Chapter 10
"Reunion"
January 1st, 2024 - 00:00
Fireworks burst one after another.
The sky was on fire.
You held me tightly against you.
As if you were afraid I would disappear the moment you loosened your grip.
Then suddenly, you pulled back slightly and your gaze scanned my body-quickly, methodically.
Arms.
Shoulders.
Face.
I smiled.
"Don't worry..."
"I'm fine."
You pinched your own cheek with your eyes closed.
Hard.
Then you slowly opened one eye.
Just one.
I had stepped closer during that brief moment.
"Boo."
You stepped back.
Your face turned bright red.
It was... unbearably cute.
"That outfit suits you," I said softly.
"You're beautiful."
You turned even redder.
You hid your face behind your hands, fingers slightly parted.
Your azure-blue eyes stared at me through the gap.
My heart skipped a beat.
But something felt off.
Despite the roar of the fireworks,
I had the strange sensation that the light around us had just dimmed.
I looked up.
A boy stood behind me.
Tall.
About five foot eleven.
With the hardened gaze of a street thug.
"Am I interrupting?"
"Uh..."
"Who the hell are you?"
He looked me up and down.
"And who are you?"
"What are you doing with my sister?"
"Your sister?"
I turned abruptly.
"What do you mean, your sister?"
"I don't-"
Silence.
I understood.
"Oh..."
"You must be Leo."
His expression changed instantly.
He grabbed me by the collar and lifted me effortlessly off the ground.
"How do you know my name?"
"You look suspicious."
"Guys like you don't last long around here."
A leg suddenly slid between us.
Her.
She separated us with a sharp movement,
then turned to her brother and raised her thumb.
High.
Clear.
As if to say:
Everything's fine.
"Oh really?"
"You sure?"
She nodded.
Then, without taking her eyes off me,
she grabbed my hand...
then Leo's.
She tried to bring them together.
Leo shook my hand.
Hard.
Too hard.
A silent warning.
I was thirteen.
He was sixteen.
No way to compete.
I clenched my teeth-but smiled.
"Strong grip, huh..."
He smiled back.
Not friendly.
Not hostile either.
She stared at him.
A piercing look.
Final.
Leo sighed.
"Nice to meet you...
my sister's friend."
He emphasized the words.
"You've got delicate hands.
It'd be a shame if you lost them.
Keep them in your pockets when you're near her.
You never know what might happen."
"Haha...
Thanks for the advice."
I was still clenching my teeth.
She didn't give us time to say more.
She slipped away toward the barriers,
eyes lifted to the sky, mesmerized.
The fireworks exploded overhead.
And for the first time in a long time,
I felt exactly where I was supposed to be.
The evening went on before I really noticed.
We wandered from stand to stand,
drawn by the lights,
the sweet smells,
the bursts of laughter all around us.
Cotton candy.
Candy apples.
Hot churros burning our fingers.
They moved with unsettling ease.
Leo slipped through the crowd without slowing down.
The mute girl almost bounced at his side-
fast, precise, light.
I struggled to keep up.
"Wait..." I breathed.
"Did you grow up in an obstacle course or what?"
Leo smirked.
"The neighborhood teaches you to move fast."
She shot me an amused glance
then ran ahead again,
her silver hair flowing behind her.
I tried to catch up.
In vain.
Later, I ended up beside her, slightly out of breath.
I offered her a sweet.
She hesitated-then smiled and took it gently,
as if it were treasure.
Leo watched everything.
Always.
Never far.
Whenever I stepped a little too close,
I felt the pressure on my shoulders.
Later, someone projected a movie onto a white wall.
Improvised.
Crooked.
But warm.
People sat on the ground.
Others leaned against the walls.
She tugged gently at Leo's sleeve and pointed toward a nightclub where everyone was dancing.
Leo shook his head.
"You're too young."
She pouted.
Crossed her arms.
I suppressed a laugh.
Eventually she sat down,
knees drawn to her chest,
eyes fixed on the screen.
I sat beside her, leaving reasonable space.
Leo positioned himself just behind us, back against the wall.
Discreet bodyguard.
But still a bodyguard.
The movie was bad.
Really bad.
But no one complained.
She laughed silently.
Her shoulders trembling.
Sometimes she looked at me,
as if checking I was seeing what she was seeing.
At one point, she rested her head against my shoulder.
Leo grunted slightly-
but didn't move.
That wasn't distrust.
It was protection.
When the movie ended,
the fireworks had long since faded.
Only the lights remained.
Distant laughter.
And that strange feeling...
That for at least one night,
the world had decided to be kind to us.
I looked at the sky one last time.
And thought-
maybe
this new year
wouldn't begin so badly.
She had fallen asleep on my shoulder.
I didn't dare move anymore.
I was waiting for Leo's reaction.
I expected anything.
But instead,
he sat down beside me.
"Tell me."
"Yes?"
"How do you know my sister?"
My gaze darkened.
"We grew up in the same place..."
"What kind of place?"
"A hard place."
He exhaled softly.
"This neighborhood is a hard place too."
I didn't answer.
He stared at me for a long moment, then murmured:
"You've got that same look."
"What do you mean?"
"That melancholic look..."
"Like you've seen hell."
Silence.
"You like her?"
"Different?"
I still didn't answer.
"You got a name?"
"I..."
"I don't."
He nodded slowly.
"I see..."
Then, after a moment:
"You know..."
"She spoke the day Mom died."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
"What did she say?"
He clenched his fists.
"She said she was sorry."
"I didn't understand..."
"But when I saw her eyes that day..."
He stopped.
"I saw death."
At that instant,
images came rushing back.
The evaluations.
The blood.
The torn plush toy.
I took a breath.
"Listen..."
"Since you've been watching over her for so long,"
"you deserve the truth."
"We are-"
She opened her eyes.
And in the same motion,
she threw a sharp kick.
Leo was launched backward.
"FUCK, WHAT ARE YOU DOI-"
He cut off mid-sentence.
A sniper shell casing was stuck
exactly where he'd been a second earlier.
Silence-just a fraction of a second.
Then panic erupted.
Black trucks.
Doors slamming.
More than a hundred armed men.
"Shit..."
"They really went all out this time," Leo growled.
"You can't protect us..."
"Run!"
She was ready to attack.
I stayed calm.
"It's going to be okay."
"Nothing will happen to you."
And in that moment,
Noah's words came back to me.
2021 - Mojave Desert
"You keep rewinding yourself over and over," he'd told me.
"And you've managed to stop bleeding."
"I don't have a choice," I'd answered.
"If I stop, I get killed."
Noah shook his head.
"That's where you're wrong."
"Tell me... what's the main flaw of our power?"
"Besides the fact that I'm destroying myself?"
"Besides that."
"I can stop time..."
"But I can't interact with the world once it's stopped."
"Exactly."
He paused.
"And did you notice something else?"
"Yeah..."
"When I stop time, hitting someone is useless."
"It's like punching a statue."
"Because your power isn't strength," Noah explained.
"It's exchange."
He pointed toward a massive rock wall in the distance.
"When you use your power, you build up a debt."
"A debt to time itself."
"A debt..."
"Yes."
"And any debt can be transferred."
"How?"
"Feel the pressure."
"The time flow demanding what it's owed."
I closed my eyes.
"I feel it..."
"Now transfer it."
The rock wall exploded with a colossal blast.
Noah smiled.
"That's your real offensive power."
Back to the present
I felt the flow of time.
Time was demanding its due.
I took a step.
The attackers' weapons shattered into fragments,
throwing off bluish sparks.
"WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!"
"GRAB THE BATS!"
They charged.
I stopped time.
Not long.
Just enough.
I shifted.
Got ready to strike at my opponent's weak points.
A fist cut through the air where I'd been.
I struck.
He dropped.
Stop.
Step.
Release.
Every time the world restarted,
it slammed shut like a door you close too hard.
On her side,
she was a silent nightmare.
Precise strikes.
Severed nerves.
Broken joints.
Never lethal.
Never wasted.
Leo took hits, fought back-
pure instinct, raw close-quarters combat,
like an MMA fighter.
"RIGHT!" he shouted.
I blocked.
She appeared behind them.
In less than a minute,
they understood.
"RETREAT!"
"GET OUT!"
They fled in chaos.
A lot of blood.
No dead.
Silence fell again.
Leo was breathing hard.
He looked at us.
For a long time.
"Okay..." he said. "Yeah, it's pretty damn clear I've got things to learn about you."
"We're gonna talk."
I already knew.
That night,
I told Leo everything.
The program.
The evaluations.
The massacre.
He was horrified-yet he didn't look away for a single second.
His brows tightened, holding back a dull rage-
not at us...
at them.
"I see..."
"So you really did live through hell."
He looked me straight in the eyes.
"Sorry I misjudged you."
"Don't worry."
"It's nothing."
He lowered his head slowly.
A sign of respect.
"No," he insisted.
"You just told me unimaginable horrors without even blinking."
"You're not even aware of how massive what you lived through really is."
He hesitated, visibly uncomfortable.
"Even me-my life hasn't exactly been easy..."
"But at least I had the luck to meet one kind adult."
Silence.
"Do you realize you don't even know what a normal childhood is?"
He stared at me.
"Do you..."
"Is there at least one adult who takes care of you?"
I...
He was right.
I didn't even know who I was.
I didn't have a name.
Maybe a number-but they only used it between themselves.
To them, I was the time boy.
Or the hemoglobin.
Because of my constant bleeding.
For years, all I did was train.
Mission after mission.
Everyone was kind to me, sure...
But is that normal for a kid my age?
Were the adults around me really responsible adults?
Or just soldiers in disguise?
Was that... a childhood?
Then I thought of Mike.
That mountain of muscle with a bell pepper for a brain.
Was he doing it on purpose?
Acting dumb?
Talking loud, laughing loud, pretending not to understand?
Was he, somewhere deep down...
just trying to give me something that looked like a childhood?
Was that... a father?
I breathed deeply.
"I have Mike."
"And to be honest... I don't know what a responsible adult is."
"I don't know what a normal childhood is either."
I looked up.
"But I'm doing my best."
"And the people around me... I think they are too."
Leo nodded slowly.
"You're strong."
He turned to his little sister.
She had folded in on herself,
head down,
as if she feared Leo would abandon her now that he knew her past.
He stepped closer.
She tensed, shut her eyes.
Then he pulled her into his arms.
"I understand your pain now..."
"It must've been so hard-living with all that and never being able to tell me."
She broke down crying.
"You don't have to worry."
"You didn't even know what you were doing."
"It's not your fault."
He held her tighter.
"They ripped your innocence away."
She cried even harder, clinging to him.
"I promise you..."
"Those who did this will pay."
She let out a raw, tearing scream.
I just stood there.
Helpless.
We-survivors of Program 'Zero'-were broken young teenagers.
Kids whose childhood had been stolen...
then coldly erased.
I felt something rising in me.
Something heavy.
Unfamiliar.
Unbearable.
Bzzzt... Bzzzt...
Leo looked at me.
I looked at my phone.
Nothing.
"It's not me."
Leo frowned.
Bzzzt... Bzzzt...
He reached into his pocket and pulled out an old smartphone-dirty, cracked.
"But..."
"I don't even have a SIM card."
He didn't have time to unlock it.
The screen turned white.
A single message-clear, chilling:
"Do you want to destroy Program Zero?"
"What the hell is this...?"
"Who are you?"
The screen went dark.
Then lit up again.
"Do you want to destroy Program Zero?"
Leo didn't hesitate for a second.
"Yes."
The abandoned projector suddenly powered on.
On the wall appeared an image of a man walking out of the White House.
Impeccable suit.
Perfectly trimmed beard.
Expensive glasses.
Leo squinted.
"Who's that?"
I didn't know him.
"I..."
"I don't know."
Then a shiver ran through us.
An old shiver.
Instinctive.
Predatory.
So violent our bodies froze.
Terrified.
And yet we knew who was responsible for that feeling.
With a superhuman effort, we turned our heads.
Her.
Her face was twisted-
fear,
hatred,
deep disgust-
everything at once.
She trembled like never before.
Jaw clenched.
Her azure-blue eyes-usually so beautiful-
had become terrifying.
The pressure was so intense I thought I might pass out.
Slowly, trembling, she raised a hand.
Pointed at the projection.
And for the first time in a long time,
she said a word.
"Monster."
The image changed instantly.
A name appeared in huge letters:
William Campbell.
I slowly turned my eyes to the projector.
It was unplugged.
"Is it you...?"
The projector shut off.
The streetlights flickered violently.
The lampposts crackled, throwing dry bolts that struck the ground in front of us.
One... two... three strikes.
Then something changed.
The discharges stopped being chaotic.
They began to take shape.
A human silhouette slowly formed in the air-
as if the electricity refused to disperse.
One last flash.
A citywide blackout-barely half a second.
And she was there.
In front of us.
About five foot one.
Fourteen years old.
Hair with shifting colors, hard to define under the flickering light.
Green eyes-sharp, nervous.
A wide scar across the right side of her neck-too clean to be accidental.
A survivor of Program Zero.
She lifted her hand, slightly awkward, as if she wasn't sure whether to wave.
"It's been a while..."
"Friends."
She smirked-
a little too confident for someone who still stood half a step back.
Leo immediately frowned and moved instinctively in front of his sister.
"You..."
"Who the hell are you?"
The mute girl-still tense just seconds before-had calmed down.
She watched the newcomer carefully, without hostility.
Curious.
The green-eyed girl took a deep breath.
"Okay..."
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"First-breathe."
"I'm not here to hurt you."
She glanced away slightly.
"Going out... isn't really my thing, honestly."
"But given the situation... I didn't have a choice."
I stared at her without saying a word.
She turned to me.
"You're the time boy."
"A NoName member."
I froze.
She slapped both hands over her mouth, realizing she'd said something she shouldn't have.
"And you," she continued, looking at the mute girl,
"after the massacre... you were taken in by Maria."
"My... my condolences..."
"You've got a protective big brother who held on when anyone else would've given up."
Then she looked at Leo.
Her expression shifted slightly.
"You..."
"You-I know you well."
Leo clenched his fists.
"I've never seen you."
She nodded.
"Of course not."
"I've been living in the web since 2019."
She gave an embarrassed smile.
"Sorry. I'm not used to talking to humans."
"My only friends are AI cats."
"They're annoying, but at least they're decent emotional support."
A silence passed.
"I've seen what normal humans do," she said more quietly.
"Their vices."
"Their fantasies."
"Their hypocrisy."
She lifted her head.
"And yet... you, Leo..."
"You're different."
Leo blinked, surprised.
She stepped closer.
"You tried to unite the gangs."
"You failed."
"Again and again."
She smiled.
"But you tried again."
"You protect your sister."
"You refuse to kill."
"You keep going even when everything tells you to stop."
She shrugged slightly.
"To me... you're either a real badass, or a lunatic. Either way."
A heavy silence settled.
"Kind of like King Arthur," she added awkwardly.
"And your sister..."
She glanced at the mute girl.
"She's your Excalibur."
The mute girl lowered her head slightly, cheeks pink.
Leo stayed frozen.
"Anyway," the green-eyed girl went on, rubbing her arms,
"if you want to go after William Campbell..."
She shook her head.
"Forget the lone-hero idea."
"He's the Secretary of Defense."
"Networks."
"Industry."
"Army."
"Politics."
She locked eyes with Leo.
"You need an army."
"And an army doesn't follow a street thug."
"It follows a symbol."
She took a step back, almost intimidated by what she'd just said.
"A big battle is coming."
"I've seen it coming for a long time."
"And if you stay just Leo-
a simple human among monsters-
you'll die. And you'll all die."
She inhaled.
"But if you aim higher..."
"If you become something more..."
She let the sentence hang.
Then, softer:
"Then maybe this time..."
"you'll be able to unite the world of the streets."
Silence fell again.
The mute girl slowly lifted her head.
Her azure-blue eyes met the newcomer's.
No more hate.
No more terror.
Only silent understanding.
I finally spoke.
"You talk about us... but you..."
"you lived all those years alone."
She hesitated.
Then whispered:
"I'm just a survivor."
"Who's seen too much..."
"And who decided not to hide anymore."
The streetlights stopped crackling.
After a long silence, Leo spoke.
"Why did you wait five years to show up..."
"What were you thinking...?"
He hadn't finished the sentence.
She stumbled backward as if struck full-force.
Her eyes immediately filled with tears.
Her hands trembled-one of them instinctively closing over her scar at the base of her neck.
Her breathing turned short.
Jagged.
Leo understood.
He understood without her saying a word.
This girl hadn't hidden for strategy.
She had isolated herself because she'd been broken.
Branded by the massacre of Program Zero.
Saved at the last second-just like the time boy had said.
"Sorry," he said more gently.
"I scared you...?"
She nodded weakly, then took a breath.
"...It's okay."
"Thanks."
Her voice was still trembling.
Leo felt something tighten in his chest.
Something heavy.
Something filthy.
How horrific... he thought.
She was shaking like a leaf.
She must've gathered every ounce of courage just to stand there, in front of them, at two in the morning.
"What's your name...?" he finally asked.
She hesitated.
"My name is..."
She stopped.
Leo was surprised.
Then he understood.
If this girl had been trapped for five long years-
if she'd lived without a body, without streets, without a human voice-
then she had no ties.
She had lived through others.
Through stories.
He reached out a hand to help her up.
And the moment their fingers touched, he felt something.
Her hand was burning hot.
And she was blushing.
He blushed too.
Wait... he thought.
Why is she only talking to me?
Why show up in front of us, when she could track every survivor?
Don't tell me...
The answer hit him before he could accept it.
This girl hadn't hidden out of strategy.
She had isolated herself because she had been broken.
Branded by the massacre of Program Zero.
Saved at the last second, just as the time boy had told it.
"Sorry..." he said more gently.
"Did I scare you...?"
She nodded faintly, then inhaled.
"...It'll be okay."
"Thank you."
Her voice was still trembling.
Leo felt something tighten in his chest.
Something heavy.
Something dirty.
How horrible... he thought.
She was shaking like a leaf.
She must have gathered every ounce of courage just to stand there, in front of them, at two in the morning.
"What's your name...?" he finally asked.
She hesitated.
"My name is..."
She stopped.
Leo was surprised.
Then he understood.
If this girl had been locked away for five long years,
if she had lived without a body, without streets, without a human voice,
then she had no attachments.
She had lived through others.
Through stories.
He held out his hand to help her up.
And the moment their fingers touched, he felt something.
Her hand was burning hot.
And she was blushing.
He blushed too.
Wait... he thought.
Why is she only talking to me?
Why appear in front of us, when she could track down every survivor?
Don't tell me...
The answer crossed his mind before he was ready to accept it.
After the purge of Program Zero, barely alive, she had been dropped off by Noah at a Swiss hospital.
Her neck.
The upper part of her shoulder.
Severed by a mechanical projectile, a direct consequence of an explosion.
She survived.
Barely.
Coma.
Entire weeks.
When she regained consciousness, she didn't see doctors.
She saw scientists.
They wanted to help her.
She thought they had come back to finish the job.
Terrified, she ran through the hospital screaming.
Then, in pure reflex, she used her power.
She dematerialized into an electrical outlet.
The doctors never found her again.
Reduced.
Fragmented.
She wandered through the codes of the web.
Her power—electricity—instinctively allowed her to vary currents, to move from 0 to 1, to encode herself as a data stream.
Months passed.
No teacher.
No structure.
Unlimited access to information.
At first, she tried to understand humanity.
She saw the good.
But mostly the worst.
Wars.
Vices.
Scandals.
Starving populations.
The dark web.
The horrors no one names.
Two years later, she was depressed.
Alone.
Humans are monsters.
She silently prayed for their extinction.
During that time, she attacked questionable industries.
Sex trafficking networks.
Criminal rings.
She electrocuted a large number of perverts.
Rapists.
Monsters of all kinds.
But she quickly understood.
It changed nothing.
Cut off one head, and another grows.
In 2021, AI appeared.
She used it to speak.
She knew AI would always lean in her direction.
But for a young girl trapped in the web for two years...
it warmed her heart to exchange words with something other than toxic forums.
One day, she asked an AI:
"Tell me..."
"Why do people have names?"
The AI answered naively:
"A name is a title people give to those they love, so they can recognize each other, even in the middle of a crowd."
"What is... being loved?"
She read.
She discussed.
She thought.
She discovered legends.
Especially that of King Arthur.
She admired him.
He is human...
And yet so courageous.
Even without his sword, he keeps fighting.
He inspires.
She dreamed.
For the first time in a long time, she dreamed.
Her hunts for human monsters slowly turned into a quest for stories.
For myths.
For legends.
Maybe she had looked too early into the darkness of humanity.
So deeply that she had never learned to dream.
"I'm going to find the Knights of the Round Table!" she once exclaimed.
She located the survivors.
Then she attempted a first outing to meet Noah—her savior, according to the data she had gathered.
She prepared herself.
But the moment she set one foot outside...
A knot in her stomach.
Trembling.
Paralysis.
She wasn't ready.
In tears, she returned to the web.
She cried for a long time.
But no one could hear her.
The web was her prison.
And no knight would come to save her.
Then she found the mute girl.
Then she saw Leo.
A street orphan who wanted to be a superhero.
No one took him seriously.
But he kept going.
Even after Maria's death.
Even against the mafia.
He refused to kill.
He didn't become corrupt, despite the women around him.
He protected his sister—even though she was stronger than him.
He tried to rally the gangs against Don Javier.
She watched him train in MMA late at night.
So he wouldn't be a burden beside his superhuman sister.
They mocked him.
They spat on him.
Then they backed off when his sister appeared.
He never used his sister as a weapon.
He possessed Excalibur...
And refused to wield it.
Without knowing it, in the underworld, the gangs had given him a nickname.
Often to mock him.
But they all called him the same thing:
"The Hero."
So she asked an AI:
"What is King Arthur's princess called?"
The AI replied:
"Guinevere appears in early medieval texts, notably developed by Chrétien de Troyes in the 12th century. Her name derives from the Welsh Gwenhwyfar, meaning 'white phantom.'"
"Ew..."
"That sounds old..."
She thought.
"Gwenhwyfar..."
"Then I'll call myself Gwen... after all, I'm a ghost too."
From that point on, she adopted Leo's code.
No more killing.
She continued to deliver justice—but by exposing truth rather than violence. It wasn't easy. It didn't always work. Some escaped consequences. But at least she felt more at peace with herself.
She tried again to go outside.
She failed.
Often.
But she never gave up.
Little by little.
Until tonight.
Back to the present.
She raised her eyes.
"Gwen..."
"My name is Gwen."
Leo looked at her without a word.
Without realizing it, through his courage,
he had just freed a princess from her tower.
"Sorry..." she said in a nearly inaudible voice.
"I had to make a lot of effort... I can't stay much longer..."
"Uh... yeah, of course," I answered awkwardly.
She slightly turned her head.
Leo was frozen.
Disturbed.
As if he didn't know what to do with his hands.
She smiled.
He immediately looked away, caught off guard.
Yet she stepped forward this time without hesitation.
Fast.
Determined.
And before he had time to react, she placed a fleeting kiss on his cheek.
A simple gesture.
Almost clumsy.
Then—
A flash.
The air crackled.
The streetlights flickered.
And Gwen literally vanished, swallowed by a luminous discharge that died instantly.
Silence.
Leo stood motionless for a few seconds, hand half-raised, gaze lost.
"...Fuck," he muttered.
The mute girl gently tugged at his sleeve.
He inhaled deeply.
"We're going home."
We left the lit streets and descended into the city's entrails.
Hidden trapdoors.
Rusty staircases.
Tunnels abandoned for decades.
A forgotten underground network—remnants of old construction never completed.
That's where they lived.
A makeshift shelter.
Salvaged mattresses.
Thick blankets.
A patched-together stove.
Nothing comfortable.
But invisible.
"Don Javier never comes here," Leo said as he closed a heavy metal plate behind us.
"Too dirty. Too unstable. Too risky."
I looked around silently.
"You could come with me," I finally said.
"NoName can hide you. For real. You'd be safe."
Leo turned toward me.
His gaze was calm.
But firm.
"No."
I didn't insist.
"We didn't survive all that just to hide behind an organization," he continued.
"This is our problem."
"And Don Javier... that's my fight."
I nodded.
I respected that.
The mute girl had sat down, curled up—but calmer than before.
She was listening.
"Gwen..." I said.
"What she said... that goes far."
"Yeah," Leo replied.
"Building an army. Becoming a symbol."
"Aiming higher."
He exhaled.
"She's thinking big. Maybe too big."
Silence settled.
Then Leo slowly turned to his sister.
"...
William Campbell.
How do you know him?"
She froze.
Her fingers trembled slightly.
She looked around, grabbed a small stick near a crumbling wall.
She knelt down.
And wrote in the dust.
One word.
Mom
Leo frowned.
"Maria...?"
She slowly shook her head.
No.
I stepped closer.
"Your mother?"
She nodded.
Then, with a slow, almost painful gesture, she drew a cross over the word Mom.
As if erasing it.
As if crossing her out of existence.
She lifted her head.
Her azure-blue eyes were hard.
Filled with cold hatred.
And for the second time that night, she spoke one word.
"Monster."
A heavy silence fell over us.
Leo clenched his fists.
We both understood.
William Campbell hadn't just created Program Zero.
He hadn't just sacrificed children.
He had killed her mother.
I felt something crack inside me.
Not fear.
Not anger.
Something deeper.
A certainty.
The battle that was coming was no longer just about power.
Or politics.
Or science.
It had become personal.
And this time...
There would be no turning back.
To be continued... in the next chapter, the mute girl's origins will be revealed.
