Chapter 9 - THE NIGHT LUKA BECAME A FATHER
I attacked Victor.
No plan.
No weapon.
Just rage.
I drove both hands into his chest.
He stumbled backward.
Daniel kicked the leg of Victor's guard.
The man fell.
“Run!” Daniel screamed.
I grabbed the guard's keycard.
The alarm exploded.
Red lights flashed.
Doors locked throughout the facility.
I ran.
Behind me, Daniel shouted.
“Claire!”
I didn't stop.
I had one thought.
Emma.
At the safe apartment, the man in scrubs approached her bassinet.
Then the bedroom door opened.
Luka stepped inside.
He had never stayed at the laboratory perimeter.
He had known Victor would try something else.
The intruder reached beneath his scrubs.
Luka hit him before the gun cleared the waistband.
One punch.
Then another.
The man crashed into the wall.
Emma woke screaming.
The intruder reached for the weapon.
Luka kicked it away.
Then he stopped.
Because Emma was crying.
He looked at the attacker.
Then at his daughter.
He chose Emma.
Luka picked her up.
“Hey.”
His voice changed completely.
“It's okay, little bird.”
Emma quieted against his chest.
The attacker crawled toward the gun.
Hannah, standing behind Luka, picked it up first.
“Don't.”
The man froze.
Back at Research Unit 4, I found a stairwell.
Police were fighting their way downstairs.
Price appeared.
“Claire!”
“Victor has the files.”
“We know.”
“How?”
“Luka found the server location.”
Then the building went dark.
Emergency lights flickered.
Victor's voice came through the speakers.
“Samuel once made the same mistake, Claire.”
I stopped.
“He thought evidence mattered.”
Victor laughed.
“It doesn't.”
“Power matters.”
A smell reached me.
Smoke.
Price looked upward.
“He's burning the building.”
We ran.
Then I heard someone pounding behind a locked laboratory door.
“Help!”
Daniel.
I stopped.
Price grabbed my arm.
“Leave him.”
I looked at the smoke filling the corridor.
Daniel had betrayed me.
Sold access to my body.
Helped create Emma without my consent.
But he was still human.
I swiped the stolen keycard.
The door opened.
Daniel stumbled out.
“Why?” he gasped.
“Because I'm not you.”
We reached the upper floor as flames swallowed the laboratory.
Victor was gone.
But so was the main server.
Then Daniel grabbed my wrist.
“I know where he's taking it.”
“Where?”
Daniel coughed.
“Your father's house.”
I stared at him.
“My father's house burned down eighteen years ago.”
Daniel shook his head.
May you like
“No.”
“That wasn't your father's real house.”
