The county arranged to transfer my little sister and me to a new foster family, but the address on the placement order made my hands go cold

We ran until the tunnel ended in a concrete bunker hidden beneath a thicket of overgrown briars. It was a cold, rainy night in the countryside, but the adrenaline kept the shivering at bay.

“Where do we go?” Lena asked, wiping dirt from her face. Her rabbit was gone, left behind in the basement. She looked older, her eyes harder than they had been an hour ago.

“Jonah,” I said, pulling out the small, waterproof burner phone he’d insisted I keep in my shoe. “He’s the only one who knows the truth.”

I dialed the number, praying it was still active. It rang once, twice, three times.

“Maya?” Jonah’s voice was strained, thick with sleep and alarm. “Where are you?”

“We’re out,” I breathed, looking back at the dark silhouette of the Vale estate looming on the horizon. “But they’re coming for us, Jonah. They aren't just foster parents. They’re... they’re the people who created us.”

“Get off the road,” he commanded. “There’s a gas station four miles south of the Halcyon junction. Stay in the tree line. Do not—I repeat, do not—go near the main road. I have someone coming for you.”

We moved through the woods, the underbrush tearing at our clothes. Every snap of a twig sounded like a gunshot. The blue light from Lena’s wrist was a beacon, so I used her long-sleeve sweater to wrap it, hiding the glow.

As we walked, Lena began to change. She wasn't just tired; she was reciting things. Technical schematics, security bypass codes, dates and times of the original Halcyon experiments.

“Lena, stop,” I said, grabbing her shoulders.

She looked at me, her eyes unfocused. “The recovery protocol, Maya. It’s not just a tracker. It’s an instruction manual. My brain... it’s downloading a map of the entire region. I know where they are. I know where the others are.”

The realization hit me: we weren't just the subjects; we were the network. If they captured us again, they wouldn’t just have two runaways—they’d have the key to every lost, "preserved" child from that facility.

We reached the outskirts of the town near the gas station. A black sedan sat idling by the pump. As we approached, the door opened. It wasn’t Jonah. It was a man I’d never seen before, wearing a tactical vest.

“Maya?” he asked.

“Who are you?” I pulled Lena behind me.

“I work for the same people Jonah does. My name is Kael. Get in. We have five minutes before the Vales reach the perimeter.”

I hesitated, but a flash of headlights appeared in the distance. The Vales were hunting us. I pushed Lena into the back seat and scrambled in.

As we sped away, Kael handed me a tablet. “Everything you saw back there? The files, the labels? It’s all going to change soon. The Vales are part of a shadow coalition that wants to integrate these technologies into the general population. You are the proof of concept.”