up at her father. "What does it mean?"
He closed his eyes. "It means run."
Then the door behind them exploded inward.
The blast threw Ava backward.
Heat, dust, and the deafening ring of the explosion swallowed her as the lights shattered overhead. When her vision cleared, she saw her father on his knees, shielding her from the debris with his own body.
"Dad!" she shouted, grabbing his arm. "You're bleeding!"
"I've had worse," he muttered, wincing as he pulled himself up. "Move, Ava. Now."
Men in black tactical gear stormed through the smoke silent, efficient, armed. Their visors glinted like mirrors, hiding their faces.
Her father yanked a metal panel open behind a desk, revealing a narrow shaft. "Down there."
"What about you?"
"I'll be right behind you," he said, voice strained. "Go before they"
A gunshot cracked through the chaos.
The bullet tore into the wall just inches from Ava's head.
"Go!" he barked, pushing her toward the opening.
Ava scrambled to enter the shaft, heart pounding, the sound of boots closing in. She slid down the metallic slope, the air thick with dust and fear. She landed hard in a darkened corridor lit by emergency lights. The building vibrated under her palms.
Her father landed beside her seconds later, hacking. "Stay low. They'll track us by movement."
They ran along the corridor, their footsteps echoing off the walls. At the far end was a door that was reinforced. Her father inserted a keycard on a chain around his neck a battered one, like it had been used too many times.
The door hissed open.
They forced their way into a hidden control room, smaller and darker than the others. Screens covered the walls some on, some off. On one screen, Ava saw something that made her heart stop.
"Adrian," she whispered.
He was on the screen, handcuffed to a chair, battered and bleeding but alive.
Her father turned around. "They're holding him in the west wing. That gives us maybe ten minutes before they move him again."
"Then let's go!" Ava made a move towards the door, but he caught her arm.
"Listen to me," he said, his eyes burning. "There's something you don't know about your brother."
She frowned. "What are you talking about?"
"Adrian he's not just your twin. He's the reason they found you."
"What?"
"He never stopped searching for the truth. When he tried to investigate what they did to you, he triggered their system. All the moves you've been making ever since they've been monitoring. Waiting."
Ava's stomach dropped. "So they used him to get to me."
Her father nodded gravely. "And if we don't locate him before they move him, they'll make sure he never sees the light of day again."
The monitors suddenly flickered. The intercom voice returned, calm and cruel:
"You can't run forever, Doctor. The twins belong to us."
Ava grabbed the nearest object a metal wrench and smashed the console, cutting off the voice.
"Then we'll show them what happens when they try to take what's ours," she said, her voice trembling with rage.
Her father stared at her for a long moment, then nodded. "You sound just like your mother."
Ava blinked. "She's alive too, isn't she?"
He didn't say anything.
The silence said it all.
Ava's heart thundered in her ears as silence descended on the devastated room. The gentle whine of the emergency lights made the air thrum with tension.
Her father finally spoke, his voice rough. "Your mother… she didn't die in that fire."
Ava froze. "What?"
He glanced down, as if in shame. "We let everyone believe she did. It was the only way to keep her safe and both of you."
Ava stepped forward, her voice trembling. "Safe from whom?"
"The ones who funded everything that we built. They were more than just investors. They owned us. When your mother found out what they were really doing how far they would go she attempted to expose them. They came for us that night."
The fire," Ava whispered.
He nodded slowly. "She barely escaped. I sent her away under a new identity. I stayed to make sure you and Adrian would be able to grow up hidden."
Ava's throat tightened. "You mean hidden? We grew up alone. Isolated."
He winced. "I know. And I'll carry that guilt to my grave. But if I hadn't, you wouldn't be alive today.
Ava turned away, gripping the edge of the console. "You could have told us."
"I couldn't risk it," he whispered. "Every word, every transmission, was being watched. The moment you started asking questions, they found you."
Ava's breath came unevenly. "And now they have Adrian."
Her father stepped beside her, his trembling hand coming to rest on her shoulder. "I will not lose you both. Not again."
She had no time to answer before there were footsteps outside in the hall.
Her father's eyes narrowed. "They've found us."
He stretched out and flipped a hidden switch under the console. Behind them, the wall slid open to reveal a narrow stairway winding down.
"Where does this go?" she asked.
"To the old maintenance tunnels," he said. "They sealed them off years ago. But they'll bring us close to the west wing."
They ran down the stairs, the door closing behind them just as the tread of boots echoed in the control room above.
The staircase gave way to a poorly lit corridor lined with pipes and thick cables. The smell of dust and rust was in the air. Ava's flashlight beam caught faded graffiti and broken warning signs
AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.
Her father moved quickly, his breathing ragged but determined. "Stay close. These tunnels connect to an old service elevator. It'll take us to him."
As they turned a corner, Ava's light caught a familiar shape scratched into the wall two overlapping circles with a single line through them.
Her chest tightened. "I've seen this before."
Her father stopped. "Where?"
"In the letters. The ones that came to the penthouse."
He stared at the mark, his face paling. "Then they've already been in here."
"What is it?"
He hesitated. "It's their mark. The people who kidnapped Adrian. The ones who made all this in the first place."
Ava stepped back, the light trembling in her hand. "And you used to work for them?"
His voice splintered. "Once."
A metallic click echoed through the tunnel.
Ava turned around her flashlight illuminating the form of a man at the far end, dressed in dark gray, with a gun in hand.
Her father moved in front of her reflexively.
The man spoke, his voice icy and calculated. "Doctor Hale. You should have remained dead."
Ava's stomach twisted. She recognized that voice. It was the same one that had come through the intercom.
Her father stiffened, his voice defiant. "If you hurt her"
But the man smiled. "We don't need her. We already have him."
"Where's my brother?" Ava screamed.
The man raised his gun slightly, eyes glinting. "You'll see him soon enough."
Then a flash
A gunshot
And everything went black.