Ethan didn’t burst into the room.He didn’t shout.He didn’t demand answers.He just opened the door quietly and stepped inside, closing it behind him with a soft click.And somehow—that silence was more terrifying than any rage.Lila turned, startled.Carl and Emily froze, as if the Ghost himself had walked in.Ethan scanned the room once.His eyes landed on Lila.Red-rimmed eyes.Trembling hands.Trying so hard to stay strong.Something inside him snapped.But he masked it so perfectly that no one—not even Riker—could have guessed the storm building beneath his calm.“Ethan,” Lila whispered, voice unsteady. “They told me everything.”He looked at her parents first.Carl swallowed.Emily shrank into herself.Ethan didn’t raise his voice, but the temperature in the room seemed to drop.“What exactly,” he asked softly, “did they tell you?”Lila hesitated—and that hesitation alone made Ethan’s jaw tighten.She stepped closer to him.“My mother was connected to the Ghost Program.”Ethan’

The Cole Estate was never quiet, but tonight its silence felt heavy.Ethan stood on the balcony overlooking the lit gardens, the city twinkling far beyond. His mind raced—between Lila’s hidden connection to his past, the betrayals piling around them, and the shadowy “Council” tightening its net.Behind him, the doors slid open.Lila stepped out slowly, wrapped in a soft robe, eyes tired but watching him carefully.“You didn’t come to bed,” she murmured.Ethan didn’t turn at first. “Couldn’t sleep.”She moved beside him, hands gripping the railing. “Is it about my family?”“It’s everything,” he admitted quietly. “Nothing fits anymore. Too many secrets… too many threads linking back to the same people.”Lila swallowed. “Then let’s unravel them together.”He finally looked at her. “As long as you don’t keep anything from me.”Her gaze faltered—but before she could answer, Ethan’s phone buzzed sharply.A single coded alert flashed on screen.His pupils narrowed.PRIORITY RED. UNKNOWN SOUR

The night was cold inside the safehouse.Not because of the temperature—but because of the silence.Lila sat at the metal table, hands trembling around a untouched glass of water.Her parents were resting in the back room under Hale’s watch, sedated and exhausted after the emotional breakdown.Ethan stood at the far wall, arms crossed, eyes locked on nothing.Riker worked at the holo-screen, scanning footage, trying to make sense of an old symbol that should never have resurfaced.But the room was centered around one person.Lila.And the question no one wanted to ask.Finally, she spoke—barely above a whisper.“If I saw something when I was a child… why don’t I remember?”Ethan turned his head slowly.“We don’t know that you don’t. You might have… just buried it.”Lila’s voice cracked.“How do I un-bury it?”Riker looked up.“You sure you want to do that? Memories from childhood—especially traumatic ones—are unpredictable.”Hale walked in from the hallway, closing the door behind hi

Ethan didn’t move.Didn’t blink.Didn’t breathe.The room felt too small, too tight, too loud—yet completely silent at the same time.Slate.Prototype Zero.A child dragged through a door he never chose.An experiment before Ethan ever entered the program.Ethan’s voice finally came out, low and strained:“Why didn’t I know this?”No one answered.Riker’s jaw locked.Hale’s stare dropped to the floor.Even Lila stood frozen, watching Ethan with a mix of fear, guilt, and something deeper—something that recognized the way his world was now breaking apart.He took a step back from all of them.Then another.His hands curled slowly into fists.Lila reached for him.“Ethan—”He lifted a hand slightly—enough to stop her without touching her.Not rejecting her.Just holding himself together.Barely.Hale cleared his throat. “Ethan… none of us knew. The Ghost files were wiped when the program shut down. We didn’t even know Zero existed.”Riker added, “The earliest prototype record is you.”Et

Preparations moved fast—too fast for Lila’s racing mind to keep up.The safehouse, usually quiet and controlled, had turned into a storm of movement. Hale was loading tactical gear. Riker was calibrating the decoy unit. Ethan was issuing commands with a precision that made even the air feel sharper.But under the chaos, one truth pulsed like a heartbeat:Slate had her mother.And Slate wanted her.Ethan was about to give him neither.THE DECOYRiker powered up the synthetic frame.The unit blinked to life—blank-faced, motionless.Hale adjusted its height, then its skin tone, then the hair.Piece by piece, the mannequin transformed.Into her.Lila watched the process with a sinking feeling in her gut. The decoy looked eerily real, like a hollow echo of herself—something that could fool a camera, maybe even a guard.“Once it’s cloaked and dressed,” Riker said, “it’ll pass in low light. Slate’s people won’t inspect closely until they feel safe.”“They won’t get the chance,” Ethan said fl