ZARA POV.
I never imagined the place that would break me wouldn't be a battlefield… but a lab.
Sterile white walls, humming machines, cold steel tables. All too familiar. Too much like Spain. Too much like before.
The moment we entered, the lights flickered above, casting shadows on the glass pods lining the walls. Some were empty. Others… weren't. And in one of them—was her.
"Zara…" Leo breathed, frozen. "Is that…?"
I stepped closer, heart pounding. My boots echoed on the tiled floor as I approached the pod, steam curling across its reinforced glass.
She looked like me. Same curls, same jawline, same scar under the eyebrow. But her eyes were wrong. Empty.
"Selina," I whispered. My sister. But not.
Her eyes opened. And she screamed.
<<<<<
LEO POV.
It was like watching a ghost wake up in a nightmare.
Selina's scream sliced through the lab, metal walls reverberating with pain. And Zara—God, Zara—she flinched like she'd been gutted.
"I thought she was dead," she whispered.
"She was."
The voice came from behind. I turned—and froze. Him.
"Hello, Leo."
My handler. My mentor. My monster.
My hands twitched, instinctively moving toward my concealed knife, but he raised a finger with a smirk.
"Ah, ah. You always were predictable."
Zara stepped beside me, her gun drawn and steady. "You're the one who trained him?"
The Viper smiled.
"I trained you both, darling. You just didn't know it."
<<<<<
ZARA POV.
My blood ran cold.
"You were in Spain," I said slowly. "You were there the night it all fell apart."
He didn't deny it.
"I designed Spain."
Leo flinched.
"You were never supposed to escape, Zara. Selina was. You weren't the mission. She was. The perfect infiltrator—loyal, programmable, obedient."
I felt sick. "What did you do to her?"
He tilted his head. "We gave her a choice. She chose survival."
"No," I snapped. "You took her mind. You broke her."
He raised an eyebrow. "And yet she's alive. Unlike your parents."
<<<<<
LEO POV.
I lunged first. I couldn't help it. But he was ready. He always was.
He sidestepped me with surgical precision and shoved a small device into my chest. Pain exploded through me like lightning. My knees buckled.
Zara caught me before I hit the ground.
"Leo!" she shouted.
"EMP shock dart," the Viper said casually. "Enough to disable your nervous system temporarily. You always had a weak threshold."
Zara's eyes were murder.
"Touch him again, and I swear—"
"You'll what?" he interrupted. "Shoot me? Kill me? Like you did the guard in Morocco? Or that boy in Berlin?"
She froze.
I didn't know about Berlin.
The Viper smiled wider.
"Oh, there's so much your lover doesn't know, Leo. Like how she didn't run from Spain… she left someone behind."
<<<<<
ZARA POV.
My fingers tightened on the trigger.
"I don't owe you my story."
"No," he said. "But he does."
Leo's eyes met mine. Blood rimmed the edges, from pain… or shame.
"He's not your enemy," I said.
"Oh, but I am," the Viper replied. "And if you want to save Selina, you'll have to play my game."
"What game?"
He stepped back and pressed a button. A wall hissed open to reveal a massive digital screen, listing mission codes and target locations.
At the top:
PROJECT RENAISSANCE: GLOBAL RESET INITIATED.
And underneath it…
Status: Beta Activation Phase. Target: LONDON.
"No," I whispered.
"We have 72 hours," the Viper said. "Until your city becomes the next lab."
<<<<<
LEO POV.
He left us there, the room spinning with smoke and silence and the sound of Selina still screaming in the pod.
Zara stood frozen.
"They're going to use her," she murmured.
"No," I said. "We're going to stop them."
She turned to me slowly. "Even if it means killing the man who trained you?"
My voice was a whisper. "Even if it means killing me."
Her hand brushed mine.
"No more lies?"
"No more lies."
We looked at the girl in the glass. And made a promise. We'd bring her back. Or burn everything down trying.