UPSTAIRS. WARD E. FOYER.
Adrian and Maya hold the line. 10 kids from Marcus’s group with them. Barricades made of broken desks. Shotguns, pipes, anything sharp.
The first wave hit 6 minutes ago. Ward E’s kids. Not Leo’s age. Younger. 6 to 9. Eyes empty. Chanting “EAST” like a prayer.
Maya didn’t fire. Adrian did. Rubber bullets. Kneecaps. Still dropped them. Still felt like murder.
“They keep coming,” Maya says. Reloading. Hands shaking. “Evelyn’s emptying the whole basement.”
The foyer doors are steel. Bolted. But the walls are shaking. From below.
Adrian presses his ear to the floor. “That’s not kids. That’s the building.”
Then the floor cracks.
Not a little. A spiderweb. From the center out.
The barricade collapses. The kids with them scramble back.
From the crack: black vines. Not lilyums. Roots. Thick as arms. Fast.
They don’t grab. They taste the air. Then they surge.
One wraps Adrian’s ankle. Cold. Wet. He chops it with a crowbar. Black sap bleeds. The root screams. Actually screams. A child’s voice.
Maya fires at another. The bullet goes through. Does nothing. The root keeps coming. It heads straight for the youngest kid with them. 621. 8 years old.
Maya dives. Gets between them. The root hits her chest. Not hard. It stops. Presses against her heart like it’s listening.
Then it whispers. “*Hope.*”
And withdraws.
All the roots freeze. Then, one by one, they retreat back into the crack.
The shaking stops.
Silence.
621 tugs Maya’s sleeve. “It said Hope. Like the word. Or the person?”
Before Maya can answer, the steel doors to the foyer blow inward.
Not explosives. Pressure. From the other side.
Standing there: 20 more Ward E kids. But they’re not blank. They’re scared.
And behind them: Graves. Bleeding from the head. Dragging a body.
Keller. Dead.
Graves drops her. Puts his hands up. “Truce,” he coughs. “Garden’s changing owners. And the new boss is pissed.”
DOWNSTAIRS. THE LILY GARDEN.
One can’t move. Lilyum vines have him by the wrists, ankles, throat. Not choking. Holding. Displaying.
Every flower in the Garden is pointed at him. Bloomed wide. And in each one, a screen. Playing his memories.
His first day in Ward E. His first lesson. His first child. 300. The one before Hope. The one that didn’t survive Lesson 3.
“Your roots are deep, One,” Hope says. Still with the Garden’s voice. Black eyes fixed on him. “Deeper than Evelyn’s. You planted Ward E. You planted Zero. You planted me.”
“I gave you purpose,” One says. Calm, even now. “Evelyn gave you numbers. I gave you names.”
“You gave me chains,” Hope says. “Made of flowers. So I’d thank you for them.”
She walks to him. Picks up the silver key from the dirt where he dropped it.
“Evelyn’s East Protocol is dead,” Hope says. “I burned it with 317’s root. Now the Garden listens to me.”
She holds the key out to Elias. “You broke your chain. You get to decide what happens to his.”
Elias takes the key. Heavy. Cold. He looks at One. Really looks. Sees the man under the white suit. Tired. Old. A gardener who forgot he was also a plant.
“Ward A through Ward F,” Elias says. “How many gardens?”
“Six,” One answers. No lie. Lilyums don’t let him. “Ward G to Ward Z are Zero’s. Mine were the roots. His were the branches.”
“Where’s Ward F?” Marcus asks. Gun still on Graves upstairs, but his voice comes through the cracked floor.
“Under Bucharest,” One says. “The seeds are already on a train. If I don’t check in, they bloom without me. Wild. Hungry.”
Hope looks at Elias. “We can’t let that happen. Those are kids.”
“We can’t save them if we’re dead,” Maya’s voice echoes from above.
Elias turns the silver key over. On the back: a word. Scratched small.
DUPLICATE.
It’s not the master key. It’s a copy.
He looks at One. “Where’s the real one?”
One smiles. Blood on his teeth from the vines. “Zero took it. When he left. He said the Garden was too pretty for him. He liked his trees dead.”
The floor shakes again. But not from roots.
From explosions. Far above. Surface level.
Graves laughs wetly from the foyer. “That’s not us. That’s London. Zero’s branches just found out the roots are in play.”
Hope’s black eyes flick up. Through dirt, through stone, through 200 feet of Ward E. “He’s here.”
The lilyums all turn. To the ceiling.
And start to close.
“Protocol Lily was Evelyn’s,” Hope says. Her voice is hers again. Scared. “Protocol BRANCH is Zero’s.”
The first branch punches through the ceiling of the foyer upstairs.
Not wood. Bone. White. Sharp. As thick as a man.
It doesn’t go for Adrian. Or Maya. Or Graves.
It goes straight down. Through the crack. Through the Garden.
Straight for Hope.
TO BE CONTINUED