Chapter 114: The Decisive Twin Sisters

Chapter 114: Chapter 114: The Decisive Twin Sisters

The abuse they had expected was nowhere to be found. Instead, they were met with a situation they found utterly unacceptable.

The largest room was surprisingly simple, furnished with only a bed.

Several cell phones were set up around it, all recording video.

A group of people with bizarrely excited expressions stared fanatically at the woman semi-reclined in the center.

They were rhythmically chanting some kind of slogan.

The woman’s belly was huge. She was adjusting her breathing and pushing in time with the chant.

With each rhythmic breath and push, the baby inside her slid out, little by little.

Upon hearing the word "police," the others in the room whipped their heads around, their faces filled with terror.

Someone instinctively tried to rush over and destroy the recording phones, but before they could act, a quick-handed SWAT officer restrained them.

Evan Keller and the others secured the phones as quickly as possible, then brought the panicked crowd under control.

Sean Hughes immediately covered the woman on the makeshift delivery bed with a sheet.

Startled by the commotion, the woman gave one last forceful push and delivered the baby.

With a blood-curdling scream, the child was born, and its mother, from the excessive exertion, passed out.

"You clean up the mother and child. We’ll handle things here," Heath Hale said to Sean Hughes.

Sean Hughes nodded. As she lifted the baby and got a clear look at it, her face went deathly pale, and she couldn’t help but turn her head away and gag a few times.

Sean felt she had prepared herself after hearing about Number Three and Number Five. But seeing it with her own eyes, she still couldn’t help but tremble.

"What’s wrong?"

Heath Hale, who had been keeping an eye on Sean, noticed her reaction and thought something had happened.

When he walked over and saw the baby in Sean’s arms, a flash of understanding crossed his eyes.

It was a deformed child.

Its head was smaller than a normal newborn’s. It not only had a single eye that took up half its face, but its ears were located where its jaw met its neck. Aside from its legs being different lengths, its fingers and toes were normal.

"I know of one case of a newborn with a single eye. It was overseas. That baby only lived for a few days. We’ll have to get this one to the hospital and see what the doctors say. It’s best if it can survive, but if not... that might be for the best." The SWAT captain came over, deftly cut the umbilical cord, slapped the baby to make it cry, and cleaned up.

"You’re pretty skilled at this, Captain," Heath Hale remarked, watching his movements.

The SWAT captain watched impassively as Sean Hughes wrapped the baby in a blanket and explained, "My grandmother used to be a midwife. I picked up a few things from her."

Just as Sean had finished wrapping the baby and was about to have someone take it to the hospital, two young, girlish voices came from the doorway. "Give us Number Eleven."

Everyone looked toward the sound. Two frail-looking teenage girls stood in the doorway, holding a thick, small blanket. A younger girl was trailing behind them.

Seeing the girls’ misaligned eyes, one higher than the other, Evan Keller and Heath Hale knew instantly who they were.

They were the twin sisters Number Three had mentioned!

Without waiting for Sean Hughes to respond, the twins walked over and took the baby without a word.

Heath Hale noticed the twins’ eyes sweep over the adults being restrained in the room. Their calm, emotionless gaze gave Heath a bad feeling.

The twins’ movements were not gentle. After seeing the baby’s condition, they immediately used the blanket to smother its mouth and nose without a second thought.

The two of them shielded the baby, one in front and one behind. They moved with perfect coordination, huddling together and giving no one around them time to react.

’Shit!’

Sean Hughes and Heath Hale rushed over at once, but it was too late.

A newborn is incredibly fragile, to say nothing of the fact that the twins had intended to kill from the start.

By the time Sean and Heath finally managed to pull the two girls away and tremblingly removed the blanket from the baby’s face, all they saw was a small face that was no longer breathing.

"Number Eleven shouldn’t have to live in this world."

"Death is the greatest relief for him."

"It’s better than living to become like us."

The twins stated their position, finishing each other’s sentences.

As they spoke, they didn’t forget to look at the detained adults.

Seeing their dumbfounded, disbelieving expressions, the twins grinned at them and even brandished the blanket in their hands.

The adults flinched as if they had seen a ghost, quickly lowering their heads, not daring to meet their gaze.

Unlike Evan Keller’s team of three, who knew the whole story, the SWAT captain didn’t know the specific reasons. However, based on the underground facility and the twins’ appearance, he could guess the gist of it.

The SWAT captain sighed and patted Sean Hughes’s shoulder. "The most important thing right now is to take these people back and interrogate them thoroughly. See if there’s anything else we’ve missed."

"As for these two girls, we’ll leave them to be judged by the law."

In truth, that was all they could do.

The team escorted the compliant captives upstairs.

The remaining half of the officers began searching other areas for anyone who might be hiding and collecting evidence from each room.

The squad led by Evan Keller also found a small, hidden space containing a box of discs and a video camera.

After confirming there were no stragglers, everyone—from both above and below ground—escorted the prisoners down the mountain.

The interrogations were not as difficult as they had imagined. They had expected it to be tough, but all it took was separating the suspects, letting them cool down, and then going in and saying with a straight face, "The others have already pointed the finger at you."

The group spilled everything they knew, like beans from a sack.

Then they repeatedly swore that they were telling the truth.

Fearing the police wouldn’t believe them, they even specifically named one person.

"We arrested a total of nineteen people. Except for the mother who’s still unconscious, everyone else has confessed."

"During the interrogations, eleven of them identified a woman named Julia Payne as the mastermind behind all this. The remaining seven only joined in the first half of this year and hadn’t reached a level where they would have contact with her." Evan Keller looked at the deposition as he came into the office to update everyone on the case’s latest developments.

Heath Hale frowned and asked, "This Julia Payne... which one of the mothers is she?"

The SWAT captain nodded, pulling up a file and projecting it onto the large screen.

"Julia Payne, 40 years old, has a twin brother. Their parents died in an accident when they were young, and they used the compensation money and school awards to study abroad. While studying overseas, the two of them unexpectedly befriended a person of Latino descent."

"After the three of them lived together for half a year, Julia Payne and her brother suddenly dropped out of school, returned to the country, sold their family home, and then disappeared."

"I think the focus of our manhunt now should be on her brother."