Luna. Chapter 136

(Lyra's POV)

The nurse helped me into a wheelchair for the trip back to my room after another round of tests. Everything still hurt, but the doctors were optimistic about my recovery.

"Luna," Derek appeared at my side as the nurse wheeled me down the corridor. "We need to talk."

"What's wrong?"

"We found something. Or rather, someone found us."

"Who?"

"One of the girls from the orphanage rescue. Emma. She's been asking to speak with you specifically."

I remembered Emma—shy, maybe eight years old, with dark hair and intelligent eyes that seemed too old for her face. "Is she okay?"

"Physically, yes. Emotionally... she's scared. But she says she knows something about the people who attacked you."

"Bring her to me."

"Lyra, you just got out of surgery—"

"Derek, if that little girl has information that could protect Asher, I need to hear it."

Derek nodded reluctantly. "I'll get her. But keep it short, okay? Doctor's orders."

Twenty minutes later, Emma was sitting beside my hospital bed, fidgeting with the hem of her dress. She looked even smaller and more fragile than I remembered.

"Hi, Emma. How are you feeling?"

"Better. The food here is good. And the beds are soft."

My heart clenched. This child was grateful for basic necessities that should have been guaranteed.

"Derek says you wanted to talk to me."

Emma nodded solemnly. "About the bad men who hurt you."

"What about them?"

"I've seen them before. At the place where we were kept."

I felt my attention sharpen. "The orphanage?"

"Not the building. The other place. Where they took some of the older kids sometimes."

"What other place?"

"Big house with lots of cars. Fancy cars. There were always people in suits there."

"Do you remember anything else about this house?"

Emma was quiet for a moment, clearly trying to decide how much to tell me. "They had pictures on the walls. Pictures of important people."

"What kind of important people?"

"The King. And the General. And other people in fancy clothes."

My blood went cold. "Emma, are you sure?"

"Yes. Because one of the men there, he told us we should be honored. He said we were serving the Crown."

"Serving the Crown how?"

Emma's face scrunched up in concentration. "They made us do things. Tests. They wanted to see if we had special abilities."

"What kind of tests?"

"Moving things without touching them. Knowing things we shouldn't know. Changing shapes." She looked down at her hands. "Some of the kids could do amazing things."

"And what happened to those kids?"

"They went away. To special schools, the man said. But they never came back to visit."

I felt sick. The royal family wasn't just targeting individual threats like Asher. They were systematically collecting supernatural children.

"Emma, this is very important. Do you remember where this house was?"

"Outside the city. Near the big lake. There was a gate with a crown on it."

"A crown?"

"Like the one in the pictures. The same symbol."

Derek had been listening from the doorway. "That sounds like the royal summer estate."

"They were taking orphaned supernatural children to a royal property for testing," I said quietly.

"And now they're escalating to direct attacks on families who won't cooperate."

Emma tugged on my sleeve. "Luna? Are you going to stop them?"

I looked down at this brave little girl who'd already survived more trauma than most adults would face in a lifetime.

"Yes," I said firmly. "We're going to stop them."

"Good." Emma's smile was small but determined. "Because there are still kids there. Kids who need help."

After Emma left, Derek sat down heavily in the visitor chair. "This is bigger than we thought."

"Much bigger. We're not just talking about threats against Asher. We're talking about a systematic program to collect and experiment on supernatural children."

"What do we do with this information?"

"We document everything. We get Emma's testimony recorded. We find the other survivors and get their stories."

"And then?"

"Then we take it to the Council. To the media. To anyone who will listen." I struggled to sit up straighter despite the pain. "We expose what they're doing."

"Lyra, that's incredibly dangerous. If the royal family is running illegal experiments on children—"

"Then they need to be stopped."

Derek was quiet for a moment. "You know this means war, right? Not political maneuvering or legal challenges. Actual war."

"Maybe war is what's needed."

"Are you prepared for that? For what it would cost?"

I thought about Emma's haunted eyes, about the children who were still trapped somewhere, about Asher growing up in a world where powerful people saw him as a resource to be controlled rather than a child to be protected.

"I'm prepared to do whatever it takes to keep children safe."

"Even if it costs everything?"

"Especially if it costs everything."

Derek nodded slowly. "Then we better start gathering allies. Because we're going to need all the help we can get."

I looked out the hospital window toward the distant mountains where the royal estate was hidden. Somewhere out there, children were being held against their will, subjected to experiments, treated like objects instead of people.

That ended now.

Whatever it took, however dangerous it became, that ended now.

"Derek?"

"Yeah?"

"Get me Iris. We need to plan a rescue mission."

"Lyra—"

"Those children have been suffering while we worried about legal protections and political maneuvering. No more. We're getting them out."

"The royal estate is the most heavily guarded property in the supernatural world."

"Then we'll have to be smarter than their guards."

Derek stared at me for a long moment, then smiled grimly. "You know what? Let's do it."