The word "sister" hung in the air like a physical blow. Jerry stared at the silver-haired girl in the containment unit, his mind struggling to reconcile this revelation with everything he thought he knew about his life. All those years of feeling alone, different, cursed - and there had been someone else like him all along.
Vorlag's cold smile widened. "Surprised? Your parents were quite thorough in their deceptions. But family always finds a way to reveal itself, doesn't it?"
Laura stepped closer to Jerry, her voice barely a whisper. "Is it true?"
Before Jerry could answer, the girl in the tank - Selene - spoke through the comm system, her voice as crystalline as her prison. "He doesn't know, Captain. They never told him about me. Just as they never told him what he truly is."
Jerry's gaze locked with hers through the glass. "What am I?"
"A weapon," Vorlag answered for her. "The culmination of generations of genetic manipulation. Your parents weren't just hiding what you are - they were protecting their life's work."
The pieces began clicking into place with terrifying speed. His parents' secretive behavior, their access to restricted research, the way they always knew exactly how to manage his "condition." They hadn't just been hiding a monster; they had been nurturing an experiment.
Selene's expression remained unnervingly calm. "They designed us to be the perfect balance - vampire strength without the weaknesses, human compassion without the fragility. But their methods were... flawed."
"The plague," Jerry realized aloud. "It's based on their research, isn't it?"
Vorlag nodded. "A perversion of it. The Council took their work and weaponized it. But we can still salvage the original purpose."
Alarms continued to blare throughout the facility, the sounds of fighting growing closer. The other anomalies were putting up more resistance than anticipated.
"We don't have time for this family reunion," Laura said urgently, her eyes on the plague samples. "The cleansing -"
"Will proceed as scheduled," Vorlag interrupted. "Unless you join us, Jerry. Your sister made the smart choice. She understands that true change comes from within the system."
Selene's eyes pleaded with Jerry. "They'll kill our parents if we don't cooperate. The Council has them in custody."
Another devastating blow. Jerry felt the world tilt around him. His parents - the people who had lied to him his entire life, but who had also protected him, loved him - were now prisoners because of what they had created.
The conflict inside Jerry reached a fever pitch. The part of him that had always craved belonging wanted to believe Selene, to protect what remained of his family. But the hunter he had become saw the larger picture - the thousands of lives at stake.
"I need to know the truth," Jerry said, his voice tight with emotion. "From you." He looked directly at Selene. "Not what they told you to say. The real truth."
For the first time, Selene's calm facade cracked. Her silver eyes flickered with uncertainty. "They... they showed me records. Experiments on vampire prisoners, trying to force the mutation. Our parents' work wasn't purely scientific. It was... brutal."
Vorlag's smile vanished. "Enough. The decision is simple, Jerry. Join us, and your family lives. Fight us, and you'll watch them die before we put you in the tank next to your sister."
It was in that moment that Jerry made his choice. He didn't look at Vorlag or the guards. He looked at Laura, seeing the trust in her eyes despite everything. He looked at the plague samples that could kill millions. Then he looked back at his sister.
"Family isn't blood," Jerry said quietly. "It's choice. And I choose to protect the innocent."
He moved faster than even Vorlag anticipated. Not toward the plague samples or the guards, but toward Selene's containment unit. His hand slammed against the control panel, and with a surge of will, he didn't just break the locks - he absorbed them, feeling the technology's essence flow through him in a way he never knew was possible.
The glass shattered, and Selene stumbled out, free for the first time in years. But instead of gratitude, her eyes held panic.
"What have you done?" she whispered. "The fail-safes..."
Vorlag backed away, a cruel smile returning to his face. "She wasn't lying about that part. The containment unit was linked to the plague dispersal system. You've just activated the countdown."
A new alarm sounded, this one deeper, more urgent. Display screens around the lab lit up with a ten-minute countdown.
Laura grabbed Jerry's arm. "The samples! We have to destroy them now!"
But Selene shook her head, her silver hair flying. "It's too late. The dispersal can't be stopped from here. You have to get to the central control room - three levels up."
Vorlag and his guards were retreating, sealing the laboratory doors behind them. They were willing to sacrifice the facility to complete their mission.
Jerry looked from Laura to his newly freed sister, then to the countdown that spelled doom for thousands. Every instinct told him to chase Vorlag, to make him pay for everything he'd done.
But the hunter in him knew better. The mission came first.
"Show us the way," he told Selene, his voice stripped of all uncertainty. "But understand - if this is another trick, I won't hesitate."
Selene met his gaze, and for the first time, he saw genuine emotion in her eyes - not the programmed responses of a prisoner, but the fierce determination of a sister wronged.
"No tricks," she promised. "But you should know - I'm not the only family you have in this facility. There are others. Our parents'... earlier attempts."
The revelation should have shocked him, but somehow, it only solidified his resolve. He had come here to destroy a weapon and expose a conspiracy. Instead, he had found a family he never knew, a legacy of experimentation, and a countdown to genocide.
As they raced toward the central control room, Jerry realized that saving the world meant confronting every truth his parents had buried - including the brothers and sisters they had abandoned before him.
The hunter had become a savior, the weapon had become a shield, and the boy who thought he was alone now had more family than he could have imagined - if he could survive long enough to meet them.