😱 **THE GROUND SPLIT OPEN BENEATH A MASSIVE OAK TREE—AND I FELL INTO A SECRET UNDERGROUND LAB FILLED WITH FROZEN GIRLS WHO LOOKED EXACTLY LIKE ME! THEN A MYSTERIOUS WOMAN WHISPERED, “YOU'VE ALWAYS BEEN OUR MOST RESILIENT COPY.” BUT WHEN I DISCOVERED WHY THEY'D BEEN MONITORING MY BLOOD FOR 22 YEARS, THE TRUTH WAS MORE TERRIFYING THAN I COULD EVER IMAGINE!** 🧬💔

With the power out, Blackthorn looked like a photograph of a town that had already been abandoned.

Families stood on porches with flashlights. A man shouted that the hospital generators had failed. Clara could hear the panic moving down the street long before she saw it.

June stopped beside a little boy sitting on a curb. He was wheezing. His mother held an inhaler with a trembling hand.

“Did he drink from the tap today?” June asked.

“Everybody does,” the woman said. “Why?”

June looked at Clara. “They don't just test the medicine on us.”

“Who told you that?”

“I heard the doctors fighting. One said the town was a control group. One said there weren't supposed to be any more children.”

An SUV skidded to a stop. Officer Lena Ortiz stepped out, one hand on her holster. “Clara Vale? Marcus Reed? Dispatch says you're wanted for a security breach.”

Marcus raised both hands. “Then dispatch is working for the wrong people.”

Ortiz glanced at his soaked bandage, June's hospital gown, and the blue light faintly pulsing beneath Clara's skin. Her face tightened.

“What happened to you?”

Clara could have lied. Instead she said, “A lab under the estate is full of girls who look like me. They're going to kill them, and something is happening to the water.”

Ortiz didn't lower her guard. “That's a wild story.”

“Then take us to the hospital. Look at the patient logs.”

The officer's radio crackled. A male voice ordered her to transport all three suspects to Asterion security, not county jail. Ortiz went very still.

“County officers don't take orders from private companies,” she muttered.

She opened the rear door. “Get in. I'm taking you somewhere with witnesses.”

As they pulled away, a silver drone crossed above the trees, tracking the SUV. A red dot appeared on the back of Ortiz's neck.