"Great is the power of steady misrepresentation" -Charles Darwin

I'm not sure whether it's the below-surface placement of the ward or the fact that my body happens to have several faults to it, but suddenly I feel as though I've been placed into a meat locker. Shaky breaths manage to pass through my lips as I watch the irritatingly stubborn dot constantly blip on the screen. If only it could just disappear from this place. But it's not that easy, I've come to realize. In this world, problems rise and solutions fall beyond reach.

"I didn't put you in this room to chat, Jaffrey," Jeff calls from the corner of the room. With every syllable that leaves his mouth, I feel less and less sympathetic to the state of duress I left him in. He's obviously still in pain, I notice, as I watch him lean on the doorway and squint toward us. I wouldn't be surprised if he passed out right at this moment from sensory overload.

"Right, got it." Dox frowns as he moves closer to me, mumbling the word "shithead" under his breath. In spite of the situation we're in right now, I can't help but cover my mouth from laughter. Dox's shoulders lift several inches the moment Jeff begrudgingly shuffles away from the door.

"Who is this kid?" Chase asks a little too loudly, causing Dox's frown to be directed toward him. Once again, tension enters the room thanks to the never-ending supply of misplaced male testosterone.

"'This kid' is Maddox Jaffrey and I've just about saved both of your asses at this point in time," Dox huffs as he throws another death glare toward my brother.

As much as I'd love to make a jab at their unnecessary hostility, curiosity of what Maddox says wins over.

"Excuse me?"

"Jeff doesn't know about the DNA match to the guy waiting upstairs." Dox's voice lowers several octaves as he looks anxiously toward the open doorway. "He knows that the arrival somehow has to be connected to you guys, but I've tried to keep as much information from him as possible."

Chase and I exchange nervous glances as the dot continues to blink on the monitor. People are going to figure out what's going on sooner or later, but in this case it would be in our best interest to keep everyone in the dark for as long as possible. Giving the impression that we know about our father's arrival would suggest we're trying to hide something of value. In this case, I'm not even sure my dad being her would be a bonus to research or a danger to the inhabitants. I have a bad feeling Cosmas doesn't care too much about the latter.

"Thank you," I finally say, holding out my hand to hold Dox's. For whatever reason, he's been my guardian angel since we've arrived here. The whole spiel of enjoying my company sounds like a weak explanation that I would love to venture further into later down the road, but for now I decide to remain complacent and grateful.

"Not that I don't enjoy being caught in your wide array of entanglements, but do you mind telling me who the hell in standing on the doorstep of a heavily guarded, top secret facility?" Dox gives us a pointed, business-only look as he absent-mindedly rolls his finger over the monitor.

"That's not something we can-"

"It's our dad," I interrupt my brother, deciding to trust my gut. Dox has been loyal to us up to this point, and withholding this kind of information from him just might make us lose what little time we have to save our father.

Because regardless of whether my dad is a carrier of the disease, my main motive from here on is to keep my family safe. And leading him to the very same facility that has been monitoring me since my childhood and has recently forced my brother closer to a body bag doesn't seem like the best choice of movement. Rather than feel more confused about my position within Project Luna, the knowledge of my health has only made me feel stronger. Invincible, even.

"Fucking hell," Maddox swears, biting the pad of one of his fingers. "Lia Darwin, you are just full of surprises."

With that, Dox grabs my arm and starts pulling me toward the door. Chase follows quickly behind, somehow making the conscious decision to trust Dox for the time being.

"I've got one more trick under my sleeve," Dox murmurs as we turn face-to-face with our common enemy.

"Jeff," I blurt out in shock. For whatever reason, I always seem to forget the man is always watching over me. It's as if he's some sort of pesky fly.

"And Dr. Adams," a voice calls out from behind him. The sound of heels clacking on tiles fills the silence that roles alongside our initial surprise. As pristine as ever, Nes stands in front of us in her regular grey pantsuit, hands held formally behind her back. I feel Chase tense as she stops directly in front of me. "Breaking out of custody, Ophelia? I had such high expectations for you."

"Well, you're just going to have to shove-"

A small gust of wind pushes me back as I watch Nes fall ungracefully to the floor. My head snaps up to see Jeff rush toward us before he falls quickly after.

"Tranquilizer darts." I turn toward Maddox to see him stowing away what seems to be a small gun back into his pocket.

Assessing the open-mouthed looks that my brother and I share, Dox groans and smacks a hand against his forehead.

"I'm going to get my ass handed over to me for this. Come with me."

***

Despite the fluorescent lighting filtering the hallway, our trek almost has an eerie atmosphere hanging over it. With Nes and Jeff compromised, there's no one to run after us for the time being. I almost feel a sense of relief by the temporary emptiness surrounding us. Almost.

"He's going to get hurt," a voice whispers beside me as I continue to follow closely behind Dox. Maintaining my pace, I slowly turn my head to see a familiar head of long, blonde hair bobbing next to my hip.

The little girl.

"He's going to get hurt," she repeats, this time making an effort to look up at me. She coughs violently into her arm, causing me to pause momentarily. Dox and Chase share worried looks as they notice my slowing down, but I'm too consumed by the girl's actions to care about what they're seeing.

"Who are you talking about?"

The girl finally raises her head from her arm, surreptitiously wiping the blackened saliva on her sleeve. I try to hold back the bile rising up my throat.

"Lia." I feel an arm wrap around my waist, forcing me to turn away from the girl. By the time the grip loosens enough for me to turn back around, the mirage is gone. Whatever part of my brain is allowing me to see the girl, it seems to know something that I don't. It's as if my mind is trying to reach for information that my conscious is unable to communicate with me.

I don't have time to decipher hidden messages, though. All I have is what's in front of me, and from my experience so far in Project Luna, I've come to realize that I need to be a lot more skeptical of the people claiming to be my friend.

"Why are you helping us?" I ask, turning toward Dox. My brother almost looks uncomfortable from my sudden change in mood, but I ignore the hand he puts on my shoulder. Reality has officially set in. There's no possible way that we can walk away from this situation with the record of the arrival of my father completely erased from questioning. Jeff already knows he's here, and he's most likely alerted at least Nes for further detainment.

"Because you're my friend." Maddox raises an eyebrow at me. I feel the creeping impression that I sound like I'm on the verge of lunacy, but I repress the feeling.

"Bullshit. You wouldn't go through this much trouble for anyone unless there was some sort of hidden motive. No normal human being would just tranquilize an officer to help someone they just met." To my relief, Chase releases my shoulder, using his arms to cross over his chest. At least I have someone on my side.

"You're really going to do this now?" Dox challenges me, but I maintain my ground. After a few excruciating beats, he finally raises his hands in defense. "You're special, Lia Darwin. I'd be an idiot not to notice that you have some sort of power over Cosmas, whatever it is. Call me a desperate coward, but I'm hoping whatever I'm doing right now will help me in the big scheme of things."

Regardless of how ill-placed his friendship may be, I can't help but feel as though his motive is impressively clever. Dox doesn't even know about the possible antidote in my body and he's still deduced that I have some form of power within the program. His willingness to follow me into the dark is almost flattering.

"You're lying."

In a blur of motion, I watch as my brother grips the collar of Dox's shirt and presses him against the wall. Before I can make a move, Chase's hand snakes its way up my friend's neck, crushing him into a chokehold.

"Oh my god, Chase! Put him down!" I scream, ignoring the fact that anyone could follow my voice to find us in this hallway.

"I'm not jeopardizing your safety for a loose end," Chase says, glancing momentarily toward me. I'm paralyzed as I watch his grip tighten around Dox's neck.

"Did you just call me a loose end?" Dox wheezes only to yell out in pain as my brother slams him against the wall even harder. "Okay! Okay. I may have left out a bit of information."

Now it's my turn to cross my arms over my chest. "Excuse me?"

"I wasn't lying about befriending you for your future help." Dox slaps Chase's hands away and pushes himself off the wall, rubbing his neck gingerly. "But I didn't just do it for myself. I was recruited back when Talin fell to nigrum sanguis."

I vaguely remember the time before Talin was consumed with the disease. As the first district to be quarantined, it's hard to think of it without associating it with the devastation of realizing that the United Commonwealth wasn't safe from the virus. If I remember correctly, Talin's quarantine happened almost a year before my mother was diagnosed. It didn't take long for the other districts to fall shortly after.

"I was barely in grade school back then," he continues. "My dad was working for a large pharmaceutical company sponsored by Cosmas when our family was recruited for Project Luna. As a well-known pharmacist in Talin, it would've been easy to transfer our entire family to the facility. Except my mother was pregnant at the time. We all had a clean bill of health when they did the medical examinations, but having her carry a child within the facility would run a great risk for susceptibility to disease. Infants get sick easily and there was no telling that the baby would even be a stable carrier like the rest of us.

"They gave my father an ultimatum. Either help figure out a solution for the disease by entering himself into the program or stay with my mother to face the disease in quarantine. You can guess what he chose."

"Where is she now?" I whisper, unable to keep my voice from wavering. How could a father be left to choose between his wife and his child? What kind of sick bastards would force a man to make that type of sacrifice?

"My mom managed to transfer herself to Schismin before the lockdown. She's still a stable carrier." Maddox absentmindedly pulls at the collar of his shirt while looking down at the ground. "She can still join us at this point."

"So why doesn't she?"

He sighs, dropping his hands into his pockets. "Because the child she was carrying isn't a stable carrier. My sister is twelve years old and has been sick for two months now. We're not even sure how she managed to survive for this long."

I can't hold back the tears that manage to flow down my cheeks. The majority of Maddox's life has been made up mostly of running away from an inescapable disease, and now he's forced to sit on the sidelines as his sister is dying from the one thing his father made sure to keep him safe from. Two siblings, forced to live entirely separate lifestyles because of an unfortunate circumstance.

And then it dawns on me. "Maddox, I may be able to save your sister."

His entire face lights up in a split second, breaking into a wide grin as he takes a step toward me. I almost cry even harder as I watch the transformation of someone so beaten down to someone who has once again found hope. That is until I watch the light completely extinguish from his eyes as his body crumples to a shaking heap on the floor. I look over in shock at my brother only to see him fall shortly after to the same position.

A vague sense of burning hits the back of my throat until I realize I'm screaming.

***

A/N: I'm not even sure where to start. First off, I guess I should say happy #LunarWednesday! Yes, this is officially a thing. I promise that it is, and that I will not disappear for an extended period of time out of the blue. I actually have a legitimate reason, though. These past few weeks, I've been in France for my senior trip with my family. By the second day here, I noticed a pain in my lower back that I would later find out is a growing cyst (benign, thank god). So, yes, in a nutshell my trip has turned into a traumatic experience of pain and several visitations to the hospital in a foreign country where I don't speak the language. I'm coming to you today with the cyst fully removed, but I'm still in a lot of discomfort. Basically, it was hard enough attempting to actually sit down to write this, but I'm still here! Recovery will hopefully turn out to be fast and easy so updates will come faster very soon.

I'd like to give a big thank-you to JagsTheCat for the lovely edit that she gave to me several weeks ago that I've been dying to share. She's lovely and I can't reiterate enough how much she means to me on Wattpad.

Another thank you goes to CandaceMJ for being such an inspiration for Maddox Jaffrey. She is the ultimate easter egg. Also, I don't know if you know this, but she has this book called Chameleon and I'm kind of obsessed with it. Just a little bit obsessed.

IleanaLewis is my super bae and you should definitely read her story The Black Dreamer because I told you so. No questions asked.

Please share your thoughts on this chapter! I'm barely lucid and I can already tell that this has been one of my least favorite ones to write. Hopefully I can deliver some better ones in the future.

I hope all of you have a lovely day/night! I'm going to go pass out now and try to recuperate for the next chapter.

Stay lunar,

Liliana