Chapter 8: Las Rocas
936 Words
The village of Las Rocas wasn’t on any official map.
It lived somewhere between forgotten coastlines and crumbling government records, nestled behind wild cliffs and windswept palms. The road that led there turned from concrete to gravel, then to dirt, then to something barely passable by the time the rusted truck Ivy borrowed rumbled to a stop just outside a cluster of faded houses.
A salty breeze swept through the open windows. Elena stepped out first, her boots crunching against white sand scattered with broken coral. The ocean roared a few meters away, blue and endless.
"This place feels like the end of the world," she muttered.
Ivy grinned from the driver’s seat. "That's why he chose it."
Kai was already scanning the horizon, his posture taut, hand near his waistband where a blade lay hidden beneath his shirt. "Too quiet."
Ivy leaned against the hood. "Gabriel Ochoa isn’t the type to leave a trail. He vanished after Dara died. Changed identities. Burned everything. If he’s here, he doesn’t want to be found."
Elena stared toward the hills behind the village. Somewhere beyond them, the truth about her mother waited—truth no file, no data chip, no hollow voice recording could give her.
"Then let’s make him want to be found."
—
They spent the day posing as tourists—Elena with a sun hat pulled low, Kai and Ivy pretending to be siblings on holiday. They moved carefully, never drawing attention, but leaving small whispers in their wake.
A question here. A rumor dropped at the corner store. A photo of Dara Reyes "for a personal documentary" passed to an old fisherman with cataracts and a sharp memory.
By dusk, someone noticed.
A girl no older than ten dropped a folded note on their table at the village cantina.
Elena read it aloud under her breath: “Stop asking questions. Tomorrow. Sunrise. Dock.”
Kai raised an eyebrow. "He’s watching."
"Good," Elena said. "So am I."
—
The next morning, the sea was wrapped in fog.
The three of them waited on the creaking dock, boots slick with dew. Not a sound but the lap of waves and the cry of distant gulls.
Then, from the haze, a silhouette emerged.
Gabriel Ochoa was not the man Elena remembered from the photographs.
His beard was streaked with white, his frame thinner, his shoulders hunched—not from age, but from years of looking over them. A scarf was wrapped around the lower half of his face, and he wore gloves despite the heat.
His eyes, however, were sharp. Too sharp.
“You have her eyes,” he said to Elena without preamble.
"You knew my mother," she replied.
He nodded. "I buried her."
A chill passed down her spine.
"Why did you disappear?"
Gabriel’s gaze flicked to Kai, then to Ivy. “Because the truth I carry kills people.”
"And I’m already marked,” Elena said. “So speak.”
—
They walked to a small shack near the cliffs—part boathouse, part bunker.
Inside, maps lined the walls, some dating back decades. Old photos—grainy, faded—were pinned with rusting nails. Elena’s mother was in many of them. In one, Dara Reyes stood on a rooftop with a young Gabriel, wind in their hair, fire in their eyes.
"You want the truth?" Gabriel said. "Your mother was building a revolution."
He poured tea from a dented kettle. His hands shook slightly.
"Not Rodrigo’s kind. Not the kind wrapped in power plays and control. Dara wanted liberation. She knew what Project Ouroboros really was—state-sanctioned human engineering. You weren’t the only child. You were just the one he couldn’t let go of."
Elena’s voice was barely audible. "There were others?"
Gabriel nodded. "I helped her hide some. Smuggle them out. But Rodrigo found out. He made it look like an accident, but I saw what was left of her car. That wasn't fate. That was execution."
The room was still.
"You ran," Kai said, accusation in his voice.
Gabriel didn’t flinch. "I lived. So I could tell her daughter one day. So I could wait for you."
Elena stepped closer, her heart thudding in her chest. "Why me?"
"Because Dara knew you’d come back for the truth. And because your blood holds the key."
He reached behind a false panel in the wall and pulled out a sealed canister, no bigger than a thermos. He set it on the table between them.
"This is what she died to protect. Your blood sample—untainted, pre-modification. Inside is proof you were born healthy. Rodrigo lied. Ouroboros wasn’t a cure. It was a test."
Elena stared at it, bile rising in her throat.
"Why would he do this?"
Gabriel’s eyes darkened. "Because your father doesn’t believe in love, or family, or choice. He believes in control. And you, Elena... were the prototype."
—
Later, as the sun sank into the ocean, Elena stood alone at the edge of the cliff.
She watched the waves devour the sky and thought about her mother. About the secrets and the silence. About bloodlines turned into weapons.
Kai joined her without speaking. They stood shoulder to shoulder, wind in their hair.
"I thought I hated him before," Elena said quietly.
"You still can."
"But now I understand him. And that scares me more."
Kai didn’t look away from the horizon. "Then make sure you never become him."
She reached into her bag, pulled out the canister, and held it in both hands.
“No,” she whispered. “I’m going to destroy him with it.”
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