Kai Langford - March 2121
I can feel the sweat and blood running down my face as I get closer to my father's floor, the warmth of the blood mixing with the cold sweat collecting against my skin.
Every step is becoming harder than the last, and the exhaustion from fighting my way through the building is finally starting to settle deep into my bones. My legs feel heavy, my muscles ache and my head throbs with every movement, but at least I haven't felt the familiar signs of my powers burning out. There is no darkness creeping into the edges of my vision, no sensation of my body beginning to shut down and, most importantly, no fear that I'm going to black out before I reach him.
Noah's cure really did work.
The thought should make me feel relieved, but instead it hurts.
The last few flights have been difficult, especially after the blow to my head. A deep, nauseating pressure sits behind my eyes, and every now and then the corridor seems to shift slightly beneath my feet. I'm almost certain I have a concussion, but I can't afford to care about that now. More Guardians have appeared as I've climbed, each one forcing me into another fight when all I want to do is keep moving, but somehow I've managed to push through every one of them.
I have to keep going.
I reach a landing and press one hand against the wall, using it to keep myself upright as I close my eyes and try to steady my breathing. My chest rises and falls heavily, and for a brief moment I feel the temptation to simply stay there and let my body give up. I'm so tired that the thought of lying down and letting everything go feels almost peaceful.
Then Ethan appears in my mind.
I see his face wet with tears as he begged me not to leave him. I remember the way his hands pulled against the chains I put around his wrists and the desperation in his voice when he told me he loved me, when he begged me to stay. The memory twists something inside my chest, but it also gives me enough strength to push away from the wall.
I force myself to keep walking.
I make my way along the landing, barely paying attention to the door next to me until something catches my eye.
A sign.
Dr Joseph Langford.
I stop. For a moment, I simply stare at those three words.
My heart immediately begins hammering against my ribs, and I can feel my hands starting to shake. After everything I've survived, everything I've lost and every step that has brought me through this building, I'm finally standing outside my father's office.
For most of my life, I've wanted nothing more than to escape him, but now I'm here to end him.
I swipe the security card across the scanner and wait as the machine beeps. The lock clicks, and the door unlocks, but I don't move immediately. My hand stays against the handle as I stare at the door, suddenly aware that once I step through it, there is no coming back.
I push the door open.
The room is dark, illuminated only by the distant glow of the city shining through the enormous windows. I move slowly through the laboratory, the silence feeling almost unnatural after the chaos of the floors beneath me, until I catch sight of myself reflected in the glass and stop.
Blood stains my hair, my face and clothes. Cuts and bruises cover my skin, and my eyes look hollow from exhaustion. I stare at my reflection for several seconds, trying to recognise the person staring back at me.
I barely can.
I really do look like a monster. Maybe that's what I've always looked like to them, maybe that's all I was ever supposed to be.
I place my hand against the window and let my shadows gather beneath my palm. They spread across the glass, creeping outward like cracks through ice, before I push them forward.
The entire window shatters.
Cold air rushes into the room, sweeping over my face and carrying the distant sounds of the city with it. I inhale deeply, letting the cold fill my lungs as I stand there and stare down at the lights below.
For just a moment, I allow myself to imagine what it would be like to disappear into that city. To become nobody.
Someone who isn't 004.
Someone who isn't Noah Langford's twin.
Someone who isn't the son of the man who destroyed so many peoples lives.
I could leave. I could walk away from GeneX and everything it has done. But Ethan would still be in danger and there is nowhere for me to run anymore.
Something in the office behind me catches my attention, pulling me out of the thought. I turn and make my way across the laboratory before pushing open the door to the private office.
Even in the poor lighting, I recognise him immediately.
My father is sitting behind his desk.
He looks almost exactly how I remember him, calm and controlled, with the same posture he always carried whenever he wanted everyone around him to remember who was in charge.
"Kai." His cold voice cuts through the room.
"Father." I stare at him.
He gestures towards the chair positioned across from his desk before folding his hands together, just as he always does.
"Why don't you take a seat?"
I want to refuse.
Every instinct in me tells me to walk across the room and end this now. I want to put my hands around his throat and make him feel even a fraction of what he has made me feel, but years of conditioning are buried too deeply inside me. My body remembers his commands even when my mind wants nothing to do with them.
So I sit.
The moment I slump into the chair, I feel the weight of everything it took to get here settle over me. My body feels like it weighs twice as much as it did when I entered the building, and for several seconds neither of us says anything. We simply look at each other across the desk, just two people who share blood but almost nothing else.
Eventually, my father breaks the silence.
"I am guessing this is Noah's doing?"
He gestures towards the dark laboratory outside the office and the error codes still flashing across the dead equipment.
"He was always such a talented boy."
Something inside me twists at the way he says it. He talks about him like he's discussing some scientist who once worked for him rather than the person who spent his entire life desperately trying to earn his approval.
I narrow my eyes, fighting to keep my anger under control.
"Well, he's dead now."
The words come out sharper than I intended, but my father barely reacts.
"Yes."
I stare at him.
"Yes?" I repeat with a bitter scoff. "Is that all you can say?"
He leans back slightly in his chair, completely unaffected by the anger burning inside me.
"What do you expect me to say? Noah was an important asset to the growth of GeneX, but once he betrayed me, he no longer served a purpose."
Something inside me snaps. I shoot out of the chair and slam both hands against his desk, rattling everything sitting on top of it.
"You truly are a despicable monster," I say through gritted teeth. "You got Noah killed and you're standing there talking about your son like he was some piece of equipment you threw away."
My father leans forward, bringing his face closer to mine.
"Was it really my fault that Noah died? I told you before that he could have thrived here if it hadn't been for you."
The words hit hard. A lump forms in my throat as my shadows begin creeping across the floor beneath his desk, stretching towards him almost instinctively. I can feel them reacting to my anger, hungry for the smallest command to tear him apart.
I want to... God, I want to. But I still need to know where the Lunex vials are. So I force myself to breathe, push my damp hair away from my face and sit back down.
"Fine," I say quietly. "It is my fault."
My father's eyes narrow.
"It's my fault he's dead," I continue, my voice trembling despite everything I do to control it. "But that only means it has to be me who ends everything here and now."
My father laughs.
"What do you think this is, Kai? Do you honestly believe everything simply ends with me? Even if you stop GeneX here, you won't make it out alive. The facility will continue. The experiments will continue. The Lunex vials will continue, and so will my legacy."
For a moment, I say nothing because he's right about one thing.
The facility is still standing.
Most of his test subjects are still there. Most of the experiments are still taking place there, hidden away from the world. Destroying GeneX headquarters will cause serious damage, but it won't erase everything he has built.
Except there is one thing he doesn't know.
I look directly at him.
"You think the device Noah created only affected the headquarters?"
A small smile touches my lips and my father's expression changes immediately.
He reaches for his phone and makes a call, pressing it to his ear as he stands from behind the desk.
"Dr Langford?" A voice answers from the other end. "There is something wrong with the system. We seem to have been hacked."
My father hangs up without a word.
For several seconds, he simply stares at the phone before slamming it onto the desk. He turns away from me and rubs his face, and for the first time since I've walked into this room, I see something I have never seen on him before.
Fear.
The man who spent my entire childhood making me believe he was untouchable is finally afraid of something I have done.
He turns back towards me.
"Do you know what you have just done?"
His voice is no longer calm. Anger has begun to seep through every word.
"I should have gotten rid of the both of you as soon as that woman died giving birth to you."
I don't answer, I simply sit there and watch him unravel.
"I should have killed you the day I brought you both home. I knew from the moment I saw you in that incubation chamber that you would be nothing but a problem."
His words should hurt, instead, they simply make something inside me go cold.
My father's phone begins buzzing again.
Then again.
Text after text appears across the screen, followed by another incoming call.
His eyes drop to the name flashing across it.
MR CARTER.
My grandfather.
His jaw tightens as he ignores the call and I tilt my head slightly.
"Are you not going to answer?" He looks at me and I smile bitterly. "Do you have any idea how fragile his approval is?"
The memory comes back with brutal clarity.
I remember being a child, desperate for my father's approval and stupid enough to think I could earn it. I remember him saying those words to me and the punishment that followed, the metal ruler striking against my skin again and again as he forced me to kneel in front of him until I learned not to challenge his authority.
I remember how small I felt.
How badly I wanted him to look at me and see his son instead of a failure. And now I'm standing here older, bloodied and exhausted, staring at the man who taught me that I would never be enough.
Something about my words finally breaks his composure and He lunges towards the drawer in his desk, but I react instantly.
My shadows shoot forward and wrap around his wrist before twisting his arm behind his back. Whatever he was reaching for slips from his hand and clatters onto the floor.
I throw him across the room.
His body crashes into the glass surrounding the office, the impact cracking the surface beneath him as he falls to the floor.
My hand reaches for the gun at my side and I pull it free and aim directly at his head.
He looks up at me from the ground, but there is no fear in his expression, only rage.
Somehow, that makes me even angrier.
"You ruined my whole life!" I shout, my voice echoing through the office. "None of this had to happen if you had just left me alone."
My hands are shaking now, and tears burn behind my eyes, but I refuse to let them fall.
"I didn't care that you didn't love me. I didn't care that you didn't want me. I didn't need it because I had Noah."
My voice cracks despite everything I do to stop it.
"All I wanted was to live beside him. I didn't want anything else. I didn't need anything else."
"And look where that attachment got him." he cuts me off.
I swallow hard, feeling years of pain rising into my throat.
The words come faster now, spilling out before I can stop them.
"The only person I have left who loves me for who I really am is still at risk because of you."
My father looks at me as though nothing I've said matters.
"You still act like a child, Kai" he says coldly. "Even after all the training I put you through, all that hard work and discipline, somehow it was wasted."
I stare at him. Even now, some pathetic part of me is still waiting, not for love, I stopped hoping for that for along time. No, what I am waiting for is guilt, just flicker of regret. Anything that proves some small part of him ever looked at me and saw his son.
But there is nothing.
Of course there isn't, and I am dumb to think there ever could be.
"All you ever cared about was your legacy," I say as I take a step towards him. "But now you're going to lose it all."
My finger moves towards the trigger.
For the first time, I know I can do it.
I can end this.
I can make him pay for Noah, for Ethan, for Finns, for Owen, for Daniel, for Ray, for everyone at trinity. For everything he did to me and for every year he stole from us. I can finally put an end to the man who has controlled my life for as long as I can remember.
And maybe that's all I have left to live for.
Not myself.
Not anymore.
Just Ethan.
Keeping him safe is the only thing still holding me together, the only reason I haven't already let the darkness inside me swallow everything. Once GeneX is destroyed and my father is gone, I don't know what will be left of me.
And, truthfully, I don't think I'm supposed to find out.
My finger tightens against the trigger.
Then the door behind me opens and I freeze.
A familiar voice cuts through the room.
"Kai."
Every part of my body goes still.
I know that voice.
I know it better than I know my own.
Slowly, I turn around, still keeping the gun trained on my father.
My heart stops.
"Noah?"