Chapter 13 - THE BROTHER WHO DISAPPEAREDEli had always believed he was an only child.
Lily was his sister.
His mother had never mentioned another child.
But now the memories returned.
A baby.
A boy.
A name.
Samuel.
Eli had been four when Samuel disappeared.
He remembered the day.
His mother had been crying.
Lily had been sick.
A car had arrived.
Adrian Cross had taken the baby.
His mother had screamed.
But then—
the memory had vanished.
Cross had erased it.
Or tried to.
The memory had been buried.
But it had not disappeared.
It had lived inside Eli.
Waiting.
Dr. Vell questioned Cross.
“Where is Samuel Moore?”
Cross refused to answer.
James used every legal connection he had.
Police searched the old records.
Hospitals.
Adoption agencies.
Private institutions.
Nothing.
Then Eli remembered something else.
A symbol.
A blue door.
A train.
A number.
13.
The police traced the number.
It led to a private medical facility in another state.
A facility owned by a company connected to Adrian Cross.
They arrived two days later.
Inside, they found a young man.
Seventeen years old.
His name was listed as Daniel Reed.
But the DNA test revealed the truth.
He was Samuel Moore.
Eli's brother.
The reunion was not dramatic.
Samuel did not recognize Eli.
Eli did not recognize the young man standing before him.
But when Samuel touched his neck—
Eli did the same.
The same mark.
The same four lines.
Samuel stared.
Then whispered:
“Lily.”
Eli began to cry.
“You remember her?”
Samuel nodded.
“She sang.”
Eli laughed through tears.
“She was loud.”
Samuel smiled.
For the first time, the two brothers understood.
They had been separated.
Used.
Studied.
But they had survived.
Samuel told them what happened.
Cross had taken him as a baby.
He had been raised inside the institute.
He had been told his parents were dead.
He had been told he had no family.
He had been used as the most successful subject of Project Lantern.
But there was one thing Cross had never understood.
Samuel did not merely carry memories.
He could reject them.
He could choose which memories belonged to him.
And he had been waiting.
May you like
For someone to come find him.
Eli had.
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