Reborn in the Enemy's Embrace

"Don’t go down there." Eason pulled me back and shook his head. "Me and Joel will go take a look."

After all, protecting and bringing the children back safe and sound was the police’s responsibility.

I shook my head in response. "It’s not just for Yara. I keep getting the feeling that... something down there is calling for me."

I didn’t know why either, but I felt like taking a look downstairs.

The feeling was overwhelmingly strong. I couldn’t explain it, but the attraction was there.

"Let’s go." Dexter took my hand and led me down the stairs.

"Do you feel it too?" I looked at him nervously.

He nodded.

Joel scratched his head quizzically. He looked toward Eason and asked, "Do you feel it too?"

Eason rolled his eyes. "I just know that it might be dangerous down there. Curiosity kills the cat-I don’t have that type of curiosity."

Although well aware of the risks, everyone still went downstairs anyway.

Maverick followed anxiously behind us.

"I’ll keep watch," he said softly.

In truth, he was just too afraid to go with us.

The staircase leading downward was extremely narrow. It was a retractable one, and it could be kept away at any time.

I was surprised to find that there was no one guarding the place today.

It was as if... they were luring us down here on purpose.

"Hehe... Big Brother."

"Ball."

Suddenly, the sound of a rolling ball and two young voices rang out from the gloomy cabin.

I looked toward the near distance with a shocked expression.

Were there really children down here?

So far, we could only hear voices.

"Big Brother..."

There was a jingle. Then, a toy ball rolled over to us from the other end of the hallway.

I stopped and looked at the ball on the floor.

Not long after, two small heads popped up from the end of the cabins. They glanced around cautiously. Their eyes were bright and looked like stars.

"Ms. Sofia, there are kids!" Yara abruptly ran over and exclaimed, pointing at the pair of children. I was glued to the ground from shock. I believed her now-there were really kids below the deck.

"You guys..." I swiftly marched forward, but the two children immediately ran off like they were afraid.

When I caught up to them, the hallway was already empty. There was only a flickering light present.

For some reason, I became extremely anxious.

"Kids?" I yelled.

The group of us carefully made our way down the hallway and stared at the cabins as we passed them.

They were all tightly shut rooms. We didn’t know what was inside, nor could we get them to open.

When we made our way to the very end, we came across Room 707. The door was slightly ajar. I was just about to push the door open when Dexter stopped me.

"I’ll do it." He shielded me behind himself and opened it.

Worried about potential dangers on the other side, everyone was on high alert. However, once the door was open, we were met with a surprising sight.

It was just an ordinary room-it looked like a normal three-bedroom unit.

The two children were seated in the living room. The windows were programmed to mimic an outdoor environment. The entire room felt like it was situated in a regular apartment building. You could even see and hear nature from beyond the window.

It was essentially a huge experiment room. It made you think that you were living in the city.

"Dad!" A small boy suddenly ran over and hugged Dexter’s legs.

Me and Dexter simultaneously looked down at the child.

They were so incredibly identical.

The kid looked like an exact replica of Dexter. His deep-set eyes were the same shade of the deep sea. His long lashes and chubby cheeks made him look extremely adorable...

My breath hitched in my throat. "Do you think this is your clone?"

How could they put a clone in the cabin? Was this cruise a huge testing ground? Something similar to the one Nancy had?

Dexter looked at the boy intensely. As he was going to speak, the boy gazed at me with a blank expression and asked, "Mom, why do you look... a little different?"

In the living room, a little girl timidly hid behind the wall and looked at me. "It’s Mom!"

Then, she quickly came toward me and hugged me. I instinctively held her in my arms.

She was incredibly obedient. The little girl and the little boy seemed as if they were carved out of the same mold. At first sight, they looked like identical twins. They had deep, captivating eyes and adorable faces. They looked a lot like Dexter.

"They look slightly... like you," Dexter whispered.

"These two children... are so similar to you both," Joel exclaimed in amazement.

Eason was clearly confused. "Anyone who didn’t know better would have assumed that you two had children."

I carried the little girl to the living room. The three-bedroom unit was plain, with wedding photos hanging on the wall. The man and woman in the photo were actually Dexter and Sophia. I looked at Dexter in shock.

Joel exclaimed in surprise, "All the photos in this room feature Dexter and Sophia!"

"That’s Mom and Dad." The boy pointed at "Sophia" in a photo and declared that she was his mother. Then, he looked at me again. "Mom, why do you look different from the photos?"

I remained oblivious for quite a while, wondering what he meant.

"The entire underground cabin seemed to have been intentionally revealed to us. It was too obvious and deliberate. Someone led us to discover these two children," Dexter said seriously.

"Have you two met your parents?" I asked in a hushed tone.

Both of them shook their heads. "The nanny said that our parents are scientists on a mission. It’ll take a few years before they return. We must wait at home and not go out."

Gasping, I looked at the doors outside the cabin. "Is everyone here children?"

The boy suddenly replied, "They’re all dead. They were eliminated..."

"What do you mean?" I felt a chill running down my back.

"The best children are the only ones who can survive and see their parents," the boy said in a solemn tone.

"My brother protected me..." The little girl hugged me tightly and whispered in my ear that her brother had been protecting her.

I didn’t know what awful things happened to these two children who seemed to be only three or four years old.

"Look at this." Joel found a surveillance camera above the living room and a tablet on the bookshelf.

"This is the experimental data about you two," Joel said as he handed the tablet to Dexter.

The data inside belonged to Dexter and Sophia.

"From a biological standpoint, these children are the offspring of you and Sophia. When Sophia reached sexual maturity, her parents obtained her eggs to use for the cultivation of the next generation through embryonic development."

"Sophia’s genes have some defects, making it challenging to conceive healthy embryos. Hence, the birth of these two children is truly a miracle."

Joel scrutinized the experimental data and watched the confession of the experimenter displayed on the tablet. He played the video and passed the tablet to me. It turned out that the person in the video was Sophia’s mother.

In front of the camera, she repeatedly discussed the failures of the experiments and then recorded the successful embryo specimens. These two little kids were among the successful ones.

In addition to these two children, other children were born with unique conditions such as different or double pupils, or even other congenital diseases. Most of them had specific defects. However, since Sophia’s parents died in a car accident, the experiment was entrusted to others.

I examined the records regarding the two mentioned children and was appalled. Dexter and Sophia both had character flaws, and these two children were even more peculiar.

Due to a strong genetic bond, the older brother instinctively protected his younger sister from the moment he was born. He had an uncanny ability to detect approaching danger and would swiftly eliminate any animals coming close to his sister.

Furthermore, both children possessed remarkably high IQs. They were highly aggressive, and socializing them was difficult.

There was software on the tablet to view the surveillance. Upon playback, I witnessed the two little kids luring the nanny into the bedroom and locking her in.

Then, they proceeded to open the password-protected door of the lab capsule, which was the place we had just entered. If the door was closed directly, it became an invisible door that was difficult to find.

I glanced toward the bedroom and walked over slowly. All the door locks in these rooms were on the outside, which would be convenient for securing the two little kids inside the room.

When I unlocked the door, I took a deep breath. The nanny... was dead. It appeared that she had been locked in for a long time and died of starvation.

I couldn’t help but glance back at the two little kids who eagerly threw themselves into Dexter’s arms and began to act coquettishly... A chill ran down my spine. What kind of little monsters were these two?

At that moment, I had the unsettling illusion that these two kids had deliberately lured us step by step, taking advantage of the fact that the door was locked from the outside. They eliminated the people in the cabin in advance. It was hard to believe that they were no more than four years old.