Chapter 4: The Cracks Begin

Three days after the rooftop, I stopped sleeping.

Not because of nightmares. Because every time I closed my eyes, I heard V's voice: You and I are more alike than you want to admit. And the worst part—the part that made my skin crawl at 3 AM—was that I couldn't find the lie in it.

I had saved a man's life at Dataran Merdeka. The news called me a hero. My face was everywhere. "Teenager stops serial killer at independence celebration." But heroes don't lie awake questioning if they enjoyed the puzzle more than the rescue.

V had given me a riddle. I had solved it. And somewhere in that moment of solving, I had felt something I hadn't felt since Dad died.

Alive.

I shoved the thought away and got out of bed.

Amira had converted her UMMC office into a war room. Whiteboards covered every wall, filled with her handwriting: diagrams of the fear induction technique, chemical formulas, neurological pathways. She looked like she hadn't slept either.

"I've been analyzing the compound residue from the square," she said as I walked in. "It degrades within minutes of exposure, which is why forensics never finds it. But I managed to isolate a stabilizer V uses. It's medical-grade. Hospital supply chain."

"Which means he has access to hospital equipment."

"Or he did. Six years ago." She turned to her laptop. "I pulled the inventory logs from the original Project Lighthouse facility. The lead researcher—the real Dr. V—ordered equipment from seven different suppliers. One of them still has records. Guess who signed for the final shipment."

She turned the screen toward me.

The signature was shaky, like a child learning to write. But the name was clear.

Jian Wei. Age 14.

"The seventh participant," I whispered.

"He wasn't just a participant, Ash. He was a patient. Admitted to the project at thirteen. Orphan. No family. IQ tested at 178. The real V wasn't trying to cure him. He was trying to create something. A human subject who could experience and record the full spectrum of fear responses. And he succeeded—just not in the way he expected."

"What happened to the real V?"

Amira's face went cold. "He was the first victim. Six years ago. His body was found in the same lab, same symptoms as the victims now. At the time, it was ruled a heart attack. No one looked deeper."

The real V. Jian Wei. A thirteen-year-old genius, broken and rebuilt in a laboratory, who killed his tormentor and took his name.

He wasn't born a monster. He was made.

My phone buzzed. A number I now expected.

You've been digging into my past. Good. But history won't help you stop what's coming. The sixth experiment is personal this time. Someone on your list. Someone you care about.

Three days. Same countdown.

—V

I looked at Amira. "He's targeting Inspector Chen."

Chen was already under protection. Two officers stationed outside his apartment in Cheras. But V had never needed a weapon. Protection against a bullet was easy. Protection against your own mind was impossible.

We found him at his desk at Bukit Aman headquarters, surrounded by case files and empty coffee cups. He looked up when I entered, and I saw something in his eyes I'd never seen before. Not fear. Not exactly. Something closer to acceptance.

"I knew I'd be on the list eventually," he said. "Your father warned me. He said V was following a pattern—eliminating everyone connected to the project in a specific sequence. First the ones who knew his technique. Then the ones who knew his identity."

"And you know his identity."

"I know what your father discovered before he died." Chen reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a sealed envelope. "He gave me this. Said to open it only if V came for me. I think that time has arrived."

I took the envelope. Inside was a single photograph and a handwritten note.

The photograph showed a group of people standing in front of a building I didn't recognize. Seven adults in lab coats. And in the center, a thin boy with hollow eyes—Jian Wei, age thirteen. But it wasn't his face that made my stomach drop.

It was the man standing behind him. Hand on his shoulder. Smiling like a proud father.

My dad.

"Your father didn't investigate Project Lighthouse," Chen said quietly. "He funded it. He was one of the original backers. A private initiative between PDRM and a tech company to develop non-lethal interrogation techniques. He didn't know what V was really doing until it was too late. By the time he pulled the plug, Jian Wei had already been shattered. The facility was shut down. Records erased. Everyone signed NDAs."

The room spun. Dad had helped create V. His guilt must have consumed him. That's why he kept investigating. Not to solve a case. To undo his own mistake.

"He tried to find Jian Wei after the shutdown," Chen continued. "Tracked him for years. But by then, Jian Wei had already become V. And when they finally met in that shed—"

"V gave him the riddle," I said. "And he got it wrong."

"Your father couldn't admit his greatest fear. So he died."

I stared at the photograph. At the hollow-eyed boy. At my father's unknowing smile. And the cracks that had been forming inside me since the rooftop suddenly widened into a chasm.

V wasn't just testing me. He was showing me the truth about my own family. And the truth about myself.

That night, I went back to the thinking shed alone.

Dad's corkboard was still there. His case files. His quote on the wall: To see what others miss. But now I saw something else. Tucked behind the bookshelf, a small metal box I'd never noticed before.

Inside were letters. Dozens of them. All addressed to Jian Wei. All returned unopened.

Dear Jian Wei, I know you won't read this. But I need to say it anyway. I was wrong. I thought I was building something to protect people. Instead, I helped create a nightmare. You were a child, and I let them hurt you. I've spent every day since trying to find you. Not to arrest you. To apologize. To help you, if you'll let me. —Daniel Lin

Letter after letter. Years of them. My father had spent his final years not hunting a killer, but trying to save the boy he had failed.

And in the last letter, dated three days before his death:

I know you're watching my son. I've seen the signs. Please, Jian Wei. If you need someone to hate, hate me. Leave Ash out of this. He's innocent. He doesn't know what I did. He doesn't know what we turned you into.

But if you won't stop... then I'll be waiting.

He hadn't gotten the riddle wrong. He had offered himself in my place.

The tears came before I could stop them.

My phone buzzed. A different number this time. Unknown. I answered without thinking.

"Ash." V's voice. No distortion. No mask. Just a young man, somewhere in the city, sounding almost... tired.

"You've been reading my letters," I said.

"I read them all. Six years of them. Your father was the only one who ever apologized." A pause. "That's why I gave him a chance. The riddle. If he could admit his greatest fear, I would have let him live. But he couldn't. His fear was losing you. And instead of admitting it, he tried to sacrifice himself."

"That's not weakness."

"No. It's not." Another pause. "I envied you, Ash. Growing up with someone who loved you that much. I wanted to understand what that felt like. So I watched you. Studied you. And somewhere along the way, I realized something."

"What?"

"That you're the only person who might understand what I became. You've seen the darkness now. You know what your father helped create. You know the guilt runs in your blood too."

I gripped the phone tighter. "I'm nothing like you."

"Aren't you? When you solved my riddle on that rooftop, you felt it. The thrill. The clarity. Fear isn't just a prison, Ash. It's also a key. It unlocks what people really are. I can teach you to use it."

"I don't want your lessons."

A soft laugh. Not cruel. Almost sad.

"You say that now. But the sixth experiment is in three days. And this time, it's Inspector Chen. The man who knew everything and stayed silent. The man who let your father walk into that shed alone. The man who lied to you for months about how Daniel really died."

I went cold.

"Three days, Ash. Save him if you can. But ask yourself—does he deserve to be saved?"

The line went dead.

I sat in the shed until dawn, surrounded by my father's letters and the ghost of a broken boy.

V was right about one thing. I couldn't go back to who I was before. The darkness was inside me now. The question was what I would do with it.

Fear isn't just a prison. It's also a key.

Maybe. But keys can lock doors as well as open them.

I pulled out my phone and called Amira. "I need to understand something. If V's compound induces fear through specific frequencies... can it be reversed?"

"Reversed how?"

"Can you use the same technique to induce calm? To break the fear response instead of creating it?"

A long pause. "Theoretically, yes. But no one's ever tried. The compound was designed for one purpose only. Reversing it would require..."

"Someone who understands the technique as well as V does."

I looked at the letters scattered across the floor. At my father's final words. At the photograph of a hollow-eyed boy who had never known love, only fear.

"I think I know how to stop him," I said. "But I'm going to need three days. And I'm going to need access to the original Project Lighthouse equipment."

"Ash, that facility was destroyed—"

"No. It wasn't. V's been using it. That's how he manufactures the compound. That's where he's been hiding for six years."

I stood up, pocketing the photograph and the last letter.

"And I know where it is."

***Download NovelToon to enjoy a better reading experience!***