Eva's neck hurt.
She woke in Lily's room—the same bed, the same shelf, the same photograph of herself walking and smiling that she still couldn't look at without her chest tightening. Maya sat beside her, her clothes fresh, her face pale.
Dizzy. That was the word. Maya looked dizzy.
"You okay?" Eva's voice came out rough.
Maya's head snapped up. "You're awake."
"Yeah." Eva pushed herself up, wincing at the wounds on her leg, her thigh, her chest. The tentacles had left marks—deep ones, still healing. "Are you okay? You look pale."
Maya's smile didn't reach her eyes. "I'm fine."
She wasn't.
Eva let it go. "Who was that woman?"
"The facility. Meeting room. Everyone's there." Maya was already standing, already moving toward the door.
They walked.
The corridors were the same—grey walls, weak lights, the hum of old machinery. But the scientists they passed had pale faces. Wide eyes. They stepped aside quickly, pressing themselves against the walls, not meeting Eva's gaze.
Something had happened while she was out.
The room where they'd put Wrong Eva was behind a glass wall. She lay on a slab, unconscious, her wrists and ankles bound with thick metal restraints. Scientists in white coats moved around her, taking readings, checking monitors, whispering to each other.
Eva stopped. "Why are they doing that?"
Maya stood beside her, watching the scientists watch her other self. "She was acting really strange. Kept saying 'kill me' one minute, then 'I'll kill you all' the next. Henry said to observe her behavior."
Eva watched Wrong Eva's chest rise and fall. Her face was slack in sleep. Almost peaceful.
It was wrong.
---
The meeting room was worse.
Jordan stood in the corner, his katana leaning against the wall beside him, his body still holding some of that thicker transformation. Lena stood near him, close enough to touch, her daggers sheathed but her hands never far from them.
Leo and Wolfen sat at the table—not relaxed, not casual. Menacing. Both of them sat forward, hands on the table, eyes sharp, ready to move at the first wrong twitch.
Henry stood near the door, his clipboard clutched to his chest like a shield. His expression said oh shit I need to leave very clearly.
The woman sat at the far end of the table.
She was the center of the room, even though she didn't move. Her black clothes were simple, worn, practical. The cloth mask covered her lower face. Her left arm was hidden beneath her cloak. Her left eye was closed, covered by a fall of dark hair.
The boy sat beside her, half-hidden, watching everything with wide eyes. He looked afraid.
The woman looked happy.
When she saw Eva in the doorway, her visible eye lit up. She raised her hand—the right one, the one that was whole—and waved. Her pinky finger was missing. A scar marked where it had been.
She signed something. Eva didn't understand.
"Why aren't you speaking?" Wolfen's voice was sharp. "You're awake. What do you mean by that? Why are you so glad she's awake?"
The woman looked at Wolfen. She didn't seem surprised that he understood sign language. She signed again.
Wolfen's eyebrows rose. "You're... who?"
The woman signed again, then laughed. The sound was horrible—like she didn't have a tongue to begin with, like the laugh was forcing itself through a throat that had forgotten how to make that noise. She stopped quickly, her hand covering her mask.
"Your Eva," Wolfen said, one eyebrow raised. "Prove it."
The woman—the other Eva, the one from somewhere else—looked at him like really, bro.
"If you're really Eva from another universe," Leo said, "how do we know you're not dangerous?"
The other Eva started thinking. Her visible eye moved from face to face, considering.
Wolfen leaned back. "What do I usually do in your universe?"
The other Eva signed. Wolfen snorted.
"Judge your ideas?"
"Okay." Leo's shoulders dropped a fraction. "She's Eva."
Eva had been standing in the doorway, watching. This woman was her. Not the broken, screaming thing on the slab. Not the clone who had been made in a lab. This was something else. Something that had been through hell and come out the other side still standing.
She looked cool.
Eva walked to the table and sat beside Wolfen. Her wounds pulled. She ignored them.
"Why did you stop me?"
The other Eva signed. Wolfen translated without looking away from her. "You're not broken yet. You're still whole."
Leo frowned. "How do you even know sign language?"
"Not important." Wolfen waved a hand. "Well. I kinda don't remember."
Leo smiled. "Bruh."
Eva looked at the other Eva. Questions flooded her mind—too many, too fast, too heavy. But one word stuck.
Whole.
"I'm already broken." Eva's voice was quiet. "I was never whole to begin with."
The other Eva's face shifted. She didn't understand. She signed something—apologetic, hesitant.
"Just speak." Eva's frustration bled through. "Dammit. Just speak."
The other Eva looked at her for a long moment. Then she reached up and lowered her mask.
The scar was massive—burned tissue stretching from one cheek to the other, across her nose, across her lips. Her mouth was twisted at one corner, the skin pulled tight. She pushed the hair back from her closed eye.
The white of her eye was black. The iris—where it should have been black—was purple. Wrong. Inverted.
She pulled back her cloak, revealing her left arm. Parts of it were Umbralite—black metal fused to flesh, supporting what had been destroyed. She couldn't have moved it otherwise.
Eva stared at her scarred self. At the damage. At the pain written into every line of her face.
Guilt washed over her.
"I'm sorry," Eva said.
The other Eva shook her head. She signed something. The boy beside her, who had been silent, spoke.
"It's okay."
His voice was soft, young, barely there. He looked at the other Eva as she signed again, then translated.
"She's happy to see that your Leo is okay."
Leo leaned forward. "What do you mean? What's going to happen to me?"
The other Eva's face dropped.
The boy's voice was quieter when he spoke. "In her universe... Leo died. Some humans with hybrid-killing rounds. And Wolfen—he'd lost his powers temporarily. He went and destroyed every human he saw in those camps. To avenge Leo."
The room was silent.
Leo looked at Wolfen. A slow smile spread across his face. "Thanks for avenging me, dude." He brought his fist up.
Wolfen bumped it. "Anytime, bro."
The other Eva chuckled—that horrible, tongueless sound—and stopped herself quickly, her hand covering her mask.
Eva leaned forward. "How did that happen to you? What did you fight?"
The other Eva signed. The boy translated. "The one who made the Architects. The first one. She fought him in her universe."
Wolfen's voice was sharp. "Who is he?"
The other Eva shrugged.
Eva's throat tightened. She asked the question she'd been avoiding. "Is your Lily alive?"
The other Eva's visible eye dimmed.
"No." The boy's voice was barely a whisper. "The Butcher killed her."
Eva couldn't speak. Wolfen did it for her. He told the other Eva everything—Lily's war, the Architects, the virus, the cure that came too late. The other Eva listened without moving, without signing, without breathing.
When Wolfen finished, she signed one word.
"How?"
"The virus." Wolfen's voice was flat. "She injected herself to stop it from spreading. It was killing her anyway. She just... sped it up."
The other Eva looked at Eva. Her visible eye was wet.
Eva changed the subject. "Who's the kid?"
The other Eva signed.
Wolfen stood up so fast his chair nearly tipped over. "SON?"
The other Eva signed again, her visible eye crinkling with something that might have been amusement.
"HUH?" Eva's voice cracked.
Maya's jaw dropped. "What?"
Jordan and Lena just stood there, frozen, like they'd heard something that didn't compute.
"I have a son?" Eva's voice was too high. "I mean—you have a son?"
"Adopted," the boy said quietly.
Wolfen stared at the other Eva. At the boy. At the scarred face and the missing finger and the Umbralite arm. He sat down slowly.
"Okay." He took a breath. "Okay."
Leo leaned forward. "So how strong are you?"
The other Eva shrugged.
"Upper Absolute level," Wolfen said. "Probably."
The other Eva signed. The boy translated. "How do I get back to my universe?"
"Well, you're stuck here until the bald bastard opens a portal to your world." Wolfen spread his hands. "But don't worry. I've got this."
The other Eva signed. The boy's lips twitched.
"Yeah, you do. Dumb idiot."
Wolfen's eyes widened. "That's my line."
The door burst open. Zoey stood in the doorway, breathing hard, her eyes wild.
"What did I miss?"
No one answered. The other Eva looked at Zoey, and something flickered across her scarred face—recognition, grief, longing. She looked away.
Zoey looked around the room. At the tension. At the strange woman in black. At the boy beside her.
"Okay," she said slowly. "I'll wait."
She sat down. The room settled.
The other Eva signed. The boy translated.
"My name is Eva too. But you can call me... something else. Something that isn't hers."
Eva looked at her scarred self. At the woman who had lost everything and kept going.
"What should we call you?"
The other Eva thought for a moment. Then she signed.
The boy looked at her, then at the others.
"She says... call her Warden."
Eva nodded. "Warden."
The name settled into the room like a stone dropping into still water.
Warden looked at Eva—at her unscarred face, her intact arm, her open eyes—and signed again.
The boy translated. "She's glad you exist. She's glad this version of the world didn't break as badly as hers."
Eva didn't know what to say.
She just nodded.
The room was quiet.
The war wasn't over. But for now, there was this. A scarred woman from a broken universe, sitting at a table with people who could have been her family, if things had gone differently.
It wasn't enough.
But it was something.