Aria felt the room tilt, as if the floor had dropped several inches beneath her feet.
"He… was Project Helix?"
The words hardly left her mouth. They were just air, trembling, barely formed.
Kayden didn't loosen his grip on her.
Liam didn't look away.
Neither of them rushed her.
Neither of them dared to speak first.
Aria's breath shuddered. "Explain. Now."
Liam inhaled slowly. "Your father wasn't just part of the project. He was the prototype. The first successful subject."
Aria's heartbeat stuttered painfully.
"Subject?" she repeated. "You mean an experiment."
Kayden's jaw tightened. "You're not listening — he survived what hundreds didn't. He became stronger. Faster. Nearly impossible to track or break. But there was a cost."
Aria stared at him. "What cost?"
Liam spoke quietly. "His humanity."
Silence.
Heavy. Suffocating.
Aria shook her head slowly. "No. My father wasn't some monster."
"We didn't say he was," Liam said gently. "He wasn't born a monster — they made him into something he never agreed to be."
Kayden stepped closer, voice low. "And you inherited pieces of what they put inside him."
Aria felt a cold ripple down her spine.
Inherited.
Pieces.
Inside her.
She pressed a hand to her chest as if suddenly aware of her own heartbeat — too fast, too strong. Some days she felt like her body was trying to outrun her. Some days she sensed things before they happened. Some days she felt a surge of instinct she couldn't explain.
It all clicked.
Too perfectly.
"Why didn't anyone tell me?" Aria whispered. "Why didn't my mom—"
Liam's voice dropped. "Because she thought the truth would destroy you. And… because she was trying to keep you away from the people who made your father into something they couldn't control."
Aria's throat tightened. "Did she die because of them?"
Kayden didn't answer.
And that silence was an answer.
Aria's breathing fractured. "So I'm next."
"No," Liam said firmly. "Not as long as we're here."
Kayden nodded. "Not while I'm breathing."
But Aria pulled away from them, staring at the floor, voice trembling with anger and fear.
"My whole life has been a lie," she whispered. "My mom. My father. Me. Everything."
"Aria—" Liam began.
She looked up, eyes burning. "And you two — you knew this. And you didn't tell me."
Kayden flinched like she had struck him. "I tried to stay away because of it. I tried not to get close—"
"Then why did you?" Aria snapped.
Kayden swallowed hard. "Because you're the first thing in my life I couldn't control."
Her breath hitched.
Liam stepped closer, gentle but firm. "We kept quiet because we wanted to be sure. We were waiting for something."
"For what?" Aria demanded.
Liam hesitated.
Kayden looked away.
Aria's voice cracked, barely audible. "For what?"
Liam exhaled. "For your symptoms."
Aria froze.
"What symptoms?"
Kayden finally met her eyes — and what she saw there terrified her. A softness made of fear, not pity.
"Strength you shouldn't have. Speed you don't realize you use. Reflexes that activate when you're scared. And…"
"And what?" Aria whispered.
Kayden stepped forward, eyes locked on her. "And the first time you lose control."
Aria couldn't breathe. Her pulse roared in her ears.
Liam quickly added, "It doesn't mean something bad. It just means your father's genetic modifications are no longer dormant — they're waking."
"My father wasn't modified," Aria whispered.
Kayden's voice dropped into a dark, painful truth.
"He was rebuilt."
Aria wrapped her arms around herself, feeling suddenly too small inside her own skin, too fragile, too breakable to hold everything crashing down around her.
"So what am I?" she whispered. "Some half-made monster? A weapon? A project they didn't finish?"
Liam walked toward her slowly, placing a careful hand on her shoulder.
"No," he said softly. "You're a person. A girl who deserved a normal life. And I swear to you — you're not going to become whatever they made your father into."
Kayden nodded, stepping on her other side. "Not while we're with you."
Aria looked between them — their fear, their determination, their loyalty that she didn't ask for but now clung to like a lifeline.
"What happens if these… symptoms get worse?" she asked quietly.
Liam opened his mouth — but Kayden spoke first.
"They will."
Aria's stomach dropped.
"But," Kayden continued, "as long as you're with us, you'll learn to control them. We won't let you go through this alone."
Aria's eyes burned.
And then—
A sound.
A sharp, metallic click.
Not from the boys.
Not from her.
It came from the vent above them.
Kayden's eyes snapped upward. "Someone's listening."
Liam grabbed Aria's arm instantly. "We need to move."
Kayden pulled her against him, voice low and deadly.
"They found us sooner than I thought."
Aria's breath stuttered in her chest.
Her father's enemies.
The people who killed her mother.
The people who wanted her.
They were here.