CHAPTER 13 THE WOMAN WHO GAVE BIRTH TO MATEO
The woman on the security screen removed the white flower from her hair.
“Alejandro,” she said, “I know which woman gave birth to Mateo.”
Mateo stared at the image.
The woman had Elena’s face.
The same dark eyes.
The same soft mouth.
The same expression he had once watched across a breakfast table before bullets shattered his childhood.
Yet she was not Mariana.
Mariana stood only a few feet away inside the descending elevator, blood soaking the bandage around her upper arm.
She was not Camila.
Camila was on the surgical level with Gabriel.
She could not be Luciana.
Luciana had died in the ambushed car—or so they had been told.
And Isabela had fallen in the burning mansion.
Alejandro moved toward the elevator screen.
“Identify yourself.”
The woman smiled sadly.
“You already asked me that once.”
“When?”
“The night Mateo was born.”
Alejandro froze.
Mariana stepped closer.
“That is impossible.”
The woman’s eyes shifted toward her.
“You were not in the delivery room.”
“I gave birth to him.”
“No.”
Mariana’s face hardened.
“I remember every second.”
“You remember what they implanted.”
The elevator continued descending into Eden.
Artificial sunlight moved past the glass walls outside.
Gardens, medical levels, and sleeping chambers disappeared above them as the system carried them toward the transport floor.
Mateo remained close to Valeria.
His small fingers dug into her sleeve.
The woman on the screen looked at him.
“My beautiful boy.”
Mateo immediately hid behind Valeria.
Alejandro saw it.
His expression turned cold.
“Do not call him that.”
“He is my son.”
“You just said another woman gave birth to him.”
“I said none of the women standing with you did.”
“Then who are you?”
The woman lifted the white flower toward the camera.
“My designation was Subject Three.”
Helena stepped forward.
Her face changed.
“Subject Three died during the first maternal transfer.”
The woman looked directly at her.
“You signed the report.”
“I saw the body.”
“You saw what Rafael wanted you to see.”
Helena stared at the screen.
“What was your name?”
The woman’s expression softened.
“Before the program?”
“Yes.”
“Teresa Salas.”
Valeria stopped breathing.
Teresa Salas.
The nurse Helena claimed was watching Daniel at Hospital San Jerónimo.
The same nurse who had cared for Daniel when he was younger.
The same woman who disappeared after Rosa Gómez died.
Valeria moved closer to the screen.
“You’re Teresa?”
The woman looked at her.
“I was.”
“You were Daniel’s nurse.”
“I watched over both of you.”
“You knew Rosa.”
“She saved your life.”
“Where are you now?”
Teresa looked toward the underground train around her.
“On the hospital line.”
“Dr. León has Daniel.”
“I know.”
“You’re going to help him?”
“I am trying.”
Valeria’s anger broke through her fear.
“You disappeared for years.”
“I was ordered to.”
“By whom?”
“Rosa.”
Valeria stared at her.
“My mother told you to leave?”
“She told me the Custodians had found us.”
“Us?”
“You. Daniel. And me.”
Valeria looked toward Isabel.
Her biological ancestor—or mother key—watched the screen with an expression Valeria could not read.
“You knew Teresa was alive,” Valeria said.
Isabel shook her head.
“I knew Subject Three survived the transfer. I did not know what name she used afterward.”
Helena looked at Teresa.
“You gave birth to Mateo.”
Teresa’s face tightened.
“I carried him.”
Alejandro’s voice became dangerous.
“With whose genetic material?”
Teresa did not answer immediately.
Mariana stepped toward the screen.
“He is my son.”
“You raised him.”
“I remember carrying him inside me.”
“You remember a monitored pregnancy created for you.”
Mariana shook her head.
“No.”
“You remember morning sickness in the west bathroom.”
Mariana’s face went pale.
“You remember Alejandro holding your hair while you were sick.”
Alejandro looked at her.
Teresa continued.
“You remember feeling Mateo kick during a concert at Teatro de la Ciudad.”
Tears gathered in Mariana’s eyes.
“You remember eighteen hours of labor.”
“Stop.”
“You remember the doctor placing him against your chest.”
“Stop!”
Mariana struck the screen.
The image flickered but remained.
Teresa’s voice softened.
“Those memories belonged to me.”
Mariana stepped backward as if she had been hit.
Alejandro looked between them.
“What did they do?”
Helena answered quietly.
“Memory transfer through repeated reconstruction.”
Valeria turned toward her.
“You can implant an entire pregnancy?”
“Not the physical experience itself.”
“Then how?”
“Videos. Hormonal treatment. sensory conditioning. Guided hypnosis. Recorded testimony from the original carrier.”
Teresa looked toward Mariana.
“They kept you sedated for three weeks before Mateo’s public birth record was created.”
Mariana touched her stomach.
A faint surgical scar rested beneath the fabric of her black dress.
She had always believed it came from an emergency procedure after delivery.
Now she pressed her hand over it.
“What did they remove?”
Teresa looked away.
Mariana’s voice rose.
“What did they remove from me?”
Helena closed her eyes.
“An artificial uterine implant.”
The elevator became silent.
Alejandro stared at Mariana.
“They made you believe you carried him.”
She looked at him.
Her face broke.
“For four years, I felt him inside me whenever I closed my eyes.”
Alejandro moved toward her.
She stepped away.
“Don’t.”
“Mariana.”
“Do not touch me.”
She looked down at her body.
“They put memories inside me.”
Her voice cracked.
“They made me love a pregnancy that never happened.”
Mateo watched her from behind Valeria.
His eyes filled with tears.
“Mamá.”
Mariana looked at him.
Whatever had been manufactured, whatever had been stolen, the pain in her expression was real.
She dropped to her knees.
Mateo hesitated.
Then he walked toward her.
Mariana opened her arms but did not reach for him.
He stopped in front of her.
“You are still my mother,” he whispered.
Mariana covered her mouth.
Mateo touched her cheek.
“You stayed in my room when I was sick.”
She nodded through tears.
“You sang badly.”
A broken laugh escaped her.
“You always hated that song.”
“I pretended.”
She pulled him into her arms.
Alejandro turned away, fighting his own emotion.
Teresa watched them from the screen.
There was grief in her face.
Not jealousy.
Not anger.
The grief of a woman seeing the child she had carried embrace someone else as his mother.
Valeria saw it.
“You gave birth to him,” she said.
Teresa looked at her.
“Yes.”
“But you don’t want to take him from Mariana.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because carrying a child does not automatically make someone capable of raising him.”
Valeria thought of Daniel.
Blood did not decide everything.
Teresa continued.
“I carried Mateo because Rafael forced me. Mariana became his mother because she chose him every day.”
Mariana lifted her eyes toward the screen.
“Why did they choose you?”
Teresa’s expression hardened.
“Because I was compatible.”
“With whom?” Alejandro asked.
Teresa looked at him.
“With you.”
Alejandro’s jaw tightened.
“So Mateo is biologically mine.”
“Yes.”
“And his biological mother?”
Teresa hesitated.
“Not exactly.”
Valeria frowned.
“You just said you gave birth to him.”
“I was the carrier.”
“Whose egg was used?”
Teresa looked toward Isabel.
The older woman’s face changed.
“No,” Isabel whispered.
Teresa nodded.
“Mateo was created from Alejandro’s genetic material and Isabel’s maternal line.”
Alejandro stared at Isabel.
“That would make—”
Helena completed the thought.
“Mateo genetically connected to Valeria and Eva.”
Valeria looked toward the boy.
The relationships had become impossible to describe.
Sibling.
Cousin.
Descendant.
Manufactured heir.
Every label seemed inadequate.
Rafael had not created a family tree.
He had built a cage from blood.
Alejandro faced Teresa again.
“Why combine my genes with Isabel’s line?”
“To make Mateo compatible with Eden.”
“The system recognized his hand.”
“Yes.”
“He was built to open the crown chamber.”
“Yes.”
Alejandro looked down at his son.
His face turned cold.
“My father designed him before I ever met Mariana.”
“Before you met any version of Elena.”
“How long was Mateo planned?”
“Twenty-one years.”
Alejandro laughed bitterly.
“My son was planned before I was old enough to understand what marriage was.”
Teresa nodded.
“Rafael wanted an heir who could unlock both the Ríos and Eden systems.”
“And Luna?”
“A backup pair.”
Luna looked up from beside Isabel.
Teresa continued.
“Mateo carried the paternal key. Luna carried the maternal sequence.”
“Then why did the root protocol need both of them?” Helena asked.
“Because Rafael did not trust either bloodline alone.”
Helena’s mouth twisted.
“He trusted nothing.”
“He trusted control.”
The elevator slowed.
Sol’s voice filled the chamber.
“Transport level reached.”
The doors opened.
A vast underground station stretched before them.
Three black trains waited on parallel tracks.
One route led to the surface facility.
One led toward the sleeping chambers.
The third was marked:
SAN JERÓNIMO MEDICAL LINE
The train containing Teresa was still moving toward them from the opposite direction.
Estimated arrival: four minutes.
The hospital itself was ninety-three kilometers away.
Valeria stepped onto the platform.
“Sol, can this train reach Daniel before Dr. León harms him?”
“Estimated travel time: fourteen minutes.”
“He may not have fourteen minutes.”
“Alternate route available.”
A section of the map illuminated.
A narrow high-speed capsule tunnel.
“Travel time: six minutes and twelve seconds.”
“How many passengers?”
“Two.”
Valeria turned toward Alejandro.
“I’m going.”
“So am I.”
“No.”
“You are not facing León alone.”
“Mateo needs you here.”
Mariana rose, still holding the boy’s hand.
“He can stay with me.”
Alejandro looked at her.
She looked exhausted.
Wounded.
Emotionally shattered.
But the way Mateo held her hand was unmistakable.
He trusted her.
Valeria shook her head.
“Alejandro, Eden is full of thousands of children, wounded soldiers, Custodians, and Rafael.”
“Rafael is restrained.”
Everyone looked toward the elevator.
Esteban should have been guarding Rafael and Santiago on the upper platform.
But the descending elevator had separated them.
Valeria turned toward Sol’s console.
“Show upper station.”
The feed appeared.
The platform was empty.
Rafael was gone.
Santiago was gone.
Esteban lay unconscious beside the transport.
Blood stained the floor.
Alejandro swore.
“Where did they go?”
Sol answered.
“Founder Rafael accessed maintenance route twelve.”
“I suspended his authority.”
“Biometric override used.”
“Whose?”
A photograph appeared.
Santiago had pressed Esteban’s bleeding hand against the scanner.
Security authority.
Alejandro’s face darkened.
“They used him.”
“Maintenance route twelve destination?” Helena asked.
The map expanded.
The route led deeper into Eden.
Toward the central tower.
Isabel looked at it.
“The memory vault.”
Rafael was going after the stored identities.
The data used to create replacements.
The recordings that could rebuild dead people inside new bodies.
Helena turned toward Alejandro.
“You must stop him.”
Valeria looked at the hospital route.
“And Daniel is dying.”
Alejandro faced her.
“We split up.”
“No.”
“We do not have another choice.”
He pointed toward Mariana and Helena.
“They take Mateo, Luna, and Eva toward the medical center. Isabel helps Sol stabilize the sleeping chambers.”
Isabel nodded.
“Camila remains with Gabriel.”
“Renata and the liberated soldiers hold the station.”
Helena looked at him.
“And you?”
“I go after Rafael.”
Valeria stared at him.
“Alone?”
“Esteban may still be alive.”
“That is not an answer.”
Alejandro looked toward the high-speed capsule.
“You take the hospital route.”
“I don’t know what León has waiting.”
“Teresa will arrive in four minutes.”
“We don’t know whether we can trust her.”
Teresa answered through the screen.
“You cannot.”
Everyone looked at her.
Valeria frowned.
“What?”
“You should not trust me.”
“Why would you say that?”
Teresa touched the side of her neck.
A thin metal line became visible beneath her skin.
“A Custodian command implant.”
Mariana’s face tightened.
“They can control you.”
“They controlled me once.”
“Can they do it again?”
“Yes.”
“Then why are you heading toward us?”
“Because I believe I can resist long enough to help Daniel.”
Valeria looked at the capsule.
Six minutes to the hospital.
Four minutes waiting for Teresa.
There was no time.
“I leave now.”
Alejandro stepped closer.
“Take Eva.”
Eva stared at him.
Valeria shook her head.
“She is a child.”
“She is also the second daughter key. The hospital line may require both of you.”
“No.”
Eva moved toward them.
“I’m going.”
Valeria faced her.
“You just escaped Rafael.”
“And Daniel may know who I am.”
“He has never met you.”
“He may remember me.”
Valeria’s expression changed.
“Why?”
Eva looked toward the hospital feed.
“Rafael said I was incomplete because I had none of your memories after age six.”
She touched her temple.
“But I have memories of Daniel.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“I remember him as a baby.”
Valeria froze.
She had no conscious memories of Daniel’s infancy.
Rosa had told her that trauma from the highway accident erased the first months.
Eva continued.
“I remember holding him.”
“How?”
“They gave me memories removed from you.”
Valeria’s chest tightened.
Rafael had not merely copied her memories into Eva.
He had transferred pieces Valeria herself no longer possessed.
Eva may have been carrying Valeria’s stolen childhood.
“I remember Rosa singing to him,” Eva whispered.
“I remember the blue blanket.”
Valeria saw another flash.
Rain.
A drainage ditch.
A baby crying.
Her own small hands holding him beneath a coat.
She nearly collapsed.
Eva reached for her.
The moment their hands touched, the memory sharpened.
Rosa pulling them from the ditch.
Rosa carrying the baby.
Valeria screaming because armed men were searching the highway.
A woman lying beside an overturned car.
Isabel.
No.
The woman looked younger.
Teresa.
Blood covering her white nurse’s uniform.
Teresa was the woman who had escaped with them.
Not their biological mother.
Not merely a nurse.
She had rescued them from Eden.
The vision ended.
Valeria looked at Eva.
“You remember the same thing.”
Eva nodded.
“We were together.”
“Before Rosa found us?”
“Yes.”
“You were beside me.”
Eva’s eyes filled with tears.
“I think I was the other girl in the red room.”
Valeria had always assumed the crying girl in her memories was herself.
Perhaps there had been two children.
One escaped.
One remained.
Valeria took Eva’s hand.
“You’re coming.”
Alejandro looked toward the capsule.
“I will take you both to the launch chamber.”
Helena moved toward Mateo.
“We need to leave.”
The boy refused to move.
He stared at Teresa’s approaching train on the screen.
“She’s lying.”
Everyone turned toward him.
Mariana crouched beside him.
“About what?”
Mateo pointed toward Teresa.
“She says she was in the car.”
Teresa’s expression changed.
Valeria moved closer to the screen.
“She rescued us.”
Mateo shook his head.
“She was there when my mother died.”
Alejandro stared at him.
“You remember Teresa from the ambush?”
“Yes.”
“What was she doing?”
Mateo pressed his fingers together as though holding something small.
Then he pointed toward his own neck.
A syringe.
Valeria’s stomach tightened.
Teresa spoke quickly.
“I was trying to sedate him before the shooting.”
Mariana’s eyes darkened.
“Why?”
“To stop his panic response.”
“Before the attack began?”
Teresa went silent.
That silence answered them.
Alejandro stepped toward the screen.
“You knew the attack was coming.”
“I knew we were being followed.”
“You injected my son before the first shot.”
“I was trying to keep him from remembering.”
“Why?”
Teresa’s face filled with guilt.
“Because he had seen me replace the driver.”
Alejandro stopped.
“What happened to the original driver?”
“He was dead.”
“Who killed him?”
“I did.”
Mariana aimed her weapon at the screen as if Teresa stood before her.
“You put Mateo in that car knowing it would be attacked.”
“I was trying to get him out of the country.”
“With Luciana?”
“Yes.”
“Why was Luciana wearing my face?”
“To make the Custodians follow the wrong woman.”
Alejandro’s voice became low.
“And you?”
“I hid beneath the rear compartment.”
Mateo covered his ears.
The memories were returning.
Valeria knelt beside him.
“You don’t have to tell us more.”
He looked at her.
“She left.”
Teresa began crying on the screen.
“Mateo—”
“You left me in the car.”
“I went for help.”
“You ran.”
“The attackers were coming.”
“You ran.”
His voice cracked.
The accusation was not about strategy.
It was about a four-year-old boy abandoned beside his dying mother.
Teresa closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
Alejandro’s hand curled into a fist.
“You left my son.”
“I thought he was dead.”
“You did not check.”
“If I had returned, we both would have died.”
“You do not know that.”
“No.”
Teresa wiped tears from her face.
“I chose to live.”
Mateo stared at her.
“And then you watched me?”
She nodded.
“From the hospital. Through Socorro. Through the house cameras when I could access them.”
“You never came.”
“I was afraid.”
Mateo stepped backward.
Mariana pulled him against her.
Teresa looked toward Valeria.
“I saved you once. I failed him.”
The honesty did not erase the betrayal.
But it made the truth harder to simplify.
Valeria studied Teresa’s train location.
Three minutes away.
“Is Dr. León expecting you?”
“Yes.”
“Does he know you escaped Custodian control?”
“No.”
“Then you can get inside the hospital.”
“If my implant does not reactivate.”
Valeria looked at Eva.
The girl nodded.
They had to take the risk.
“Meet us beneath San Jerónimo.”
Alejandro caught Valeria’s arm.
“When you reach Daniel, do not negotiate.”
“What should I do?”
“Make León believe you will give him Eden.”
“I won’t.”
“He doesn’t need to know that.”
Valeria studied him.
“You lie very easily.”
“It kept me alive.”
“It also created half your problems.”
A faint smile touched his mouth.
“Then use only enough to survive.”
He released her arm.
Valeria looked toward Mateo.
The boy left Mariana and walked to her.
He wrapped his arms around Valeria’s waist.
“Come back.”
She closed her eyes.
She would not make the same promise everyone else had broken.
“Help me come back,” she said.
Mateo understood.
He placed the red toy car in her hand.
The one missing a wheel.
“You forgot this in the tunnel,” he whispered.
Valeria closed her fingers around it.
“I’ll return it.”
“That’s a promise.”
She looked at him.
“Yes.”
This one she made.
Valeria and Eva entered the high-speed capsule.
Alejandro sealed the outer door.
The transparent pod contained two seats and a narrow control display.
No driver.
No space to turn around.
The hospital route illuminated beneath them.
Six minutes and twelve seconds.
Eva strapped herself into the second seat.
Valeria held the toy car against her chest.
Sol’s voice entered the pod.
“Destination: Hospital San Jerónimo.”
The capsule accelerated.
The force pushed them into their seats.
Eden became a streak of white light behind them.
Valeria watched the countdown.
Five minutes and forty-eight seconds.
Eva looked at her.
“Are you afraid Daniel will see you differently?”
Valeria did not answer.
Eva continued.
“If Isabel is right.”
“He is my brother.”
“I know.”
“He called me his sister.”
“Yes.”
“That is what matters.”
Eva nodded.
But she did not look convinced.
Valeria studied her.
“What are you afraid of?”
“That when you remember everything, you won’t need me.”
Valeria’s expression softened.
“I don’t need you now.”
Eva looked hurt.
Valeria reached for her hand.
“But I chose to bring you.”
Eva stared at their joined hands.
The answer was not comforting in the usual way.
It was better.
Honest.
A warning light appeared on the capsule display.
UNAUTHORIZED SYSTEM ACCESS
Sol’s voice distorted.
“External command entering transport.”
Valeria sat upright.
“From where?”
“Hospital control node.”
The capsule accelerated.
The timer dropped rapidly.
Four minutes.
Three minutes.
Eva looked toward the tunnel ahead.
“They are pulling us faster.”
“Can you stop it?”
“Transport braking authority denied.”
The speed continued climbing.
Metal screamed beneath the capsule.
Valeria pressed both hands against the console.
“Sol, disconnect hospital control.”
“Attempting.”
A male voice entered the pod.
Dr. León.
“Valeria, thank you for choosing the direct route.”
The wall ahead changed on the map.
A section of tunnel no longer led beneath the hospital.
It had been redirected toward a closed terminal.
Valeria stared at the route.
“Where are you taking us?”
León laughed softly.
“To the maternity ward where Daniel was born.”
Eva’s face went pale.
“That facility was destroyed.”
“No,” León said. “It was hidden.”
The timer reached ninety seconds.
The capsule accelerated beyond safe limits.
Emergency restraints locked across their chests.
Valeria looked at Eva.
“Can you access your old commands?”
“I rejected them.”
“You rejected your identity, not your knowledge.”
Eva closed her eyes.
She placed both hands against the console.
“Genesis transport authority.”
The system answered.
“Genesis authority revoked.”
Dr. León’s voice returned.
“You chose to become Eva.”
The word sounded like an insult in his mouth.
“You surrendered every privilege attached to Subject Six-B.”
Eva’s jaw tightened.
Valeria remembered the root protocol.
Names were not only labels.
They were choices.
“Sol,” she said, “recognize Eva as a new root.”
“Request requires network synchronization.”
“We don’t have time.”
The closed terminal appeared ahead.
A solid steel barrier blocked the track.
Impact in forty-five seconds.
Valeria looked at Eva.
“You chose your name.”
“Yes.”
“Now choose what it means.”
Eva pressed her palm against the console.
“My name is Eva.”
No response.
She spoke louder.
“I am not Genesis.”
The capsule shook.
“I am not Subject Six-B.”
The warning alarm screamed.
Twenty-five seconds.
Eva closed her eyes.
“I am the girl who survived the transport crash.”
A white circle appeared beneath her hand.
“I am the girl who lowered the knife.”
The console began to glow.
“I am the girl who chose not to become Valeria.”
Ten seconds.
“I am Eva.”
Sol’s voice broke through the interference.
“New root accepted.”
Eva opened her eyes.
“Emergency stop.”
The capsule brakes engaged.
The force slammed them forward against their restraints.
Sparks exploded around the pod.
The steel barrier rushed toward them.
Five seconds.
Four.
Three.
The capsule turned sideways.
Metal tore from its exterior.
Valeria grabbed Eva’s hand.
The pod crashed through the barrier.
Darkness swallowed them.
Then everything stopped.
For several seconds, Valeria heard only her own breathing.
Smoke filled the capsule.
A crack ran across the transparent door.
Eva lifted her head.
Blood marked her forehead.
“Are you alive?”
Valeria moved her arms and legs.
“Yes.”
The capsule door opened with a hiss.
Cold air entered.
They unfastened the restraints and climbed out.
They had entered an abandoned underground medical platform.
Faded signs hung from the walls.
MATERNAL RESEARCH WING
Old hospital beds lined the corridor.
Dust covered the equipment.
But fresh footprints crossed the floor.
Dr. León had expected them.
Valeria took a metal instrument from an emergency cabinet.
Eva picked up a broken piece of the capsule frame.
They moved through the corridor.
A baby began crying somewhere ahead.
Valeria stopped.
The sound pulled at something inside her memory.
The blue blanket.
Rosa.
Rain.
A newborn Daniel.
The crying continued.
Eva touched her arm.
“It is a recording.”
“How do you know?”
“It repeats every thirteen seconds.”
They followed the sound to a glass observation room.
A speaker rested inside an empty crib.
Beside it was a monitor.
Dr. León appeared on the screen.
Daniel lay unconscious behind him.
Teresa stood beside the bed.
Her hands were tied.
She had reached the hospital before them.
And failed.
León smiled.
“Welcome back to the room where your family began.”
Valeria struck the glass.
“Let Daniel go.”
“He is stable.”
“You put something into his intravenous line.”
“A sedative.”
“Show me his heart monitor.”
The camera shifted.
Daniel’s heartbeat appeared.
Weak.
But steady.
Valeria exhaled.
“What do you want?”
“You know what I want.”
“Full Eden authority.”
“Yes.”
“I cannot transfer it remotely.”
“I know.”
A door opened at the end of the observation room.
A lit corridor waited beyond.
León looked into the camera.
“Follow the red line.”
A red strip illuminated along the floor.
Eva shook her head.
“It is a trap.”
Valeria stared at Daniel.
“He knows I’ll follow.”
“Then surprise him.”
“How?”
Eva looked toward the hospital map.
“The maternity wing has two entrances.”
Valeria saw the second route.
A surgical service tunnel.
“You follow the red line,” Eva said.
“And you take the service route.”
“He knows we are together.”
“Not for long.”
Valeria caught her wrist.
“No. We stay together.”
“If we stay together, he controls both keys.”
“You are not sacrificing yourself.”
Eva looked at her.
“You went into the mansion because Daniel needed surgery.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
“You don’t even know him.”
“I know you.”
Valeria stopped.
Eva continued.
“You said family is who we choose.”
“Yes.”
“Then let me choose.”
Valeria’s throat tightened.
She released Eva’s wrist.
“Do not confront León alone.”
“I won’t.”
“Find Teresa.”
Eva nodded.
Valeria followed the red line.
Eva disappeared into the surgical corridor.
The maternity wing lights activated one row at a time as Valeria walked.
Her footsteps echoed.
Old photographs covered the walls.
Pregnant women.
Newborn babies.
Doctors in white coats.
Many faces had been scratched out.
At the end of the corridor stood a red door.
Valeria touched the scar behind her ear.
The pain returned.
The original red room.
She opened it.
Inside was a chair sized for a child.
Leather restraints hung from its arms.
A camera faced it.
Rafael’s voice played through a hidden speaker.
“You are the key.”
Valeria stepped inside.
The door locked behind her.
The walls became screens.
Memories appeared across them.
Valeria as a child.
Eva beside her.
Rosa carrying Daniel.
Teresa giving birth to Mateo.
Mariana waking after the false pregnancy.
Camila screaming as Gabriel was taken.
Helena signing the first program contract.
Isabel strapped inside a suspension chamber.
Alejandro holding a pistol at thirteen.
Every stolen life.
Every manufactured relationship.
Every lie.
Then one final image appeared.
A laboratory record.
SUBJECT SIX MATERNAL EXTRACTION
Below it was Valeria’s childhood photograph.
Beside it was Daniel’s embryo record.
But another file rested underneath.
SECOND EMBRYO: VIABLE
Valeria stared at it.
Daniel had not been the only child created from her cells.
The screen changed.
A teenage boy appeared.
Black hair.
Dark eyes.
A hospital uniform.
He stood behind Dr. León beside Daniel’s bed.
Valeria had never seen him before.
León entered the red room through a hidden door.
He carried a pistol.
“You always wondered why Rafael called Eva your sister.”
Valeria looked toward the boy on the screen.
“Who is he?”
León smiled.
“Daniel’s twin.”
Valeria’s chest tightened.
“Where has he been?”
“Raised by the Custodians.”
“What is his name?”
The teenage boy entered the room behind León.
He looked at Valeria without emotion.
A number was tattooed behind his ear.
Dr. León placed one hand on his shoulder.
“We call him Cain.”
Valeria looked into the boy’s eyes.
She saw nothing familiar.
No recognition.
No warmth.
Then Cain raised a pistol and aimed it at her heart.
León smiled.
“One child learned to love you as a sister.”
May you like
He nodded toward Cain.
“The other was raised to kill you as his mother.”
