𝐑𝐞𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐚 | 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐨𝐲𝐬 (𝐎𝐂)

THREE

In the now dimly lit apartment, Billy Butcher paced back and forth, the floorboards creaking beneath his heavy boots. Anxiety gnawed at him as he glanced at the clock for what felt like the hundredth time. Becca had left for work hours ago, and her continued absence was becoming a heavy weight on his chest.

Billy's mind was a storm of worries and doubts. It wasn't like Becca to stay out this long without a word. He had called her phone repeatedly, but each call went straight to voicemail. The more he thought about it, the more his anxiety spiraled into panic. The nagging suspicion that something was wrong gnawed at him, and he tried to push the dread aside, to hold onto the hope that she was simply caught up in some work-related issue.

He sat at the kitchen table, running his hands through his hair. The familiar, everyday sights of their apartment-the coffee maker, the neatly folded laundry, the photographs of happier times-now felt alien and unsettling. He reached for the photo of them on the table. The image of her smiling face was a stark contrast to the worry etched into his own.

"Come on, love. Where are you?" He muttered, almost pleading with the empty room. His thoughts raced with scenarios, each more alarming than the last. He knew Becca was strong, capable, but this wasn't like her. The more he thought about it, the more his worry took on a life of its own.

Billy's phone buzzed on the table. It was a message from a colleague, but he barely glanced at it before shoving it aside. He needed Becca to come through that door, needed her to explain where she had been. He stood and paced again, the silence of the apartment closing in on him.

In the sterile silence of the room, Julia felt a cold, gnawing emptiness. Her heart had once beat with excitement every time Becca arrived in her room for the day. But it has been days, and now, those moments felt like a distant dream, one that had shattered into a million fragments.

It was late so she could not interact with the other children in the lab, so she was now stuck and left alone in her room that was too large and too quiet. The walls felt suffocating, each corner a reminder of Becca's absence.

A soft whisper in her mind, a familiar voice the three year old had come to rely on, faded like a distant echo. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to shut out the confusion and hurt. Becca's absence was like a storm churning within her, and she wished she could summon her caretaker with a single thought, to make the nightmare end.

In the high-tech control room of Vought, the staff monitored every corner of their empire. Surveillance screens flickered with live feeds from various locations, including the rooms of all the children that resided in the lab. The rooms were a buzz of activity, but one screen displayed a view of the youngest girls quarters, highlighting her distress.

A technician glanced at the monitor and turned to her supervisor. "The girl is showing signs of agitation. Her strength is becoming more powerful than normal for her age."

The supervisor, a middle-aged man with a cold demeanor, nodded. "Keep an eye on her. Make sure she doesn't get out of control and destroy the room. And make sure Becca Butcher's absence is handled more discreetly. The last thing we need is any disruptions."

The technician's fingers hovered over the controls, adjusting the feed to ensure they were monitoring every detail. They had to keep the situation under control, maintain the facade of normalcy while managing the complex web of lies that Vought had spun.

The supervisor's attention shifted to another monitor. "And what about Butcher? Any signs he's gotten wind of anything?"

The technician shook her head. "No usual activity from his end. Just standard concerns. We've managed to keep him in the dark so far."

The supervisor's gaze was inscrutable. "Good. Make sure it stays that way. We can't afford any loose ends."

As the technician continued to monitor the girls distress, the weight of Vought's manipulations and secrets seemed to hang heavily over the room. Each piece of the puzzle was being carefully managed, with every outcome meticulously controlled.