Chapter 12 - Why Lily Was Chosen
They ran.
Mara moved fastest.
She disappeared into the maintenance tunnel while Anna and Vale took the elevator.
When the doors opened on B1, alarms were sounding.
The office door where Eleanor had stayed with the children was open.
Ben was there.
Eleanor was unconscious on the floor.
Lily was gone.
Anna dropped beside Eleanor.
“Where is she?”
Eleanor opened her eyes.
“Celeste.”
“How long?”
“Minutes.”
Ben was crying.
“She took Lily downstairs.”
Anna stared.
They had just come from downstairs.
There had to be another section.
Michael arrived through the elevator.
He pointed toward an unmarked wall.
“B3.”
Vale looked at him.
“There is no B3.”
Michael almost smiled.
“That’s what she tells everyone.”
Mara appeared from a ceiling hatch.
She clawed at the wall.
A hidden panel opened.
Stairs descended farther.
Anna finally understood why the oven tunnel mattered.
It was not designed as Mara’s cage.
Originally, it was a ventilation and emergency escape route connecting all underground levels.
Daniel later sealed portions.
Mara reopened them over years.
She had been moving through the mansion unseen.
The oven was simply where she hid Lily because its disconnected cavity could not be electronically locked.
They descended.
B3 was unlike the other laboratories.
No old concrete.
White walls.
Modern equipment.
A glass chamber stood at the center.
Lily was inside.
Awake.
Crying.
Celeste stood beside the controls.
“Stop!”
Anna ran toward her.
A transparent barrier dropped.
Celeste watched from the other side.
Mara slammed into it.
The glass shook.
Celeste did not flinch.
“I wondered how long it would take you to bring the whole family together.”
“What do you want with Lily?”
“To know whether Mara was necessary.”
Anna stared.
Celeste explained.
Erebos always had one central problem.
In adults, the body fought the rewrite.
Repair became distortion.
Mara survived but transformed because her mature tissues resisted and adapted simultaneously.
Michael received treatment as an infant.
His body integrated it more cleanly.
But neurological instability remained.
Lily was different.
The vector had been introduced before conception.
Not enough to transform her.
Enough that her body recognized portions of Erebos as native.
She was healthy.
Normal.
The first human being whose biology could potentially accept the regenerative pathway without catastrophic mutation.
“You engineered a baby.”
“I engineered an opportunity.”
Anna hated her.
“You don’t get to call a child that.”
Celeste looked toward Mara.
“Mara understands survival.”
Mara struck the glass so hard a crack appeared.
Celeste stepped backward.
For the first time, fear.
Anna saw it.
Mara was not Celeste’s obedient experiment.
Not anymore.
Vale moved toward the emergency controls.
Celeste warned:
“If you shut down the chamber incorrectly, Lily receives the full dose.”
Vale stopped.
Anna looked at the tubes.
A clear liquid waited above the chamber.
“Has she been injected?”
“No.”
“Then let her out.”
“I need one thing.”
“What?”
Celeste looked at Mara.
“Blood.”
Mara froze.
“Fresh Erebos-adapted blood. Enough to complete the stabilizer.”
Anna understood.
Celeste could not reproduce whatever Mara’s body had evolved over eight years.
She needed Mara alive.
That was why Mara had been imprisoned rather than killed.
That was why Lily had not been harmed in the oven.
Mara had become both prisoner and missing ingredient.
Celeste opened a small transfer hatch.
“Come willingly, Mara, and Lily walks out untouched.”
Anna turned.
“No.”
Mara looked at Lily.
The child pressed both palms against the glass.
“Gray lady…”
Mara’s body trembled.
Then she crawled toward the hatch.
Anna grabbed her arm.
“Mara, no.”
Mara looked at Anna.
For one moment the distorted face changed.
Not physically.
Emotionally.
Anna saw her sister.
Mara touched Anna’s crescent pendant.
Then her own.
May you like
She pushed Anna’s hand away.
And entered.
