The night was too quiet.
Inside the safehouse's concrete walls, Kirion paced the narrow hallway, ears tuned to every creak and shift in the floorboards. His daughter had gone radio silent nearly an hour earlier. That wasn't like her. She always pinged him when she left the compound, even for a quick air scan or satellite uplink. The silence itched at the back of his mind like a blade pressed just shy of skin.
He rushed into her workspace—empty. Her tablet was still warm, the terminal logged in, a program mid-execution. A cold sweat ran down his neck. Something was wrong.
He activated the emergency beacon system, alerting every resistance contact in the district. A grainy security feed blinked to life across the monitors, showing the rooftop stairs. There—two figures. One was unmistakably her. The other was cloaked in shadow, but their movements were precise, practiced. And in her hand—no weapon. Just compliance.
Soria.
Kirion's heart froze.
He watched the footage again, rewinding, analyzing every frame. No signs of struggle. No resistance. His daughter hadn't fought back. She'd gone willingly.
But the why burned louder than the fear.
He found the note less than ten minutes later, tucked under the corner of her keyboard. Just a few words, scrawled hastily in her handwriting:
"I have to know for myself. Don't follow me. Not yet."
Kirion slammed his fist into the steel table.
Outside, the resistance team fanned out across the city, activating street contacts, checking surveillance routes, intercepting radio chatter. Kirion stayed behind, for once paralyzed. Not by fear—but by the sudden realization that he'd been outmaneuvered.
Soria had played the long game. Built trust. Waited for doubt to blossom. Then moved in the moment that seed cracked the foundation.
He blamed himself. Not for being blind, but for believing he could shield his daughter from the darkness that shaped him.
Deep underground, in a fortified bunker buried beneath the ruins of a decommissioned government facility, Soria watched her daughter sleep. Sedatives had kicked in halfway through their escape—gentle, untraceable, administered with a soft smile and an apology.
"You'll understand soon," she whispered into the dark. "They've made me a monster. But I never stopped being your mother."
She turned to the screen on the far wall. A retinal scanner activated, and government files flooded in: images of the resistance's current network, intercepted communications, and—most concerning—psychological profiles of Kirion and his daughter.
Soria's orders were clear: turn the daughter, or break her.
But her heart still waged war against her mind. Could she really go through with it?
Kirion, meanwhile, prepared for war. He would break every firewall, flip every informant, burn every stronghold to the ground if he had to. He didn't care how deep the government had buried her—he would dig through hell and back.
His daughter was everything. And no ghost from the past—no shadow masquerading as a mother—would take her away.
The rescue had begun.
Not just of his daughter.
But of the truth.