The Red File Book Two : Code Obsidian

What Came Before

Emma shouldn't have made it out alive.

The facility was supposed to be airtight—sealed off from the world, and more importantly, from the truth. But she found it: the Red File. Buried in encrypted archives and redacted lines was the impossible. Names of children who had died. Photos of them alive again. Perfect replicas. Carbon copies.

They weren't just experiments. They were cover-ups.

Emma broke them out—every last one. The copies, scared and half-formed, trusted her more than anyone else in that place. She didn't hesitate. She ran. With alarms screaming behind her and guards closing in, she did what no one thought she could.

She vanished.

But secrets that big don't stay buried for long. And people who disappear have a way of being hunted.

Now

Six months later, Emma lived like a ghost.

Off-grid. No digital trail. No real name. Just her, a stolen van, and six children who weren't supposed to exist. She rotated safe houses every week. Slept with one eye open. Taught the kids not to answer to their original names, not to trust anyone, not to hope too much.

Because they were still out there—whoever ran the program. Whoever signed off on the regeneration. Whoever was willing to kill to keep it quiet.

Emma didn't know how long she could keep them hidden. Supplies were running low. Paranoia was growing like mold in the walls. And one of the kids—Noah—had started remembering things he was never supposed to remember.

Memories from before he died.