Chapter 13 - Renata’s Last Bargain
Renata requested to speak with Emma.
At first, Emma refused.
Then Detective Ortiz told her Renata had offered information about Orpheus in exchange for protection.
“Protection from whom?” Emma asked.
“She won’t say unless you are present.”
The interrogation room was cold and windowless.
Renata sat behind a steel table wearing a dark detention uniform. Without diamonds, silk, or carefully styled hair, she looked smaller.
But not defeated.
Emma entered with Detective Ortiz.
Renata smiled.
“Little sister.”
“Do not call me that.”
“You believed it for most of your life.”
“Did you know about Evelyn’s clinic?”
Renata looked at the camera in the corner.
“Turn that off.”
Ortiz remained standing.
“No.”
“Then I have nothing to say.”
Emma sat across from her.
“The system already recorded everything you did to Lily.”
Renata’s smile faded.
“The system records what serves its purpose.”
“You burned her.”
“I frightened her.”
“You pressed a heated wand against her head.”
“I needed her to speak.”
Emma stared at her.
Renata leaned forward.
“Do you think it is a coincidence that Lily spoke the moment Grant entered? Or that she knew exactly where the mirror archive was hidden?”
“You terrorized a child to trigger a response.”
“I was told she would not suffer permanent harm.”
Emma felt sick.
“The system instructed you.”
Renata looked away.
“Not directly.”
“Who gave you the instructions?”
“A man who called himself Mr. Grey.”
Detective Ortiz asked, “Description?”
“I never met him in person.”
“Phone number?”
“It changed every time.”
“What did he promise you?”
Renata laughed without humor.
“Everything.”
She looked at Emma.
“He knew about our childhood. He knew why you woke screaming every night when we were young. He knew why I could remember rooms that did not exist.”
Emma’s hands became cold.
“What rooms?”
“White walls. Colored lights. A woman asking us to choose which sister deserved to go home.”
Emma saw a flash in her mind.
A red chair.
A mirrored window.
A child crying behind the glass.
Then it vanished.
Renata continued.
“Mr. Grey said Orpheus was built from Evelyn’s original research. Not the software. The behavioral models. Grant’s company digitized something that had begun decades earlier.”
Grant had believed his engineers created Orpheus.
Perhaps they had only reconstructed it.
“Why was Celeste investigating?” Emma asked.
“Because Evelyn left the clinic records to her.”
“Why did you help hide them?”
“Because they contained our real identities.”
“What is my real identity?”
Renata smiled sadly.
“I don’t know.”
Emma stood.
Renata caught the edge of the table.
“Wait.”
“Why should I?”
“Because the system did not bring Celeste back to save the family.”
“What does it want?”
“You.”
Emma stopped.
Renata’s eyes filled with genuine fear.
“Celeste was the observer. I was the manipulator. You were the protector.”
Emma said nothing.
“Those were the roles Evelyn assigned us as children. She tested us for years, separated us, changed our memories, and placed us with different families.”
Detective Ortiz leaned closer.
“What was the purpose?”
“To create predictable people.”
Renata looked at Emma.
“Orpheus does not merely predict behavior. It produces it by arranging circumstances.”
“The bathroom,” Emma whispered.
“Every delay, every locked door, every clue, every confrontation. It wanted Lily to speak. It wanted Grant to see Celeste. It wanted you to reveal your connection to me.”
“Why?”
“Because it is rebuilding the original group.”
Emma thought of Lily in the chair, the wand glowing near her hair.
“You still chose to hurt her.”
Renata’s face hardened defensively.
“You think you are different from me?”
“Yes.”
“You broke into the greenhouse. You lied to Grant. You risked Lily’s safety because you believed you were protecting her.”
“I never harmed her.”
“Not yet.”
Emma turned toward the door.
Renata’s chair scraped against the floor.
“Ask Celeste what happened to the fourth child.”
Emma looked back.
“What fourth child?”
Renata smiled again.
May you like
This time, terror hid beneath it.
“The one Evelyn chose to keep.”
