The tunnel walls seemed to close in around Lexi, rough stone scraping her fingertips as she ran. The deeper they went, the cooler the air became, thick with the scent of damp earth and something electric, something alive. Behind them, the sounds of the forest—of the drones—faded into nothingness.
Only the slap of their footsteps and the hammering of Lexi's heart filled the silence.
Jace slowed, his breathing steady but labored, and finally stopped in a wide underground chamber. Smooth metal panels were embedded into the stone walls, some pulsing faintly with blue light. There were old crates, abandoned tech scattered across the floor, and strange, swirling symbols etched into the ground in silver ink.
Lexi stumbled to a halt beside him, doubling over to catch her breath, the adrenaline still coursing through her veins.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then Jace turned toward her, his face serious. "We're safe here," he said, voice low. "For now."
Lexi straightened slowly, her muscles aching, her mind still spinning. She pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes, trying to block out the rush of thoughts that kept crashing through her.
Safe.For now.
But nothing inside her felt safe anymore.
"Where are we?" she asked, her voice rough with exhaustion.
Jace moved toward one of the glowing panels and tapped a sequence into it. A low hum filled the room as a holographic map unfurled in the air between them—similar to the one he'd shown her before, but this one was more detailed, alive with shifting threads of light.
"An old Initiative base," he explained. "Back when your parents ran things from the shadows."
Lexi blinked at the floating web of names and symbols. Corporations. Military branches. Scientific foundations. The connections stretched like spider silk, too vast, too complicated to understand at a glance.
"And the Initiative... that's where my parents worked?" she asked, struggling to piece it together.
"They didn't just work there," Jace said, glancing back at her. "They built it. They funded it. Owned it."
Lexi stared at him, stunned.
"You don't understand yet," Jace continued, his voice sharpening. "Your parents aren't just brilliant scientists. They're some of the most powerful people alive. Billionaires. Kingmakers. Their technology changed everything—medicine, weapons, energy. Entire governments listened when they spoke."
Lexi's mouth went dry. Her heart thundered painfully in her chest.
"And you," Jace said, turning fully toward her now, "you're meant to inherit it. All of it."
Lexi shook her head slowly. It felt too big, too impossible. She thought of herself scrubbing floors, eating scraps from Aunt Catherine's leftovers, sleeping in a drafty attic with a broken window. How could she be connected to all of this?
"I don't understand," she whispered. "If they loved me, why did they leave me behind?"
Pain flickered in Jace's eyes—something real, something raw. "They didn't abandon you," he said quietly. "They hid you."
Lexi frowned, her chest tightening. "Hid me?"
"To protect you," Jace said. "There were enemies... people who would have used you to get to them. Worse than anything you can imagine. They had no choice."
Lexi's mind spun. Her whole life had been shaped by the belief that she was unwanted, unloved. And now—
"You keep saying I'm the key," she said, needing something solid to hold onto. "What does that mean?"
Jace hesitated. For a second, Lexi thought he might not answer. But then he stepped closer, his voice dropping.
"Your parents encoded Project Eden's final safeguards into you," he said. "Your DNA, your neural pathways—stuff they could never replicate. Without you, no one can unlock it. Not completely."
Lexi staggered back a step, hitting the cold stone wall behind her.
"They put part of it inside me?" she said, horrified.
Jace nodded grimly. "You're the final piece. Eden isn't just technology—it's a way to change the world. To heal it. Or to destroy it."
Lexi pressed a shaking hand against her forehead. None of this made sense. She wasn't special. She was broken, unwanted, forgotten.
And yet... hadn't there always been something different about her? The quickness with which she learned. The way she could almost feel when something was about to go wrong. The dreams she had sometimes—vivid, strange dreams that felt more like memories than imagination.
A bitter laugh escaped her. "And here I thought Aunt Catherine just hated me because I was a burden."
Jace's face darkened at the mention of her.
"She hated you because she was afraid of you," he said. "Afraid that one day, you'd find out who you really were."
Lexi's stomach twisted. She thought of Catherine's cold smiles, the bruises that faded just fast enough to avoid questions, the endless rules designed to keep her small and silent.
"She never loved me," Lexi whispered.
"No," Jace said firmly. "She never did. She was keeping you imprisoned, Lexi. Caging you. If it were up to her, you'd never have left that house alive."
Lexi squeezed her eyes shut, fighting the surge of anger and sorrow inside her. Catherine hadn't protected her. She'd stolen years of her life.
"And now?" she asked, her voice shaking. "Now that I'm gone?"
Jace shook his head. "Catherine won't come for you. She knows better than anyone what you are. She'll hide. Pretend she never knew you. She's scared."
Lexi let the words settle over her, heavy and cold. Catherine wouldn't come to save her. No one would.
Except... maybe she didn't need saving anymore.
Slowly, Lexi opened her eyes. A different kind of fire flickered inside her chest—small, but real.
Hope.
Resolve.
Before she could speak again, a distant metallic clang echoed down the tunnel—like a heavy door being forced open.
Jace's body snapped tense. In a heartbeat, he killed the map projection and grabbed Lexi's wrist. "They're here," he hissed.
Fear spiked in Lexi's veins, but she didn't hesitate.
This time, she chose to run.
Together they sprinted deeper into the tunnels, into the darkness, the sounds of pursuit growing fainter behind them.
Lexi didn't look back.
She wasn't running away anymore.
She was running toward something.
Toward the truth.
Toward the future she was never supposed to find.