Chapter 7: A Daughter’s Betrayal
833 Words
Elena couldn’t breathe.
The walls of the makeshift clinic closed in around her, the scent of old antiseptic and rust suffocating. Her hands trembled as she gripped the test file like it might dissolve if she let go.
Her name was there—her birthday, her blood type, her childhood illnesses—all recorded, monitored, cataloged.
“Dormant Candidate,” she read again, voice hollow.
Kai’s footsteps echoed softly as he paced behind her, but the world had narrowed to one page.
“Did they... inject me with something?” she asked, barely above a whisper.
Kai didn’t answer.
“Kai.”
He stopped. “I don’t know.”
“But you’ve heard of this. Project Ouroboros.”
His jaw clenched. “Bits and pieces. Rumors mostly. Whispers in La Madriguera—about kids being taken, about immunity experiments… enhancement trials.”
“Enhancement?”
“They weren’t just playing with medicine, Elena. They were designing something. Soldiers. Weapons. You.”
“No,” she said, backing up.
“You saw the file.”
“I don’t remember anything—”
“You were a kid. They wouldn’t want you to remember.”
The silence between them thickened.
Elena dropped onto a rusted exam bench and stared at her knees. Her thoughts splintered—her father reading bedtime stories, her mother tucking her in, the way her arm had ached for days once when she was seven and Rodrigo said it was just a vaccine—
Was it?
She looked up. “My mother found out. That’s why she died.”
Kai nodded. “And now you know.”
“And he’ll kill me too.”
Kai stepped forward. “Not if I do first.”
It wasn’t a threat. It was a promise.
---
They made it back to the safehouse just before sunrise.
The moment Elena stepped inside, she knew what she had to do.
No more sneaking around. No more silence. If Rodrigo Reyes wanted to pretend nothing had changed, then she would bring the war to his doorstep.
Kai watched her from the edge of the room as she tore open her duffel and pulled out a burner phone Ivy had given her weeks ago.
“You’re calling him?” he asked, incredulous.
“I need answers.”
“He’ll lie.”
“Let him. I want to hear the way he does it.”
Elena dialed.
It rang once.
Twice.
Then her father’s voice answered, crisp and commanding even through the static.
“Elena.”
She almost choked on her breath. “We need to talk.”
A pause.
“You’re calling from an unlisted number. Where are you?”
“Somewhere you can’t touch me. I found it, Dad. The clinic. The files. My name.”
Silence.
“Don’t be foolish,” Rodrigo said, voice low. “You have no idea what you’re dealing with.”
“Then explain it to me.”
More silence. Then—
“You were dying.”
Elena froze.
“You had a genetic defect,” Rodrigo continued, measured and emotionless. “The doctors said you wouldn’t make it to ten. Ouroboros was the only hope we had.”
“You experimented on me,” she said. “You used your own daughter as a test subject.”
“I saved you.”
“No. You changed me.”
“Elena—”
“You let Mom die because she wanted to stop it. Didn’t you?”
The air went still.
Rodrigo’s voice softened. “Your mother... didn’t understand the price of salvation.”
Her throat burned. “You’re a monster.”
“You’re alive.”
“I wish I wasn’t.”
Click.
She hung up.
The room spun.
Kai caught her as her knees buckled, lowering her gently to the ground.
“You were never just another rich girl,” he murmured, brushing her hair from her face. “You were born inside a war you didn’t choose.”
“But now I choose how it ends.”
---
The next day, Ivy returned with news.
“Gabriel Ochoa resurfaced,” she said, dropping a folder onto the table. “He’s in a coastal village near Las Rocas, under a false name. He’s off-grid, paranoid, and carrying secrets we need.”
Elena met her eyes. “Then we go to him.”
Kai crossed his arms. “We move quietly. No signals. No tech. If Rodrigo tracked us once, he’ll do it again.”
Ivy smirked. “Good thing I brought analog.”
She tossed down a paper map, three burner radios, and a weathered journal filled with cipher notes.
“This is how the old resistance worked,” she said. “And Dara Reyes trained me herself.”
Elena’s throat tightened at the name.
Her mother’s shadow loomed larger with every step she took. But so did her resolve.
“I’m ready,” she said.
Kai reached for her hand. “Then let’s burn the past to the ground.”
- Writer
