Chapter 40 - The Cradle in the Ash
"She never left the state," Jonathan whispered, the blood draining from his face as the crushing realization hit him. "The call from Zurich was an audio relay routed through a VPN. She’s here. She’s right here in the county."
Cole pulled out his radio, his face turning pale. "Dispatch, this is Cole! I need all units rerouted immediately to the Vance estate sanctuary in the Catskills! We have an imminent breach—"
"No," Jonathan interrupted, seizing Cole’s arm, his eyes wide with sudden, sickening dread. "Not the sanctuary. Where is my father’s old cabin? The hunting lodge where Julianna grew up?"
Cole froze. "That property was condemned after the fires five years ago. It’s an empty ruin."
Suddenly, the phone in Jonathan’s hand chimed.
A new notification flashed on Arthur’s screen. It was an automated ping from a remote motion sensor.
The label on the sensor read: *Sub-Basement Cradle — Room 04.*
Jonathan’s hands began to shake violently. Room 04 was a designated room in the Vance medical trust archives—a vault that had been sealed twenty years ago, long before his first wife passed away, long before he ever met Victoria.
A live surveillance feed popped up on the screen, flickering to life through a night-vision filter.
The camera showed a clean, brightly lit subterranean nursery, buried beneath the ash and timber of the burned-out hunting lodge.
Inside the nursery stood a modern steel crib.
And standing beside the crib, dressed in a spotless white dress, was Victoria. She was leaning down, gently rocking the crib with one hand while holding a silver baby rattle with the other.
Slowly, she looked directly up into the camera, her lips curving into a slow, chilling smile.
She reached down into the crib and lifted a bundle of blankets into her arms.
It was an infant—barely six months old, with dark curls and hazel eyes that mirrored Jonathan’s own down to the finest detail.
Victoria pressed the child to her shoulder, whispered something into its ear, and then held up a handwritten piece of paper toward the lens.
Written in bold, jagged black marker were four words:
May you like
*LILY WASN'T THE FIRST.*
Before Jonathan could draw breath to scream, the screen flickered violently and cut to absolute, dead static.
