CHAPTER 25 — SUBJECT ONE

The train moved through a tunnel beneath the ocean.

Evelyn sat across from Wren.

Julian remained beside the door, watching the dark windows.

“Tell me what you meant,” Evelyn said.

Wren folded her hands.

“Daniel and Celeste are not your biological parents.”

Julian looked at Evelyn.

She showed no reaction.

Not yet.

“Who are my parents?”

“I don’t know their names.”

“But you know they sold me?”

“No. Daniel purchased the records. The child was taken before he arrived.”

“What child?”

Wren pointed at Evelyn.

“The original Subject One.”

The train entered a station beneath a mountain.

Old Nightingale symbols covered the walls.

Wren led them through a laboratory filled with empty glass rooms.

One contained a crib.

Another contained childhood toys identical to the ones Evelyn remembered from the Vance home.

“This facility trained children through constructed memories,” Wren said.

Evelyn picked up a wooden music box.

Her father had supposedly made it for her.

A serial number was printed underneath.

There were hundreds of identical boxes on a shelf.

Julian whispered, “Your childhood was manufactured.”

“No.”

Evelyn opened the music box.

A melody played.

Instantly, she remembered sitting inside the laboratory.

Not as a baby.

As a girl of seventeen.

Daniel stood behind her.

Celeste observed from a window.

Gabriel adjusted a camera.

And Beatrice held a file.

All four had been involved.

Evelyn dropped the box.

Wren led them to an archive room.

Inside were files labeled Subject Two through Subject Ninety-Six.

Subject One’s drawer was empty.

“Someone removed your original file,” Wren said.

“Who has it?”

A voice came from the doorway.

“I do.”

Mara entered with Nathan.

Both were covered in dust from the explosion.

Evelyn looked behind them.

“Where are Daniel and Celeste?”

“Missing,” Nathan said.

Mara held a red folder.

“I found this beneath the hospital.”

Evelyn opened it.

The first page contained her fingerprints.

The second contained her childhood photograph.

The third listed her biological mother.

BEATRICE THORNE

Julian stumbled backward.

“That’s impossible.”

Nathan stared at Evelyn.

Mara turned the next page.

The biological father field was blank.

But a handwritten note appeared beneath it.

FATHER’S IDENTITY SEALED BY CHOIR MEMBER ZERO.

Wren looked frightened.

“They know we found the file.”

The lights in the laboratory turned red.

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A man’s voice came through the speakers.

“Welcome home, Evelyn.”