2026-06-20 18:47:53
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CHAPTER 38 - The Railway
They ran until the cottage was a memory of firelight behind them and the forest swallowed them whole.Ray kept the group moving at a pace just under panic, running between trunks too thick for vehicles to follow.They headed east and then north and then east again so no single line could be tracked from the air. Zoe stayed close to him, her hands still trembling from whatever had happened back in that room, with the blue light gone now, leaving only exhaustion behind it."Choppers," Ken said, pointing up through a gap in the canopy of trees.Two of them, moving in slow searching arcs, spotlights sweeping the treeline below in long white columns."Down," Ray said, and the group dropped flat against the cold ground as a beam passed directly over their head, painting the leaves silver for three seconds before sliding on.They didn't get the the time to rest.A sound of gunfire tore through the branches above them, and it was wild and searching rather than aimed.Close enough to them a b
CHAPTER 37 - Zed
Zed stepped through the broken doorway like he was the owner.He moved without immediate action, and his boots were stepping over splinters of wood and shattered plates.He stepped past the unconscious soldiers Ray had put down without so much as glancing at them. His eyes stayed on Ray the entire time, steady and without blinking, the same flat focus Ray had seen in every man Wolfe had built.Up close, he looked almost like an ordinary man. He was lean, dark-haired, and in his mid-twenties and nothing about his face suggested what he could do."So, this is him, the original." Zed said.Nobody in the room moved."I've heard a lot about you," Zed went on, circling slightly, keeping just out of arm's reach. "More than you would think. Wolfe talks about you the way some men talk about his ex-wife. He was bitter and obsessed and he can't stop bringing you up even when nobody asks.""You're the clone," Ray said.Something moved across Zed's face. Not quite like anger but was clloser to i
CHAPTER 36 - The Wall Closes
Saul came out from behind the shelving with a kitchen chair raised over his head, swinging it down onto the shoulders of a soldier who'd gotten too close to where Ada and Eli were hiding. The chair splintered on impact and the man dropped to one knee, and Saul didn't stop, bringing what was left of the chair leg down again until the man stayed down."Stay behind me," Saul shouted at Eli, who had pressed himself flat against the wall, too frightened now to even cry.Ray fought through two more bodies near the door, his fists doing damage that should have ended each fight in a single hit and instead taking three or four before the enhanced soldiers finally dropped. Whatever Wolfe had given them, it had built something close to what Ray had become, just slower, just less complete, the way Zed had always been less than Ray no matter how many serums Wolfe manufactured.A fifth man went down under a combination of a punch to the throat and a knee that Ray didn't remember deciding to throw.
Chapter 35 - No Way Out
The headlights kept coming.Ray let go of the latch and turned back into the room, his mind already moving faster than his body could keep up with, blood still wet against his shirt, the pain in his ribs pushed somewhere distant where it couldn't slow him down."Window's not an option," he said. "They've got it covered before we even reach it.""Then what," Charlie said. His voice had gone tight and flat, the sound of someone holding panic down by force.Ray looked around the room fast. The fireplace. The shelving. The curtained sleeping area at the back. The front door, already starting to shake under the weight of something heavy hitting it from outside.A plan formed in pieces, the way it always did, faster than thought."Saul, get Ada behind the shelving, against the wall, low. Eli with her." Ray's voice was low and even despite everything. "Ken, anything heavy, anything sharp, grab it now. Charlie, same. Zoe—""I'm fighting," Zoe said, before he could finish."I know," Ray said.
CHAPTER 34 - Betrayal
Tyson was the first to move.He came off the wall fast, faster than a man his age should move, and his arms went wide to grab Ray in a lock before Ray could get clear of the doorway.Ray twisted out of it on instinct, with one of his shoulder dropping, and the lock failing to close.The table went over.Plates hit the floor and shattered and Eli's voice ran through the dark, sharp and frightened.Saul was already pulling him back toward the curtained sleeping area with one arm."Stay back," Ray said, and didn't get to say anything else because Tyson was on him again.A fist caught Ray across the jaw, hard enough to turn his head.Ray replied with a punch that connected with Tyson's ribs and should have broken it. But Tyson barely staggered.He was strong and more tronger than his frame suggested, the kind of strength built over years of surviving things that should have killed him.Ray swung again but this time Tyson dodged low and came up inside the swing and drove a fist into Ray's
CHAPTER 33 - The Bounty
The gun stayed still where it was.The man stepped fully into the light and Ray saw him properly for the first time.He was in his late fifties, wirh broad across the shoulders with the kind of frame that used to carry more weight and had burned it off, recently and not by choice. A grey beard cut close and his eyes moved across the group in the methodical way of someone counting exits and dangers at the same time.He looked at Ray last.And something moved in his face.It wasn't ot fear or recognition exactly. It was something closer to confirmation, the expression of a man who had suspected something and was now watching it walk through his door."You," he said.The gun moved off Charlie's head and pointed at Ray instead.Charlie exhaled slowly and didn't move."You're him," the man said. "The celebrity guy."Ray kept both hands up and said nothing."Ray Parker." The man said the name the way people said names they had heard repeated until the sound of it had become something els
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