Chapter 20 - 20: Beneath the Skin

Aya knew the rules.

No direct entry. No contact. No deviation.

But Rook didn't know what it felt like to see someone walking around withyour bones, yourbreath, yourshape, and not know which of you was real.

So she broke the rule.

She doubled back after Evelyne left the building. Disabled her wristband ping. Masked her heat signature.

And slipped inside.

The building was colder than it looked from outside.No signage. No alarm. No cameras she could see — but that just meant the ones that mattered weren't on the walls.

She moved down metal steps, past flickering floor lights and silent corridors.

Then she found it.

Not a lab.A vault.

Behind a reinforced glass wall:six cryo-pods, humming low, backlit with pale green.

Three were empty.Two held strangers.

And the last heldher.

She didn't move at first.

She didn't breathe.

The girl in the pod had hercheekbone scar. Herjawline. Herold break in the left wrist, still slightly crooked.

It wasn't just close.

It wasexact.

Aya stepped forward. Hands shaking.

The display read:

SUBJECT: 47-B / SPARK-LINE GENETIC CHASSISSTATUS: DormantCLASSIFICATION: EXPERIMENTAL LOYALTY REPLICATION SERIESPROPERTY OF: ZODIAC SCORPIO

She stared.

The words didn't make sense.

But thegut feeling did.

She wasn't born.She wasbuilt.

A noise behind her.

She turned.

Nothing.

But the temperature shifted.

Aya backed away, fast. Nearly ran.She was out in sixty seconds, hands trembling, heart a hammer in her chest.

Scene: Dorm 103 – Hours Later

She didn't knock. She just entered.

Rook looked up from his terminal.

"You disobeyed me," he said.

She didn't answer.

She dropped her datapad on his desk.

"Check the last thirty seconds."

He played it.

Watched.

Didn't blink.

Then:

"They cloned you."

"No," she said.

"They'reusing me."

He looked at her — not shocked. Just quiet.

"You're not alone," he said softly.

She laughed, dry and bitter. "That's your comfort line?"

"No," Rook said. "It's your recruitment pitch."

She looked at him — eyes hollow.

"What the hell are we?"

He stood.

"The reason they're afraid."

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