Chapter 9 The Devil Wears Her Face

The dream came again.

But this time, she didn't wake up screaming.

She watched.

A child version of herself in a pink dress, running barefoot down a long hallway soaked in light-only the light wasn't sunlight. It was too pale. Too hungry.

Doors lined the hall, each one slightly open.

Inside were voices.

Soft at first.

Then sharp.

Then screaming.

---

Selene stepped toward one door. Her hand trembling.

A woman inside, slicing apples. Her mother.

Only-she was humming something strange, something backwards.

The knife slipped.

Blood on apple skin.

The woman smiled.

Selene gasped and stumbled back-

Only to bump into someone behind her.

The child turned.

It was herself.

But the girl's eyes were black.

"We remember everything," she whispered.

And then the hallway shattered like glass.

---

She woke in Dante's bed.

But he wasn't there.

Just a note. "Don't leave the penthouse."

She got up anyway.

Her feet led her to the piano room. The one with floor-to-ceiling windows and nothing but old air and shadows.

There, in the corner, was a box she didn't remember packing.

Inside: her childhood diaries.

Burned pages.

Scratched-out entries.

Drawings of women with hollow eyes and knives for hands.

One entry stood out.

> "Daddy says I'm special. But Allegra says I was made in a lab. Sometimes they argue and blood comes out of the walls. I want to go home, but the doctor says this is home."

---

Elsewhere.

Dante sat in a black car parked outside a psychiatric hospital.

The building loomed like a corpse.

He didn't want to be here. But Cain was right-someone had wiped Selene's memory.

And he was going to find out who.

He walked through the halls. Past trembling nurses and locked doors. He found her in the north wing.

Dr. Elira Vasquez.

Once the top experimental psychiatrist in private security.

Now a recluse.

"Dante," she said with a smile. "Still brooding."

"I need the truth about Selene Castille."

Her smile faded. "You won't like it."

"I never do."

---

Back at the penthouse, Selene stood in front of the mirror.

She ran her fingers over her scar-the one Allegra said was from a fall.

Only now she remembered-

It wasn't a fall.

It was from surgery.

She'd been cut open.

For tests.

Experiments.

Cloned memories. Engineered instincts.

She was never just an heiress.

She was a weapon with a mask.

And Allegra didn't just betray her.

She made her.

---

Dr. Vasquez opened a file thick with redactions.

"She was part of the Castille Protocol. Her father was trying to create a legacy. Allegra wanted control. Selene... was the prototype."

Dante's jaw clenched. "That's why she doesn't remember?"

"She remembers. But she's trained not to believe it."

"What happens if she does?"

"She becomes more dangerous than any of us ever planned."

---

Selene stared into the mirror. Her reflection was cracking.

And then-

The mirror blinked.

Not her. It.

The woman in the mirror smiled.

And whispered with her voice-

"I never left. You just buried me."

---

Suddenly, the elevator dinged.

Selene spun around.

Dante walked in, his expression unreadable.

"I know what you are," he said.

"Then don't lie to me anymore," she replied, trembling. "Tell me the truth."

He walked up to her, gripped her face with rough hands.

"You were made to kill your sister. You just forgot."

She didn't flinch.

Instead, she smiled.

"I think I'm ready to remember."

---

That night, they made love like war.

No sweetness.

Just teeth, nails, breathless gasps.

Two broken things trying to set each other on fire.

Selene bit his shoulder, left marks.

Dante slammed her into the mirror.

It cracked.

So did the mask she wore.

---

Elsewhere.

Allegra stared at the footage.

Selene. Alive.

Naked. Straddling Dante.

Smiling like she knew everything.

She crushed the glass in her hand.

Blood spilled down her palm.

"Call Daniel," she whispered.

"We release Subject V."