Chapter 3 - The Room Without Windows

In the darkness, June knew exactly where to go.

“Six steps. Duck. Now left.”

Clara followed, one hand against the cold wall. Behind them, glass hissed as the chambers returned to emergency power. She wanted to stay. She wanted to pull every girl free. June dragged her onward.

“They need doctors, oxygen, someone who knows how to wake them safely,” June said. “We'll come back with people.”

A steel panel slipped open. Marcus waited on the other side, clutching a bloody shoulder. Seeing him made Clara's legs almost give out.

“Don't hug me,” he said through his teeth. “It'll hurt.”

She hugged him anyway.

Marcus stared past her at June. His expression changed in a way Clara couldn't read. Recognition. Grief. Then guilt.

“Another one,” he whispered.

June recoiled. “Another what?”

“Another girl they hid.”

They hurried into a storage room full of schoolbooks, birthday cards, and dozens of small shoes in labeled plastic boxes. Clara found a photo of herself at six, standing beside Evelyn beneath the oak. On the back, in tidy handwriting, was written: C-7, SOCIALIZATION YEAR SIX.

Her childhood had been filed like a medical experiment.

June found a second photograph. It showed a young woman with Clara's face holding a newborn. A man in a uniform stood beside her, smiling.

“That's Elena,” June said. “The first woman. They used to show us her picture when they wanted us to behave.”

Clara turned the photo over. ELENA REYES, 2004. Beneath the date someone had written, WITHOUT HER, NONE OF THEM EXIST.

Marcus made a strangled sound.

“Marcus?”

He couldn't look at her.

A hard metallic knock sounded at the far door. Then another. Armed security had found the storage level.

June pointed toward a laundry chute. “There's a way out, but it ends in the old infirmary.”

“What's wrong with the infirmary?” Clara asked.

June's hands began to shake.

May you like

THEY FORBID ME FROM OPENING MY SISTER’S COFFIN—BUT I HEARD HER CRYING IN...

I SMASHED OPEN MY SISTER’S COFFIN AT HER FUNERAL… AND WHAT I FOUND INSIDE MADE EVERYONE SCREAM. 😱💔My sister was only 27 when my...

THE MAFIA BOSS CAUGHT HIS FIANCÉE FORCING A PREGNANT MAID DOWN THE MARBL...

The suitcase ripped my hand from the railing, and the first thing Vanessa Sterling screamed was, "Don't break the lock!"Not, Are y...

**Just 2 Hours After Their Wedding, a Billionaire Saw His Bride Push His...

Just 2 Hours After Their Wedding, a Billionaire Saw His Bride Push His 70-Year-Old Mother Off a 70-Story Rooftop—Then a Young Wait...

“That's where they put the girls who remember too much.”

The metal door buckled inward.