CHAPTER 122: QUIT TRYING

Modi moved swiftly to his office, the heels of his polished shoes thudding softly against the pristine tiled floors as he made his way through the winding corridors of the council building.

The atmosphere was charged with tension, a weight that pressed down on the walls and echoed in the hollow silence of the hallways. He reached the office and shut the door behind him with a firm push before settling into the leather chair behind his desk. The phone on the table was already vibrating when he grabbed it, and he did not waste time before pressing it to his ear.

The voice of his friend from the special forces branch of the military came through with a hushed urgency. The words were crisp and grave. Agents had already been dispatched. They were on their way to the council building with a search warrant, and not just that—the agents carried with them an official directive to shut down the entire council’s operations. The reason given was pending investigations into suspicious and possibly illicit activities. It was no longer speculation. It was real. It was happening.

Modi thanked his friend with a brief but sincere note of gratitude, his tone clipped with both panic and resolve, then ended the call. He dropped the phone and stood immediately, not wasting another breath. There was no time for deliberation or strategies. Action had to be swift.

He marched out of his office and began moving with determined strides to the more covert sectors of the council building. These were the hidden wings where the council’s most questionable and sensitive experiments were being conducted—projects buried deep in secrecy, some never even logged officially.

He entered the first lab and barked at the lead technician to shut everything down. "Power off the servers. Retrieve all existing data, wipe any logs that reference external funding, and pack up the sensitive samples." There was no room for questions. The urgency in his voice said it all. One after the other, he moved from lab to lab, repeating the same instructions. In one section, scientists were working on gene splicing. In another, there were neural experiments involving the use of psychic inhibitors. He told them all to disappear or prepare for investigation. Chaos rippled silently across the hidden corridors as people began to understand what was unfolding.

Meanwhile, back in the holding cell, Lucian scoured every corner for something he could use to tie Salvador up. He couldn’t find a rope. His eyes darted around desperately until they landed on the sheets covering the bed. He yanked one off and began folding it quickly, methodically. He twisted it over itself, again and again, forming a thin makeshift rope.

He was only a few seconds away from achieving what he wanted when he heard a sudden movement behind him. He turned around just in time to see Salvador sit bolt upright from where he had previously lain unconscious. It was a jarring sight. The way he moved was not natural. It looked as though an invisible force had pulled him up sharply, like a puppet on taut strings. His head snapped forward, and his eyes opened wide. There was something wrong with them—something deeply unnatural.

Serena, who had been quietly watching from the opposite end of the room, narrowed her eyes as she studied him. His eyes were not the familiar brown they had been earlier. Now they were a deep, bloody red, and thin vein-like threads had spread around and inside them. They bulged and pulsed unnaturally, giving him a ghoulish, hollow appearance. He looked like a man possessed, and not just possessed, but aged—drastically so. In the short time since he lost consciousness, it appeared as though he had aged at least a decade. The lines on his face were deeper, his cheeks more sunken, and his posture suggested exhaustion on a bone-deep level.

What unnerved Serena the most, however, was not just how he looked—it was the way he was staring at her. His gaze was fixed, unrelenting, and filled with an eerie intensity. He was not simply looking at her. He was absorbing her presence with the focus of someone who had waited a lifetime for this very moment. There was no confusion in his expression, no curiosity—only recognition. Unsettling, absolute recognition.

Lucian stopped what he was doing and moved to stand beside Serena. He didn’t like the way the man was looking at her. It made his skin crawl, made something inside him surge with territorial protectiveness. Yet Salvador did not seem bothered by Lucian’s presence. He kept his burning red eyes locked on Serena as if Lucian did not exist.

Finally, Salvador spoke. His voice was low and hoarse, tinged with a weariness that felt ancient. "We were supposed to be together. To end up together. But you chose a stranger over me."

His words were familiar and unsettling, but they stoked a fire in Serena’s chest. Her brows furrowed deeply, and her voice rose in frustration and disbelief.

"First of all, I did not choose anybody," she said, each word sharp and deliberate. "I was on my own, living a quiet life that I enjoyed—until you people came and matched me to him. Second, who the hell gave you the idea that we were supposed to end up together? I don’t even know who you are."

Salvador’s face twisted in sadness, and a soft sound escaped him—half sigh, half whisper. "You know me, Leah," he said. "You know me like the back of your palm."

Serena’s chest tightened with fury. "My name is Serena, not Leah," she snapped, her voice rising sharply.

"You’re Leah," he insisted, his tone never shifting from that eerie, calm certainty. "And I brought you back, just like I promised I would. I can make you remember who you are. But I’m very weak and dizzy now. You have to come to me, and then you’ll remember everything."

Serena recoiled at his words, her face contorting with anger and defiance. "I am fine where I am. I don’t want to remember anything that should have stayed buried in the past," she retorted, folding her arms across her chest like a shield.

Salvador’s lips curled into a low chuckle. The sound was hollow, echoing strangely in the cell. "You’re fine with him?" he said, gesturing with his chin toward Lucian, the amusement in his voice curdling into disdain. "He’s just a loser, Leah. An experiment I used to bring our child back. An experiment that I am going to kill very soon."

Serena’s confidence faltered slightly. His words carried a threat, but more than that, they dripped with something far more dangerous—certainty. Still, she kept her voice steady.

"You’re the one who’s weak and dizzy and sitting on the floor," she countered. "Yet you’re bragging about killing someone who’s standing tall and alert. In the position you’re in right now, even I can kill you easily."

That only made Salvador laugh harder. His shoulders shook with the force of it, and the sound filled the room like a malevolent echo. "You underestimate me, Leah," he said once the laughter had died down. "The process has already been set in motion. I am the only one who can reverse it."

The statement sent a jolt through Serena’s chest. Her heart began to pound as she narrowed her eyes. "What are you talking about?" she asked.

Salvador tilted his head, his voice calm and confident. "Before you arrived, I already gave him something that will kill him once he completes the job. So even if I don’t move from this spot for the next year, it will not stop him from dying in three days. But I can tell you how to reverse it—if you come closer."

Serena’s head whipped toward Lucian. Panic swirled in her eyes, her mind spiraling with the implications of what Salvador had just said. "Is that true? Did he give you anything before I arrived?" she asked urgently.

Lucian’s eyes never left Salvador as he responded. "Don’t listen to him. He’s bluffing. I remember everything. He didn’t give me anything."

Salvador turned his attention to Lucian now. "Are you sure you remember everything?" he asked, a sinister smile spreading slowly across his lips.

Lucian clenched his fists and stepped forward, his voice brimming with warning. "Quit trying to get her to come to you. Not everyone is as stupid as you are. She’s not falling for your trap. And I swear, if you try to move even an inch closer to her, I’ll make sure you don’t see the light of another day."

They stared at each other, unblinking, their hostility radiating like a physical force. For a few moments, neither of them spoke. The tension thickened and wrapped around the air like a vice.

Then, a sound broke the silence—the sound of someone attempting to unlock the door from the outside. Lucian immediately turned, his full attention now focused on the door, his body still alert and positioned defensively beside Serena.