Sparks still flickered as the backup generators groaned to life.
Emergency lights bathed the corridor in pulsing red. Sirens howled—a shriek of chaos that fractured the silence they had carried with them since entering Ridgepoint.
Liam grabbed Elena's hand. "This way."
They sprinted back through the lower levels, each hallway longer than the last. Boots echoed behind them. Security—fast, but not smart. Liam knew these layouts better. And Elena moved like someone with nothing left to lose.
"I saw the exit port," he said as they ducked through a maintenance duct. "It connects through the bio-storage wing. We grab them and go."
Elena's heart thundered. Every turn brought them closer—but also further from everything they once understood.
They reached the glass corridor, still flickering from the system crash. Ahead, the reinforced door that had once separated her from the child now stood ajar.
They stepped inside.
The child stood at the far end of the room, small but steady. No panic. Just silent curiosity. Elena's breath hitched.
Big eyes. A familiar tilt of the chin. A guarded stillness that mirrored her own.
The notebook in their hand slipped to the floor.
"Elena," Liam said quietly. "They don't know you."
"I know," she whispered. "But I know them."
She stepped forward, slow and deliberate. "Hey," she said softly. "You don't know me, but I'm here to take you away from this place."
The child blinked once. "Are you the one who broke the screens?"
A fragile smile tugged at her mouth. "Yeah. That was me."
Liam came forward. "We don't have time. We need to move."
But the child didn't flinch or hide. Instead, they looked straight at Elena.
"Do you know my name?"
She hesitated. "No. They never told me."
A pause.
"It's Miri."
Elena's chest cracked wide open. "Miri," she repeated, the name tasting like light.
Miri nodded. Then—shockingly, heartbreakingly—they took her hand.
That simple touch unraveled her.
They chose her.
And that was everything.
Liam led the way, Miri between them. The stairwell echoed with the sounds of pursuit, but Liam's map of the escape routes had always been precise.
They burst into the early dawn—pale blue light streaking the sky as the facility loomed behind them. A car, stashed in the tree line, waited.
They piled in.
As Liam gunned the engine, Elena looked back once.
Smoke rose from the lower level vents. Sloan's world—his experiments, his legacy—fading into the trees.
And beside her, Miri leaned into her shoulder, exhausted.
"Elena," Liam said, eyes fixed on the road. "We did it."
"No," she said quietly. "We started."
And with that, they drove into the dawn—three strangers, bound by blood, survival, and the fragile promise of what came next.