Lara and Alia stepped out of the bunkhouse just as the last traces of sunlight slipped beneath the horizon.
Twilight should have claid the island by now.
On any other night, Isla would have sunk into a deep, breathing silence—darkness stretching across the land, broken only by the shrill chorus of cicadas and the restless stirrings of unseen nocturnal creatures in the forest.
But tonight was different.
The island blazed.
Harsh white floodlights cut through the dusk, turning night into sothing artificial, almost sterile. The excavation sites in the northern and western sectors pulsed with activity—machines groaning, voices echoing, shadows moving against the earth like ghosts refusing to rest.
Even from a distance, the energy felt... relentless.
Lara’s gaze drifted instinctively toward the infirmary.
And then—she saw him.
A middle-aged man stepped out, his posture straight despite the dim fatigue in his movents.
Recognition ca instantly.
Artemio Fuegerro,
Since Yannis had shown her that photograph, she had looked into him. It hadn’t taken long—his na carried weight. A decorated general, a man whose face appeared in articles, ceremonies, and comndations. The kind of man history didn’t easily forget.
So Lara knew him, his silhouette, his mannerisms.
What is he doing? There should also be an infirmary in the western and northwestern sector.
Strange.
Lara’s brows drew together.
"Didn’t Ares say he’d pick you up here?"
Alia’s voice broke through her thoughts.
Lara didn’t look at her imdiately. Her eyes remained fixed on the distant figure.
"Maybe he got held up," she said at last, her tone casual, almost absent. "I can just take the motorbike and go back to the northern sector."
Only then did she glance at Alia briefly.
When her gaze returned to the infirmary—
Artemio was gone.
Just like that.
As if he had never been there at all.
Lara’s eyes narrowed, sothing colder settling behind them.
A thought surfaced—sharp, unwelco... and impossible to ignore.
Sothing wasn’t right.
...
That night, long after the island’s artificial lights dimd into a distant hum, Shay had already fallen into a deep, untroubled sleep.
Lara hadn’t.
The faint glow of her laptop illuminated her face in the darkness, casting sharp shadows across her features as she sat by the narrow desk.
She was silent and focused.
With practiced ease, she slipped into another identity—Nyx.
The na flickered across encrypted pathways as she breached Isla’s internal servers, bypassing firewalls like they were little more than cobwebs.
Layers of security unraveled under her command, one after another, until the infirmary’s system opened before her.
Cold. Clinical. Organized.
Lara navigated straight to the CCTV archives.
Footage loaded.
There, she was Liam when he arrived.
She leaned slightly forward, eyes narrowing.
He had entered the infirmary earlier that day, his expression unreadable as always. He spoke with one of the staff mbers for several minutes—low, asured, deliberate.
Then, without hesitation, he handed over two paper envelopes.
Lara paused the video. Her gaze hardened.
What were those?
She resud the footage.
Nothing unusual followed.
Her fingers moved again, pulling up additional recordings, cross-checking tistamps, scanning for inconsistencies.
And then—she found it.
A gap.
Lara’s frown deepened.
The CCTV logs weren’t just incomplete—
They had been edited.
Even earlier that afternoon, there was no record of Artemio leaving the infirmary.
Soone must have tampered with the CCTV.
So parts were erased with precision.
Lara leaned back slightly, her eyes darkening as the realization settled in.
Soone removed him from the system entirely.
Which ant only one thing.
"He’s not working alone..." she murmured under her breath.
He must have an expert hacker on his side. Soone skilled. Soone precise.
Her fingers hovered over the keyboard for only a second before moving again—faster this ti, sharper. She dug deeper into the system, tracing recent uploads, flagged files, hidden directories.
Then—
She found it.
A DNA test record.
Her eyes scanned the nas.
Jane Marcelo.
Carlo Landor.
Lara frowned, unfamiliarity flickering across her face.
Who are they?
The question lingered—but sothing else surfaced alongside it.
A mory.
Liam.
The subtle movent of his hand earlier.
The strand of her hair he had taken—so casually it could have gone unnoticed.
But she had noticed.
Suspicion recognized suspicion.
Her gaze returned to the screen as she opened the result file.
Inconclusive.
Her expression didn’t change—but her fingers stilled.
A note followed:
Recollection of samples required.
Lara exhaled slowly.
"So you’re testing too..." she whispered. She understood that the nas Liam submitted were ant to confuse, to protect the identity of the persons.
Interesting.
She closed the file, her movents precise and thodical as she wiped her digital footprint clean—logs erased, access trails rerouted, traces dissolved into nothing.
Nyx vanished as seamlessly as she had appeared.
The laptop screen went dark.
Silence returned.
For a mont, Lara didn’t move.
Then she reached for her backpack.
From within, she pulled out a paper envelope—thin, unremarkable, but carefully sealed.
Inside— were strands of hair.
Lucas’.
She had taken them earlier, in that brief mont when he pulled her into an embrace.
She opened another envelope and, without hesitation, plucked a few strands of her own hair, placing them inside with quiet precision.
Both envelopes were slipped into a sealed plastic pouch.
Lara reached for her phone.
Her fingers hovered for only a second before typing out the ssage.
There was no hesitation in her eyes now.
Only certainty.
ssage: I’ll have a package delivered to you tomorrow. Run a sibling DNA test.
She hit send.
And in the stillness that followed, the pieces of a much larger truth began—slowly, inevitably—to fall into place.
...
Artemio Fuegerra did not co to the infirmary by chance.
n like him never did anything without purpose.
This afternoon, he had only one.
To see the results.
The sterile air of the infirmary clung to him as he stepped inside, the scent of antiseptic sharp and unforgiving. The fluorescent lights humd faintly overhead, casting everything in a cold, unforgiving glow.
At the far end, a technician looked up—startled.
"General—sir, this area is restricted—"
"I know exactly what this is," Artemio cut in, his voice calm, controlled... but carrying the weight of authority that made refusal difficult. "I need access to the latest DNA report."
The technician hesitated, fingers tightening around the tablet in his hand.
"I’m sorry, sir. Those records are confidential. I can’t release them without—"
"For the island’s security," Artemio interrupted, stepping closer.
The kind of tone that didn’t demand compliance—
It expected it.
A heavy silence stretched between them.
The technician swallowed.
Then, reluctantly, he handed over the file.
Artemio took it without another word.
His eyes dropped to the report.
There was only the page.
Only the result.
Inconclusive. Sample integrity compromised.
Artemio stilled, then he exhaled.
Relief slipped through him, quiet but undeniable.
The tension in his shoulders eased, just slightly.
He lowered the report, his expression already returning to its usual composure.
Unshaken. Untouched.
But behind that calm, a truth remained.
The sample had been altered by his own hand.
Because he had his suspicions.
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