Chapter 20: Beneath the Skin
Aya knew the rules.
No direct entry. No contact. No deviation.
But Rook didn't know what it felt like to see someone walking around with your bones, your breath, your shape, and not know which of you was real.
So she broke the rule.
She doubled back after Evelyne left the building. Disabled her wristband ping. Masked her heat signature.
And slipped inside.
The building was colder than it looked from outside.No signage. No alarm. No cameras she could see — but that just meant the ones that mattered weren't on the walls.
She moved down metal steps, past flickering floor lights and silent corridors.
Then she found it.
Not a lab.A vault.
Behind a reinforced glass wall: six cryo-pods, humming low, backlit with pale green.