Chapter Nine: Shadows Don’t Lie
1086 Words
Sabrina stared at the ceiling of the safehouse, her fingers cold despite the blanket wrapped around her. The rain outside had been falling for hours, but it wasn’t the storm that kept her awake.
It was the sound of Isaac’s voice.
Not his real voice—but the one in her head. Whispering things she didn’t want to hear.
Lies are safe when you believe them, Sabrina. But you’re starting to remember, aren’t you?
She sat up suddenly. The voices had started a week ago. At first, they were soft. Just words in her dreams. Then louder—every time she looked into Isaac’s eyes.
She thought she was losing her mind. Or maybe something worse was happening.
Isaac was still asleep, shirtless under the thin light of the hallway, his gun holster resting beside him. He looked peaceful, almost too still. Not like someone with blood on his hands. Not like a vampire who’d killed and spied for the mafia.
But she wasn’t innocent either.
She remembered things in pieces. The knife. A white hallway. Screaming.
Not someone else’s screams—hers.
Sabrina stood up quietly and walked to the old desk across the room. She pulled open a drawer and took out a small USB. The one she stole last week from the lab where they found the second numbered body.
It was labeled: Project ECLIPSE.
She hadn’t told Isaac about it. Something told her not to.
As she plugged it into her laptop, the screen flickered to life. Dozens of video files loaded. All unnamed. No dates. No faces.
Just numbers.
One file caught her attention.
ECLIPSE_147-SC
She clicked.
The screen lit up with a dim room. A girl was strapped to a chair. Hair messy. Eyes wide with terror.
Sabrina’s breath caught in her throat.
It was her.
She didn’t remember this.
A man stood in the corner, face blurred. He held a syringe.
The girl in the video cried out, “Please—I don’t want to forget again!”
Sabrina paused the video, her heart racing. What had they made her forget? What was she before she became a weapon?
Her hands trembled as she closed the laptop. Isaac stirred in the hallway.
She quickly hid the USB under the floorboard, just as Isaac stepped into the room.
His eyes narrowed. “Couldn’t sleep?”
Sabrina forced a small smile. “Too many ghosts.”
He walked closer, his eyes scanning her face. “You’ve been off lately. Is there something you’re not telling me?”
She wanted to lie. Say she was fine. But part of her was starting to doubt everything—even him.
So instead, she asked, “Have you ever... had memories erased?”
Isaac stiffened.
His silence was the answer.
Sabrina felt her chest tighten. “You too?”
“I was part of something once,” he said slowly. “Before the mafia. Before I became... what I am now. They said it was for our protection. That remembering would destroy us.”
“Do you remember who did it?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Only pain.”
Silence fell between them.
Sabrina reached for her jacket. “We need to go back to that lab. I think they’re hiding more than just dead bodies.”
Isaac hesitated. “Sabrina... if you find out the truth, are you sure you’ll be ready for it?”
“No,” she said. “But I’d rather be broken by the truth than comforted by a lie.”
---
They returned to the ruins of the lab at dawn. The building had been burned, but part of the basement still remained. They climbed down into the dark.
Sabrina turned on her flashlight. The beam landed on a metal door, half open.
Inside was a room with shattered screens, metal chairs, and chains hanging from the ceiling.
Sabrina stepped closer, heart pounding. Her wolf senses felt something—something old. Something wrong.
A loud clank echoed behind them.
Isaac turned, gun raised.
A tall woman in a lab coat stood at the doorway. Her eyes glowed unnaturally bright.
“Subject 147,” the woman said, looking at Sabrina. “You weren’t supposed to come back.”
Sabrina froze. “You know me?”
“I made you,” the woman replied coldly. “You were our first successful hybrid. The perfect mix of wolf and human. But then you started... remembering.”
Isaac growled, stepping in front of Sabrina. “You erased her memories? Used her as an experiment?”
The woman smiled. “You too, Isaac. You were part of it. You just didn’t know.”
Sabrina’s world tilted.
“What do you mean?”
The woman walked closer. “You were placed near her on purpose. Programmed to protect her. To keep her from asking too many questions.”
Sabrina stared at Isaac, betrayal hitting her like a blade. “Is that true?”
Isaac shook his head. “I didn’t know. I swear—I never meant to hurt you.”
The woman raised a device and pressed a button.
Sabrina screamed as her vision blurred. Flashbacks rushed into her mind.
She saw herself in a glass chamber. Fighting. Screaming. Isaac watching behind the glass, unmoved.
He was there from the beginning.
Her knees hit the ground.
Isaac dropped beside her. “Sabrina—I didn’t remember. I didn’t know.”
But something inside her had changed.
The wolf in her had awakened.
And she wasn’t sure if she could ever trust him again.
---
Back at the safehouse, Sabrina didn’t speak. She sat in the corner, gripping the old pendant around her neck—something she had since childhood.
It opened with a small click.
Inside, a photo. Faded and cracked.
A girl with two different-colored eyes.
Just like her.
But not her.
The name on the back read: Elara Cuevas.
Sabrina’s hands trembled.
That wasn’t her name.
Or was it?
The pendant slipped from her fingers.
She looked up at Isaac, who stood silently near the window.
“You said I was Sabrina,” she whispered.
Isaac turned slowly. “That’s what I was told.”
“Then who is Elara?”
His expression darkened.
“I don’t know.”
But he was lying.
She could feel it in her bones.
The wolf inside her didn’t lie.
And she was starting to wonder if Isaac Hale—the man she’d almost trusted—was part of the trap all along.
- Writer
