Chapter 2
Sarah's entire world froze. A sharp ringing filled her ears. Everything around her drained of color until only the photo and those emotionless words remained.
She didn't scream. She didn't cry. It felt as if all the blood in her body had frozen solid, leaving behind only numb, unbearable cold.
With mechanical calmness, she permanently deleted the photo, erased every trace of what she had done, and placed the phone back exactly where it had been before reconnecting the charger.
Her hands stayed perfectly steady the entire time, not even a slight tremble.
Then she lay back down beside him, turning her back toward Paul. Her eyes stayed open all night until the first pale light of dawn slowly turned the ceiling gray.
The next morning, Paul was still the perfect husband. He made her warm lemon honey water. The toast was perfectly crisp, and the yolk of her fried egg stayed soft exactly the way she liked it.
Before leaving for work, he hugged her like always and told her he loved her.
Sarah smiled back at him. "Drive safe," she said gently.
But the second he said he loved her, Sarah caught something strange in his eyes from the corner of her vision.
For just a split second, it looked like streams of data flashing past, as if he were evaluating whether her reaction matched his expectations.
The moment the front door shut, the smile disappeared from Sarah's face. She walked straight to the window and watched Paul's black Bentley glide smoothly out of the garage.
Then she pulled a small locator device from her pocket. It looked just like an ordinary keychain. Her best friend had given it to her last month, saying every woman needed one to catch cheating husbands.
Sarah opened the tracking app on her phone. The red dot representing Paul didn't head toward Future Tech headquarters downtown.
Instead, it turned and drove toward the eastern suburbs on the opposite side of the city.
That area was full of abandoned factories and empty warehouses, the forgotten backside of the city no one cared about anymore.
Sarah quickly changed into a plain tracksuit, called a ride-share, and followed the signal. The car finally stopped about one mile away from the destination.
The driver glanced at her through the rearview mirror with obvious suspicion. "Ma'am, are you sure this is the place? There's no road ahead."
"Right here is fine," Sarah said. She paid the fare, got out alone, and walked into the cold, desolate industrial ruins.
The red dot finally stopped in front of a huge white building with no sign on it. The whole place looked cold and stripped down.
There were no regular windows anywhere, just one massive wall of black one-way glass stretching across the front like the eye of a silent monster, watching anyone who came near.
Sarah circled around the side of the building and hid behind a stack of abandoned shipping containers.
A ventilation shaft ran along the wall there, and with the extra height from the containers, she barely managed to peek through the giant glass wall.
Her heartbeat instantly went out of control.
On the other side was a laboratory so enormous that it barely looked real. The walls and floors were pure white.
The overhead lights were blindingly bright, and expensive-looking instruments filled the room in perfectly neat rows.
Then she spotted Paul.
He had taken off his suit and changed into a white lab coat. He looked focused, calm, and terrifyingly cold as he spoke to a woman sitting in a chair.
The woman looked exactly like Sarah had looked that morning when she stared at herself in the mirror.
She wore the same silk pajamas Sarah had worn the night before. Even the way her hair fell across her shoulder was identical.
"Smile," Paul said casually, as if he were training a dog.
The fake Sarah immediately smiled. But the expression looked wrong. It was stiff and hollow, like a mannequin in a store display.
Paul frowned. He stepped closer and adjusted the replica's facial muscles with his fingers as carefully as someone fixing a sculpture.
"No," he said. His voice came through some kind of speaker system with a faint crackle of static, but Sarah still heard every word clearly.
He said, "When Sarah sees me, the corners of her mouth lift twelve degrees. Her eyes reveal 30% dependence, and her pupils dilate 0.2 millimeters. You're too stiff, Number 3."
"Number 3" was the exact same code written under the photo.
Sarah's stomach twisted violently. She slapped a hand over her mouth to stop herself from throwing up.
She stood there watching her husband reduce all her love, trust, and affection into cold numbers and measurements, then shove those numbers into an empty shell.
A horrible chill spread through her entire body. Shaking, she pulled out her phone and aimed the camera at the lab, ready to record the nightmare in front of her.
The second her finger moved toward the record button, a deafening alarm suddenly exploded through the laboratory.
Red warning lights flashed everywhere, instantly staining the white room blood red.
Paul froze. Then, slowly, he lifted his head. He didn't look toward the alarm. He didn't check the machines.
Instead, his eyes locked directly onto the shipping containers where Sarah was hiding. His gaze cut through the thick glass and the distance between them with terrifying precision.
There was no panic on his face. There was no guilt or embarrassment at being caught.
Instead, he wore a cold, ruthless smile. It was almost playful.
Through the glass, he stared straight at her. Then his lips moved silently.
Sarah understood every word. "You finally came."