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When they reached room 2B, Zoe unlocked the door, and the second she pushed it over, Jake flung himself out of the room.

"I swear to God, if I had to spend another second in there, I'd lose my damn mind," the pardus said with a grimace, wiping his sleeves as if he'd been doused in dirt.

Zoe threw her arms around him and said, "I'm so glad you're okay." But then she pulled away and pouted. "I'm still mad at you, though."

Jake dragged his hand over the back of his neck and shifted his attention to Elijah. "Oh, so this is Haru?" he asked.

Haru looked at Elijah, too, and asked, "Is this Jake?"

Elijah nodded. "We need to keep moving. If this place is the same as the one that I was held at, the server room should be two floors up from here."

"What if the guard that I sent for comes down?" Zoe then asked as they headed for the elevator.

Elijah used his free hand to take the stun rifle from her and handed it to Jake. "If I tell you to shoot, you shoot. Got it?"

"Uh...yeah," Jake said with a nod.

They reached the elevator, and Zoe pressed the button.

Haru grunted painfully. "I need to sit," he said.

As Haru sunk down, Elijah crouched, still holding onto him. "Do you think August has medical supplies on that plane of his?" he asked Zoe and Jake.

"I'd be surprised if he didn't," the girl said.

"Who's August?" Haru questioned.

"The guy I said was outside with the jeep," the demon answered.

"Is he okay?" Jake asked.

Ignoring Jake, Elijah quietly asked Haru, "What did they do to you?"

"I don't know," Haru mumbled painfully. "They just took me this morning and I woke up with this stupid scar."

The elevator then dinged, and the doors slid open.

"Come on," Elijah said as he helped Haru to his feet.

They all got into the elevator, and once Elijah pressed the button for floor -5, he helped Haru sit down.

"Did they inject you with an anti-healant?" the demon asked.

"I don't know, but it would've worn off by now, right? I've been back hours."

"Do they make you wear silver?"

He shook his head. "They use low-dose surripio now."

"Surripio?" Jake questioned. "That stuff that like...weakens Caeleste so much that they struggle to stay awake?"

Haru nodded. "Only they found a way to keep it from knocking us out. They need us awake and aware to fight, right?" he mumbled.

"That's so awful," Zoe exclaimed, shaking her head. "Can we wrap the wound up?"

"I don't wanna aggravate it," Haru muttered.

"What if it gets infected? I know it's rare for that to happen to a lycan, but it can," Zoe said worriedly.

"Maybe August has some kinda like...fae thing to heal it," Jake suggested. "He seemed to know about plants, so maybe there's an herb or something."

"You made friends with a fae?" Haru asked Elijah, sounding both surprised and as if he couldn't believe it.

"We're not friends," the demon mumbled. "He's just someone I employed."

The elevator dinged once more, and the doors slid open.

"Can you walk?" Elijah asked Haru.

With a grunt and a nod, Haru climbed to his feet with the demon's help. "What about...everyone else?" he then asked as they stepped out of the elevator. "Are we gonna free them, too?"

"Zoe's dads work for the Nosferatu; she's going to tell them where this place is once we're clear," he explained.

One of the doors up ahead opened.

Everyone quickly darted behind the wall.

"He didn't see us, did he?" Jake whispered.

"Shush," Zoe murmured.

Elijah listened to the footsteps of whoever came out of the room, and to his relief, they were heading the other way. He waited until they were gone, and then he led the way through the corridor. There were only two doors, and both rooms had windows. He peered into the first, ensuring that no one saw him, but there weren't any computers inside, only shelves upon shelves of medicine and herbs. There wasn't anyone in there, either, so he led the way towards the other door.

When Elijah leaned his back against the wall, taking cover, the others copied him. He peeked around into the window just enough to see into the room, which was full of computer towers, monitors, and consoles.

This was it.

However, there were three men inside, one at each console. He was going to have to deal with them before he could go searching for his file.

"What are we doing here?" Haru asked.

"I want to find my subject file so that I can find out who and what I am," the demon muttered, trying to work out how he was going to get rid of the people inside.

Haru's face lit up a little. "Can we find mine, too? If we have time."

Guilt struck Elijah again. He already knew Haru's full name and who his family was, but he'd try to make it seem as though he didn't. "We can," he answered. He then took his arm from around Haru and said, "Wait here. I'll deal with the guys inside." He took the stun rifle back from Zoe as well as the guard helmet he'd given her to hold not long ago. If he was going to keep the people inside from sounding the alarm, he needed to make sure that he didn't give them any reason to panic.

Haru looked hesitant. "What if they hurt you?"

"I'll be fine," Elijah said, and then he moved away from the wall and headed for the door.

"Be careful," Zoe whispered.

When he got to the door, he realized that there was a keypad, so he knocked and listened as someone inside got up and approached. The door unlocked and opened, and one of the three men stood in front of him.

"Yes?" he asked.

He had to think fast. Using what he'd heard the staff around the lab he was at say, he replied, "The boss sent me. There's a mandatory security check."

The man tutted irritably, and his two co-workers groaned.

"I'm getting so damn tired of these checks," one of the others said as he stood up, leaving everything on his computer open.

The third man did the same thing, also getting up. "You know, I have a mind to complain. We're trying to work down here, just like all those fancy doctors."

"Where do we have to go? The mess hall again?" the man in front of Elijah asked.

Elijah watched as the other two men approached, and when they were far away enough from their workstations and the panic buttons that sat beneath them, he shot the stun rifle at the man in front of him, and as he fell, Elijah burst forward and grabbed the second man by his throat and shot the third.

The man in his grip choked. "W-what the hell?!"

With an irritated snarl, Elijah snapped his neck, and then he crushed the throat of the stunned man with his boot. He stepped back out of the room, keeping the door open with his foot. "Let's go," he said, holding his arm out towards Haru, whom he moved it around once he reached him. "Find our files," he said to Jake.

The pardus nodded and went over to the left console. "Okay, just give me a few secs."

Elijah helped Haru sit on one of the seats and then watched Jake work. He put the stun rifle down and took off the guard armour; he felt sick wearing it.

"Where...are we going?" Haru then asked with an uncomfortable grunt. "Once we get out of here."

"I haven't decided yet," Elijah answered quietly. "But there are a few places where Lyca Corp. haven't been able to set up. I'm hoping we can get to one of those countries."

Haru smiled a little, but he was getting paler. "Somewhere...with like...fields and stuff. Maybe a big valley."

"That sounds nice," Elijah agreed, smiling a little at him.

"That's new," Haru said with an amused smirk. "You? Smiling?"

Elijah rolled his eyes.

Haru laughed but then winced and grunted, gripping his wound.

The demon frowned worriedly and then scowled at Jake. "Can you hurry up?"

"I'm going as fast as I can," Jake insisted as he typed and clicked.

"Wait, there," Zoe said, pointing to the screen. "Your subject number was 0333, right?" she asked Elijah.

He nodded and moved away from Haru. "Go and find Haru's file," he said as he pulled Jake from the console and shoved him over to one of the others.

"God, you're welcome," the pardus muttered as he and Zoe stood beside Haru.

Ignoring him, Elijah clicked and opened his subject file, and the first thing he saw made him frown in utter confusion.

Subject Number: 0333

Subject Designation: Elijah

Subject Birth Date: Tria Quarteria 27th, 1317

Subject Birth Name: Xaiden Reiner

His name...wasn't Elijah?

Xaiden...Reiner?

Elijah's frown grew thicker as he slowly turned his head to look at Zoe. He heard the jet pilot call her Miss Reiner, and he knew that she was connected to an Ancient...just like he was. She knew True Speech, she knew about The Darkness, and she was a sangdevoro demon, too. And then there were the times he found himself feeling strangely protective of her for reasons he didn't quite understand; in the beginning, he knew that killing her would have been a lot easier than dragging her around and trying to keep her alive, but he chose not to—she was the first person who got in his way who he decided to let live.

His heart started racing. A suffocating concoction of confusion, anxiety, disbelief, dismay, and despair constricted him. Had the answer really been right in front of him all this time? Zoe, her dads.... Were they...his family? And if they were...why hadn't they found him? Zoe's dads worked for the Caeleste government. They had resources upon resources at their disposal; how could they have not found him? How could they have let Lyca Corp. take him? Or....

The demon's heart dropped into his stomach. Had that attack on the black site where he was held been his family trying to liberate him? Had he run away from the people he'd been searching for?

His breaths became harder to take, and his racing heart beat so fast that it started aching.

"Eli?" Haru asked. "Are you okay?"

"Elijah?" came Zoe's voice. She appeared beside him. "What is it?" she questioned and turned her head to look at the screen. "What?" she exclaimed quietly.

"What?" Jake called.

"Eli?" Haru asked again, appearing beside him.

Elijah couldn't take his eyes off the screen; he couldn't stop re-reading what it was telling him. Was this why Lyca Corp. were so desperate to get him back? Not just because he was connected to an Ancient but because he was the son of two very powerful Nosferatu employees?

"Wait...Zoe, that's your birthday," Jake said confusedly. "And...your surname?"

Zoe shook her head, stuttering, "I-I...I don't...." She looked up at Elijah, wide-eyed.

Haru took hold of Elijah's hand. "Eli?"

He snapped out of it and looked at Haru, and then he looked at Zoe.

"Your name isn't Elijah?" Haru asked.

The demon stared at the screen again. It made sense...sort of. He didn't know his name when he arrived at Lyca Corp.; like most of the other kids, he either had to choose a name or be given one by the doctors, but Elijah...that name came to him in whispers and dreams. Voices called it to him, so he just assumed that it was what he was called. But if his real name was Xaiden...why was the name Elijah whispered to him? Why did that red-eyed man call him Elijah?

He slowly turned his head and set his eyes on Zoe. "Is this true?" he asked shakily, skeptically. Was this what she was hiding? Was this why she'd been so hesitant to answer his questions? Had she known this whole time who he really was? Had she suspected it at all?

"I-I don't know," she answered, shaking her head. "I always knew that I had a sibling who was missing, but I assumed they were hundreds of years old like my other two. No one told me anything about them," she insisted.

Elijah knew that she was telling the truth—not only could he tell by her tone and micro-expressions, but he just...felt it. "Have they been looking for me?" he asked, trying to hide his sadness, but it was breaking through his confusion as the reality set in.

Zoe looked like she was thinking...and when realization flickered across her face, she stared up at him. "Every day," she said despondently. "They've been consistently distressed for as long as I can remember."

The demon grabbed the mouse and started scrolling through the rest of his file. There were photographs...and they made him feel sick. An undeveloped foetus growing in a cylinder tube much like the ones he saw the chimaeras inside. He soon understood that he was that foetus because the next few photos showed it growing until it was a baby...and although it looked like him, it wasn't...right. It had black and white hair, split perfectly down the middle of its head; one eye was red, and the other was orange like his own. But in the next photograph, he was a toddler, and he had only white hair and orange eyes.

And then there were pictures of him with his wings and horns. All six of his wings. He'd thought that Lyca Corp. only took one from him, but he was wrong. They were using his wings for something—extracting his DNA and using it to create the chimaeras, which he already knew—but what was their end goal? What were they trying to create?

"So...Zoe is your sister?" Haru asked.

Elijah glanced down at him. She was, wasn't she? Zoe was his sister, and her dads were his dads; they were who Lyca Corp. had taken him from. And the longer he stood there thinking about it, the greater his confoundment became. Once again, he had a million questions, but he knew that Zoe wasn't going to be able to answer them, and the file.... He scrolled through, but it didn't tell him why and how Lyca Corp. had managed to take him from his family. The only people who could tell him the whole story would be his dads, right?

His dads. He did have a family. And they had been looking for him. If only he hadn't run that day. If only he'd let the Nosferatu take him from that lab the same way they'd taken all those other kids...then maybe he'd be with them right now. Maybe he could have rescued Haru sooner. Maybe he'd have all the answers already.

"I should call them as soon as I can," Zoe said, breaking the silence.

"Speaking of as soon as, shouldn't we be getting out of here?" Jake asked anxiously.

Elijah ignored them. He scrolled through the rest of his file, hoping there might be answers to some of his questions, but all the information was incredibly vague.

"Eli?" Haru asked softly; his voice was ridden with pain, though.

The demon looked down at him.

"We have to go, right?"

They did have to go; they were running out of time. He turned his head and asked Jake, "Can you copy our files to Zoe's phone?"

"Uh...yeah, yeah I can," he said with a nod.

"Do it."

Zoe handed Jake her phone, and Jake got to work, typing and clicking away like some sort of crazed maniac.

Silence gripped Elijah tightly. He was still processing everything he'd just read. He was still trying to accept the fact that his family had been right in front of him this whole time, that if he'd not run when the Nosferatu attacked, he might have been with his family sooner.

He wasn't entirely sure how he felt, though. When he thought about finding the answers to who and what he was, he imagined he'd been relieved, content...but he was conflicted. Maybe it was because he didn't have the entire story, maybe it was because he felt stupid for not working it out on his own. How could he, though? Everything in his life had felt utterly random up until now. Saving Zoe from Harris wasn't just a coincidence, was it?

The demon frowned and looked at the computer screen, watching as Jake downloaded everything to Zoe's phone. Had he missed signs? The fact that they were both the same species of demon, the fact that she was connected to an Ancient, too. Was he just a blind idiot? Was he so distracted by his desperation to save Haru that he'd missed the fact that the answer to his questions had been right there the entire time?

Zoe looked up at him. "You...do kinda look like them," she said quietly.

He wasn't sure how to respond to that. Elijah had no idea what any of his family looked like—other than her, of course.

Haru then grunted painfully.

Elijah shifted his attention to him. "Are you okay?" he asked worriedly.

He lifted his shirt to glance at his wound. "Yeah, this just hurts like a bitch."

"I'm almost done," Jake said.

Haru nodded and lowered his shirt again. He then smiled through his pain. "So...do we keep calling you Elijah, or is it Xaiden now?"

He didn't know how to respond to that, either. "I don't know," he muttered.

"I like it. It's unique," Haru said with a smirk.

"All of Zoe's...well, your family have weird names. Like Zacaeus."

Something then hit Elijah. Once they got back over The Ice Wall, he originally planned to go far, far away with Haru...but was that even the plan anymore? He knew who his family were—they were members of the Caeleste government, and they were rich and powerful people. Zoe had mentioned many times that her dads could help keep him safe, and he wouldn't have found himself considering it until now, but...would staying with them be much safer for him and Haru? Would accepting their help be the smarter choice?

"Okay, I'm done," Jake then said, moving away from the console. He handed Zoe her phone back and stared expectantly at Elijah. "So, uh...time to go?"

Elijahexhaled deeply and tried his best to shove his thoughts, questions, and overbearingthoughts aside; he'd be able to ponder and ask later. It was time to get the fuckout of there.

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