Zurich, Switzerland. Cold air kissed Ivy's cheeks as she stepped off the jet. Mountains loomed in the distance like ancient witnesses, silent and immovable. The city below glittered in the dusk, pristine and secretive—like the kind of place that could hide the sins of powerful men.
Aiden walked beside her, dark coat flapping in the wind, sunglasses shielding eyes that had barely slept. His jaw was set, and Ivy didn't need to ask to know what he was thinking: What will we find here?
Maddie was already ahead, briefing a small security team with earpieces and encrypted tablets. The coordinates Leo had drawn—repeatedly and with eerie precision—led here, to a decommissioned Hale Corp facility. On paper, it had been sold to a foreign tech startup. But the more Maddie dug, the clearer it became: someone had never stopped using it.
Ivy clutched Leo's hand tighter. He was quiet, more so than usual, his bright eyes scanning everything. Almost as if… he remembered this place.
"Aiden," Ivy said under her breath, "he's been acting strange since we landed."
Aiden glanced down at Leo, then crouched to meet his son's gaze. "What's wrong, kiddo?"
Leo blinked slowly. "The lights here… they hum."
A chill snaked down Ivy's spine. "What lights?"
Leo turned to the mountains. "Underground ones."
Maddie joined them. "We've got movement," she said. "Thermal scans show heat signatures below the facility. That place is still active."
Aiden straightened, his voice low. "Then we go in quiet. We don't know who's running it—or what."
They drove to the edge of a forest trail, where the facility lay hidden behind layers of vegetation and an old electric fence. The forest smelled of pine and wet soil, deceptively peaceful. Ivy kept Leo close as the team cut through with tech Aiden had flown in from Berlin.
Inside the perimeter, the building looked dead—rusted signage, vines creeping across glass, dust coating the windows. But inside? It was humming.
And then they found it.
A concealed elevator. Biometrics long since disabled, now overridden by Maddie's tech. The elevator groaned to life, descending into the earth with a mechanical whine that echoed like a warning.
The moment the doors opened, Leo tensed.
"Do you recognize this place?" Ivy asked gently, crouching to meet him eye-to-eye.
Leo didn't answer at first. Then, slowly, he whispered, "Room Seven. That's where the girl cried."
Ivy's stomach dropped. She shot a glance at Aiden, whose knuckles had whitened on the gun at his side.
The corridor before them was immaculate—too clean, too preserved. Fluorescent lights flickered above polished floors. Footsteps echoed eerily. The doors were numbered. One… Two… Three…
Each room had a one-way mirror. Inside, empty cribs, broken toys, child-sized restraints.
Ivy's knees nearly gave out. "Dear God…"
Room Seven was different. A handprint on the glass, small and smeared with dried blood.
Leo stepped forward, hand outstretched, as if trying to match it. "She didn't want to be alone."
Aiden cursed under his breath. "They experimented on kids here. Like him. Hell, with him."
They found files in the next hallway—cold, clinical data. Names of children. Birth dates. Status: DECEASED. Others? UNACCOUNTED FOR.
Then they found hers: Anika Vos. The name Leo had murmured in his sleep.
"She's alive," Ivy whispered. "She has to be."
Maddie's fingers flew across her tablet. "There's a backup system. Video logs. Surveillance."
She pulled up a clip. Ivy's hand flew to her mouth.
A much younger Leo—maybe three—sat in a sterile room, assembling a complex puzzle with disturbing speed. Across from him, a girl slightly older watched, her eyes dull and hollow. She reached out, and a figure stormed in—white coat, sharp voice.
The clip cut off.
Ivy turned to Aiden, tears burning her eyes. "They kept him like a lab rat. Like he wasn't a person."
Aiden's voice was steel. "This ends now."
Alarms blared.
Red lights stuttered to life. Maddie swore. "They know we're here."
Leo grabbed Ivy's hand. "We have to go. They're coming."
"Who?" she asked, heart pounding.
He looked up at her with eyes that no five-year-old should ever have. "The ones who said I was special."