The Confrontation Call

Sarah knelt at the edge of the trapdoor, the wood rough against her palms. Below, Mrs. Gable—Agnes—was huddled on a dirty mattress, her face a pale moon in the darkness. She wasn't bound, but she wasn't moving. The air coming up from the hole was thick with the smell of mold and despair.

"Agnes," Sarah said, extending a hand. "Take it. We have to go."

Agnes stared at the hand as if it were a weapon. "He'll hear you."

"Who?"

"The boy. The one Elena made."

Sarah glanced at the nail on the wall. *Subject 0.* The prototype.

"He's not here," Sarah said, though her skin prickled with the feeling of being watched. "It's just us. Me and Maya."

Agnes shook her head. "He's always here. He lives in the walls. He watches the road."

"Agnes," Sarah said, her voice sharpening. "We found the timeline. We know about the triplets. We know about Julian."

The name acted like a physical blow. Agnes flinched, curling tighter into herself.

"Julian was the lucky one," she whispered. "He got to die."

Sarah looked at Maya. Her daughter was standing by the window, the tire iron gripped in both hands, watching the driveway. The silence of the house was oppressive, heavy with the weight of thirty years of rehearsal.

"We don't have time for this," Maya said. "Mom, if Elena isn't in Vermont, she's sending someone who is."

Sarah leaned further into the hole. "Agnes. I have a car. I can take you away from here. But you have to move now."

Agnes looked up. For a moment, the fear in her eyes was replaced by something else. Recognition.

"You have his eyes," she said. "Thomas."

"Yes," Sarah said. "I'm his daughter. The real one."

Agnes reached up. Her hand was cold, her grip surprisingly strong. Sarah hauled her out of the hole, the old woman gasping as she scrambled onto the rug. She was thin, frail, wearing a nightgown that looked like it hadn't been washed in weeks.

"Thank you," Agnes wept. "Thank you."

"Save it," Sarah said. "We need to get to the car."

They moved toward the kitchen. But as they passed the hallway phone—a landline, mounted on the wall like a relic—it rang.

The sound was shrill, shocking in the quiet house.

*Ring.*

Sarah stopped.

*Ring.*

"Don't answer it," Maya said.

"It's him," Agnes whispered. "He checks in. Every hour."

Sarah stared at the phone. If she didn't answer, he would know something was wrong. He would come.

But if she did answer...

She walked over to the phone. She picked up the receiver.

"Hello?"

Silence. Then, a voice. Not a man's voice. A woman's. But not Elena's.

"Is it done?"

It was Chloe.

Sarah’s breath caught. "Chloe?"

There was a pause. A sharp intake of breath on the other end.

"Who is this?" Chloe asked.

"It's Sarah."

"Sarah? How are you... you're supposed to be in Connecticut."

"I'm at the cottage," Sarah said. "I found the basement. I found Agnes."

"Get out," Chloe said, her voice rising in panic. "Get out now. Mom is on her way. She tracked the burner."

"We ditched the burner," Sarah said. "She's tracking a decoy."

"No," Chloe said. "She's tracking *you*. The key fob. The one Julian gave you."

Sarah froze. She reached into her pocket. The fob. The one that opened the service gate.

"It has a tracker?"

"It has a microphone," Chloe said. "She heard everything. She heard you talking to Robert. She heard you talking to Caleb. She knows you found the diary. She knows everything."

Sarah looked at the fob in her hand. It was sleek, black, innocent. A bug.

"Where is she?" Sarah asked.

"She's five minutes out," Chloe said. "And Sarah... she's not alone. She brought the fixer."

The line went dead.

Sarah dropped the phone. She looked at Maya. She looked at Agnes.

"Run," she said.

They burst out the back door, stumbling into the twilight. The Honda was parked by the garage, a beacon of escape. But as Sarah reached for the door handle, a shot rang out.

Dirt exploded near her foot.

She spun around.

A black SUV was blocking the driveway. The window was down. A man was leaning out, a rifle in his hand.

It wasn't the fixer.

It was Julian. The man she knew as Julian. Caleb.

But his eyes were dead. Empty.

"Get back in the house," he shouted. "Now!"

"Caleb!" Sarah screamed. "It's me! We're on the same side!"

"I don't have a side," he yelled, racking the slide. "I have a contract."

He fired again. The back window of the Honda shattered, glass spraying over the backseat where Maya would have been sitting.

Sarah grabbed Maya and Agnes and shoved them back toward the house. They scrambled onto the porch, diving through the door just as a third shot splintered the frame.

Sarah slammed the deadbolt home. She dragged the kitchen table in front of the door.

"He's shooting at us," Maya cried, huddled on the floor. "Why is he shooting at us?"

"Because he's not Caleb," Agnes whispered from the corner. "That's not the boy from the island."

Sarah looked at her. "What?"

"That's Subject 0," Agnes said. "The first one. The one she kept."

Sarah crawled to the window. She peered through the crack in the blinds.

The man getting out of the SUV looked like Julian. He moved like Julian.

But he had a scar on his neck. Not a star. A line. A surgical scar.

"He's a clone," Sarah whispered.

It wasn't just a donor baby. It wasn't just triplets.

Elena hadn't stopped with nature. She had gone to Zurich for more than just bone marrow.

"We're trapped," Maya said.

"No," Sarah said, looking at the trapdoor in the living room. "We have a way out."

She ran to the living room and threw open the rug. The trapdoor was still open.

"Down," she said. "Into the tunnel."

"It doesn't lead out," Agnes said, shaking her head. "It leads deeper."

"Deeper to where?"

"To the lab," Agnes said. "To the place where she made them."

Sarah looked at the dark hole. It was a tomb. Or a bunker.

"It's better than here," Sarah said.

She ushered them down the ladder. As she descended, she heard the front door splinter.

She pulled the trapdoor shut and bolted it from the inside.

They were in darkness. The air was cold, chemical.

Sarah turned on her flashlight.

They were in a long concrete corridor. Metal doors lined the walls.

*Incubator 1.* *Incubator 2.* *Incubator 3.*

And at the end of the hall, a heavy steel door with a biohazard sign.

Sarah walked toward it. She tried the handle. Unlocked.

She pushed it open.

The room was illuminated by the blue glow of computer servers. Banks of them. Humming.

And in the center of the room, sitting in a chair, facing the door, was a man.

He was old. His hair was white. He was hooked up to an IV drip.

But he was smiling.

"Hello, Sarah," Thomas Jenkins said. "I've been waiting for you."