Abby's point of view
The hallway felt colder tonight.
The lights above flickered like dying stars, casting ghostly shadows on the rusted metal walls. I could hear Hiliana's boots scraping against the ground beside me, slow and heavy like each step hurt. She hadn't said a word since we left the courtyard—not since she saw her.
Mila.
I glanced at her through the corner of my eye. She looked smaller somehow. Her shoulders hunched, her eyes distant, like a part of her had been ripped out and replaced with silence.
"She didn't even hesitate," Hiliana finally whispered. Her voice trembled like glass on the verge of shattering. "That wasn't her, Abby. That wasn't Mila..."
I reached for her hand, lacing my fingers through hers. Her palm was ice-cold.
"It was her," I said softly. "But she's not the little girl you remember anymore. People don't just come out of places like this unchanged."
Hiliana shook her head. "No. This is more than change. It's like she's been erased. Rewritten. She looked right through me like I was nothing."
Her voice cracked.
"She was ready to pull the trigger."
My throat tightened. I didn't know what to say to that. What do you say when someone's sister forgets them completely?
We reached the end of the corridor. I stopped and faced her. "Hil... I know you want to save her. But we can't just take her and run. We're prisoners, remember? We don't even have access to medicine without stealing it."
"I have to do something," she snapped, wiping at her face with the back of her hand. "She's all I have left...What did they do to my baby"
She tried to hold it in, but her voice was breaking with every word.
"If I wait… if I do nothing… I'll lose her all over again."
Then, without warning, she collapsed into me. Her tears soaked into my shoulder, her breath shaky against my neck. I didn't say anything. I just held her. Arms wrapped around her tight, like I could hold her together with just my grip. She cried, and I let her. She needed it.
"I'm sorry," she choked. "I'm sorry, I—"
"Stop apologizing," I whispered, stroking her back. "You're allowed to fall apart."
Her fingers curled around my shirt like she was trying not to slip away.
After a moment, I kissed the top of her head and pulled back gently. "Come with me."
She blinked at me through her tears. "Where?"
"To the west wing."
The old computer room looked like a forgotten graveyard. Dust layered everything like a second skin, and the stench of metal and mildew stung my nose. Most of the machines were dead—guts exposed, screens shattered. But one in the corner still flickered with a faint blue light.
"I've been fixing it up during kitchen shifts," I said, dropping into the creaky chair and powering it on. "Took me forever to find stable wiring, but it's connected now."
Hiliana stood behind me, arms crossed, still wiping the remnants of her tears.
"Connected to what?" she asked.
"Everything," I replied, cracking my knuckles and pulling up a terminal window. "This place isn't just a prison—it's part of something bigger. Their system links to external satellites, military-grade comm lines, encrypted files. I don't think even the guards know how deep it goes."
I began typing fast, lines of code flickering across the screen as I pulled access logs and system maps. Hiliana leaned in, her breath warming the side of my neck.
"You hacked the prison?" she whispered.
"I monitored first," I said. "Then I started digging deeper. Surveillance cams. File archives. Guard rotations. Movement tracking. If we want to get Mila out, we need eyes everywhere. We need information."
Hiliana stared at me. "You're insane."
"I know." I smirked. "One of the reason why you love me"
Her lips tugged into a small smile, just for a moment—but then it vanished, like it was scared to stay. I kept clicking through folders, scanning camera feeds, decrypting old voice logs.
And that's when I saw it.
A line of unfamiliar code pinged on my monitor. Not from our prison. It was bouncing from an off-site location, feeding into a secure camera file I hadn't touched before.
I clicked it.
The screen glitched once. Then another.
And then, it appeared—grainy at first, but it cleared into a sharp image.
A dark room. High ceilings. Velvet curtains. A single throne-like chair in the center.
And a woman sitting in it—elegant, draped in white and black silks, like royalty reborn. Her face was sharp and ageless. Cold eyes. Blood-red lipstick. She looked like someone who didn't raise her voice because she never had to.
Hiliana leaned closer. "Who the hell is that?"
Before I could answer, the woman began speaking. Her voice was calm, melodic—too calm.
"Hiliana has made contact."
Another figure stepped into view—hooded, silent.
"She's already faltering. Emotionally compromised. The sister has become a liability."
I felt Hiliana's breath hitch beside me.
"Kill her. Quietly. No mess. Mila doesn't need more confusion."
The screen cut to black.
I stared.
My chest tightened, the weight of the words pressing into me like stone.
They wanted to kill Hiliana.
I turned to look at her—frozen, pale, her lips slightly parted like she was too shocked to even breathe.
"…They want me dead," she whispered.
I nodded slowly. "Yeah."
"And Mila... she doesn't know."
Hiliana's fingers dug into the edge of the desk. Her knuckles turned white.
"I need to get her out," she said. "No matter what."
I placed my hand gently over hers. "Then we'll do it smart. We'll gather everything we can. We expose them. We dismantle their web."
Hiliana looked at me—something burning behind her eyes now. Rage, yes. But also grief. And fierce, blinding love.
"She's not a puppet," she said."She's my sister"
I smile and pat her shoulder. We started to make our move. Every step Hiliana and I took down the corridor echoed in my mind louder than a scream. My hands were sweating despite the chill. The darkness pressed against my skin like a second layer, and yet—I didn't flinch. I couldn't. Not anymore.
We weren't just breaking rules.
We were breaking chains.
Keep moving. Don't think. Just keep moving.
Hiliana was at my side, crouched low, her hand tight around a dull, makeshift blade. She didn't speak, but her presence grounded me. We weren't the same girls they threw into this hell. We were sharper now. Tired of waiting. Tired of fear. Tired of hoping someone would save us.
No one's coming.
It's just us.
The guard's footsteps were close. I waited, heart hammering. My fingers itched. My jaw clenched. And when the moment came, I struck—swift, silent, the way Ryena taught me.
God, Ryena…
Don't think about her now.
I pressed the unconscious body into the shadows, chest heaving. For a second, I thought I might throw up. Not from guilt. No. That was long gone. What sat in my stomach now was rage. Cold, steady rage. The kind that simmers, patient and quiet, until it burns everything.
This prison—it changed us. Bent us. Tried to break us.
And still… here we were. Crawling back through the cracks with our blades drawn.
We slipped into the male block like ghosts, shadows between shadows. Most of the men were asleep—or pretending to be. I didn't blame them. Survival meant pretending a lot of things.
Hiliana touched my arm, nodding to the far cell.
Tarn.
I hated him once. Arrogant, smug, always too smart for his own good. But right now? We needed that clever mind. Because no one knew how to twist steel and spark into weapons the way Tarn did. And if we were going to get Ryena back, if we were going to burn this entire place down—
We needed a spark.
I tapped the cell lightly and cracked it open.
Tarn sat cross-legged on the floor like a bored monk, picking at wires twisted into knots. He didn't even look surprised.
"The hell? Are guy's peeking on male prisoners?," he muttered.
I wanted to slap the sarcasm off his face. Or maybe I just wanted him to feel something. Anything.
"Shut up," I hissed, stepping in. "We don't have time."
Hiliana closed the door behind us, barely breathing.
Tarn finally looked up, eyes sharp and calculating. He wasn't a fool. And I wasn't a scared little girl anymore.
"We need you," I said. The words tasted bitter. "We're going to find Ryena. And destroy the people who run this place."
His brow raised. "Ambitious."
"She's somewhere around here," Hiliana whispered.
"We're done hiding," I said. "We need someone who can make something out of nothing. That's you."
He looked amused. "And what if I say no?"
I didn't blink.
"Then you rot here. With your little toys. While the world burns just outside your cell."
His smirk faltered just a little. That's when I saw it.
He hated it here. Maybe not the cell. Maybe not the routines. But the helplessness. The powerlessness. That same fire I saw in Ryena's eyes when she punched the guard who touched me. That same flame I felt rise in my throat when Hiliana cried for help in the infirmary and no one came.
"I don't owe her anything," Tarn said quietly.
"No," I answered, voice flat. "But you owe yourself something. Get out while you still can."
I waited. I didn't beg. Not for him.
For a moment, I thought he'd refuse. But then… he sighed, stood, and walked over to the pile of metal and wire by his bunk.
"I'll regret this," he muttered.
"Probably," I whispered.
But regret was better than rot.
As we slipped back into the hallway, Tarn trailing behind, something shifted inside me. Not hope. Not yet.
But maybe something close.
Not because Tarn agreed.
Not because we had a plan.
But because for the first time in a long time…
We were moving.
And maybe—just maybe—that's where freedom starts.