LOGINThe town felt too ordinary.That was the first thing that unsettled me.Tree-lined streets. Small storefronts. A café with mismatched chairs outside and a chalkboard menu written in looping handwriting. A high school a few blocks down with a faded banner announcing last season’s championship. Cars parked at uneven angles along the curb, like no one here had anywhere urgent to be.Everything looked… normal.Which made it harder to reconcile with what we knew.Jaxon walked beside me, just half a step behind, his presence steady without crowding. He hadn’t spoken much since we left the facility. I hadn’t either. There wasn’t much to say that wouldn’t change the shape of what we were walking into.Agent Bennett’s team had split their positioning the moment we entered town. Two agents ahead, blending as much as possible. Two more behind us, distant enough to avoid drawing attention but close enough to move if something shifted.Controlled proximity.The phrase echoed in my mind.We were st
The map stayed on the table long after the conversation ended.Six points.Six lives.Six variables in something none of us fully understood yet.Agent Bennett had left us with it intentionally. I could tell. It wasn’t just information. It was a test. A way to see what we would prioritize when left alone with choices that didn’t come with instructions.Rory stood over it for a long time without speaking.Her hand rested lightly on the edge of the table, the notebook tucked under her other arm, her gaze fixed on the intersections between the marked locations. She wasn’t looking at the points themselves anymore. She was looking at the spaces between them.That was new.Before, she had been reacting.Now, she was simply mapping.I stayed back at first.Gave her space.Watched the shift happen without interrupting it.Her shoulders had settled. The tension was still there,but it had changed shape. Less scattered. More directed. Her breathing had evened out, slower, controlled in a way tha
The room they moved us into next had windows.That was the first difference.Not large ones. Not open. Reinforced glass set into narrow frames, angled in a way that let light in without offering a clear view out. It made the space feel less like containment and more like observation, which I suspected was the point.They wanted us comfortable enough to think.Not comfortable enough to forget where we were.I stood near the window for a while without really looking through it, the notebook still in my hands, my thumb pressed between its pages as if holding a place mattered when everything inside it refused to stay still in my head.Jaxon stayed by the door this time.A different position.Same intention.Control the space.Watch the entry.Watch the exits.Watch me.I noticed.I didn’t call him out on it.Not yet.The silence stretched longer than it had in the last room.Less sharp.More… layered.There were too many things settling at once.The archive.The notebook.Victor’s words.
The room felt smaller the longer we stayed in it.Nothing about it changed. The walls stayed the same neutral shade. The table stayed centered. The glass stayed transparent, offering a view of controlled movement outside—agents passing, doors opening and closing, voices kept low and efficient.But something pressed in anyway.Something unseen.Something that had followed us in from the rink and refused to settle.I stood near the edge of the table, the notebook open again, my fingers resting lightly against the page I had read twice already. The words had not changed. They would not change. That was the problem.Understanding them had.Jaxon remained a step behind me.Close enough.Careful enough.He had learned when to move and when to wait.I noticed that.I didn’t comment on it.Agent Bennett had stepped out briefly after her last instruction, leaving us alone with the information and the silence it created. That felt intentional. Space to process. Or space to see what we would do
The facility felt too clean.That was the first thing I noticed when we stepped inside.Not sterile in the way hospitals were, with the sharp scent of disinfectant and the quiet hum of machines trying too hard to keep people alive. This was different. Controlled. Designed. Every surface matte, every corner softened, every line deliberate. It was the kind of place built for containment without looking like it.Which made it worse.Rory noticed it too.I saw it in the way her shoulders tightened slightly, in the brief pause she took just past the entrance before continuing forward. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to. We were both thinking the same thing.This was where they brought things they didn’t fully understand.Agent Bennett walked ahead of us, speaking quietly with another agent, her voice low but steady, giving instructions that sounded procedural until you listened closely enough to realize they were all variations of the same thing.Secure it.Separate it.Control it
The drive away from the rink felt different this time.No urgency.No chaos.No adrenaline pushing everything forward at a speed too fast to understand.Just movement.Steady.Controlled.Too quiet.The kind of quiet that made every thought louder than it should be.I sat in the back seat with the notebook resting on my lap, my fingers lightly pressed against its cover as if letting go—even for a second—might cause something inside it to disappear. The red scarf lay folded beside me, still faintly damp from the ice, still carrying a trace of something familiar I couldn’t fully name.Jaxon sat beside me.Not touching.Close enough that I could feel the heat from his arm when the car shifted slightly on the road.That had become our rhythm.Near.Careful.Deliberate.The convoy moved through early morning light now, the sky stretching into pale grey, the edges of the world softening as night gave way to something less certain than day. The city wasn’t fully awake yet. Neither was I.But
My back slammed into the boards so hard the whole rink seemed to crack open.For one blind second, all I heard was the thunder of my own body hitting glass, the sharp scrape of skates and the distant shout of someone calling my name. My helmet flew off, skidding across the ice like a useless piece
The mood shifted sharply an hour later. Marcus had arrived. And Federal agents had escorted him upstairs. Agent Cole remained with him.A precaution I appreciated.Marcus entered the apartment looking like someone hadn't slept in days.His usually relaxed appearance had vanished completely. Dark ci
The truth sat heavily between us. Jaxon relaxed against the kitchen island.For a moment, he looked exhausted. Not just physically. Soul-deep exhausted too. "Did you think I wouldn't want it?"The question caught me off guard.I looked at him. Really looked at him.The man who had spent weeks secr
The world did not shatter dramatically.There was no cinematic explosion. No collapse of walls. No thunder cracking across the sky.Instead, everything became painfully, terrifyingly clear.I stared at the frozen image on my phone screen.The little girl holding the oversized hockey stick.The miss







