The first thing that shattered was the chandelier. It didn’t fall. It didn’t flicker. It didn’t even tremble. It shattered on its own—one sudden crack like ice splitting on a winter lake in upstate Maine—raining down glittering shards that caught the warm glow of the Thanksgiving candles. I remember thinking it looked almost celebratory, like confetti being thrown at the worst possible moment in the worst possible house in the American Northeast. My family didn’t move. We were used to things breaking around us. What I wasn’t used to was the way my father’s voice followed the sound, as if the chandelier had only been the opening act.

“You,” he said, pointing his carving fork toward me the way a judge might gesture toward a doomed defendant. “Are a useless failure.”

His voice didn’t dip. Didn’t soften. Didn’t shift into the hushed, polite tones people in movies use when delivering painful truths. He kept it loud enough for the entire table to hear, loud enough that even the neighbors in their warm, suburban homes might have felt the echo drift over the lawns.

My mother didn’t blink. Crystal—my sister—hid a smile behind her napkin, the linen embroidered with tiny pumpkins. And me? I felt my chair shrink. Or maybe I did.

I was twenty-eight years old. Old enough that this kind of scene shouldn’t have cracked me open. Old enough that I should have known better than to come home to this house in the first place. But hope has a way of making fools out of the people who cling to it, and I had clung to the idea that maybe—just maybe—this year would be different.

It wasn’t.

My father pushed the fork deeper into the turkey as he nodded toward the door.

“Get out,” he said. “Go live in the streets.”

The worst part wasn’t that he said it. The worst part was how ordinary it felt coming from him, as natural as passing the cranberry sauce. No shock. No shame. Just a clean, public cut. A ritual sacrifice performed between the mashed potatoes and the green bean casserole.

I stood. Nobody stopped me. The last thing I saw before stepping outside into the cold New England air was the turkey’s golden skin catching the light, glistening like varnished wood, untouched by the storm erupting around it.

Thanksgiving in America: a holiday meant for gratitude, warmth, family unity. Mine had been a stage for a lifetime of small humiliations that now culminated in this final performance.

Outside, the wind scraped against my jacket. The night smelled faintly of burning leaves and chimney smoke drifting from houses where families didn’t tear each other apart. Across the street, a blow-up turkey on a neighbor’s lawn gently bobbed in the breeze, its face stupidly cheerful in the glow of porch lights.

I had nowhere to go.

Or at least, that’s what I believed until my phone buzzed, flashing a name I hadn’t seen in years: Evelyn Hart.

The message was simple:
Are you home for the holiday?

Evelyn and I had grown up together in this same American suburb—two misfits who bonded over the fact that our parents didn’t understand us and probably never would. She had left for California after college and vanished into a life that looked glossy and surreal on social media: palm trees, rooftop pools, sunset photo shoots, tiny dogs wearing sweaters. I had always suspected she was running from something, but I never guessed I’d someday be running toward her.

I typed back with cold fingers:
Not anymore. Can we meet?

She answered almost instantly.
Come to the diner. The old one off Route 15.

The diner. Of course. It was exactly the kind of place where people in American paperbacks rebuilt their lives after losing everything. The red neon sign flickered like a heartbeat as I approached, and the smell of fried food hit me with the force of memory.

Evelyn was already inside, sitting in a booth by the window, her hair longer, her eyes sharper, her posture somehow both more confident and more defensive. When she saw me, she gave a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“You look like someone threw you out of an airplane.”

“Close,” I said. “They threw me out of Thanksgiving dinner.”

She whistled softly, stirring her coffee. “That bad?”

“Worse.”

She leaned forward, chin resting on her hand. “Tell me everything.”

I did. And the whole time, she watched me like someone studying a puzzle she was determined to solve. When I finished, she didn’t offer pity. She offered something better.

“Then leave,” she said. “Leave this place. Leave him. Leave all of them. Start over.”

“With what money?” I asked, laughing bitterly. “I can’t pay rent, let alone start a new life.”

“That’s the thing,” she said. “I might have a job for you. But it’s not… normal.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Define not normal.”

“You’d be traveling. Seeing parts of the U.S. you’ve never seen. Meeting people who aren’t like the ones here. Staying far away from your father. And the pay is… good.”

“Too good?”

“Maybe.” She grinned.

That was the moment—right there in that American roadside diner—that my life swerved off the familiar highway and onto a road covered in fog. If I’d known where it led, maybe I would’ve run. But pain makes cowards brave in the strangest ways.

“Okay,” I said. “I’m listening.”

She slid a folded paper toward me. An address in Manhattan. A time. A name.

The Beaumont Agency.
Ask for Harrison.

“Tell him I sent you,” she said. “And don’t be late. He hates late.”

I looked down at the slip, then up at her. “What exactly does this agency do?”

Her smile sharpened. “They find people who need a second chance.”

I left the diner with a sense of purpose I hadn’t felt in years. But beneath it, something churned—a premonition, a warning. The air tasted metallic, like the moment before lightning strikes.

I didn’t sleep that night. Instead, I walked through my childhood neighborhood, past neatly trimmed lawns and homes glowing warmly from within. Families gathered around fires. Children laughed indoors. Dogs barked at the edges of fences. Every window I passed felt like a reminder of everything I lacked.

My father’s voice replayed in my head: Useless failure.

Maybe this was finally my chance to prove him wrong.

I took the first bus to New York the next morning, watching the sprawling American landscape shift from forests to suburbs to towering skyscrapers. The city felt alive in a way I never had. Maybe it could breathe life into me.

The Beaumont Agency was nothing like I expected. It wasn’t sleek or modern. It wasn’t glamorous or intimidating. It was quiet—too quiet—a narrow brick building tucked between a bakery and a pawn shop, with a single brass plaque on the door.

Inside, a man waited. Mid-fifties. Impeccably dressed. Cold eyes.

“Harrison?” I asked.

He nodded. “You must be the one Evelyn mentioned.”

I opened my mouth to ask what exactly I was signing up for, but he spoke first.

“You’ve been hurt,” he said calmly. “Deeply. Recently. I can see it.”

I swallowed hard.

He continued. “Pain makes you useful. Motivated. Hungry.”
His gaze never wavered. “We work with people like you.”

“Doing what?”

He folded his hands. “Telling stories.”

I blinked. “Stories?”

“Real ones. American ones. Stories that grip people by the throat. Stories that make them feel something they didn’t know they were missing. You’ll travel. You’ll observe. You’ll report what you see, what you feel, what others are afraid to say out loud. And in exchange, we’ll give you what you’ve never had.”

“Which is?”

“Freedom. Money. Direction. A life that belongs entirely to you.”

It sounded like a cult. Or a scam. Or an opportunity too good to be real. But then he said:

“Your father told you that you’re worthless, didn’t he?”

My breath caught.

“You want to prove him wrong,” Harrison said. “We can help with that.”

He slid a contract toward me. The paper was thick, the ink crisp, the sentences written in legalistic American jargon that made my eyes burn.

“Why me?” I whispered.

“Because people like you write the best truths,” he said. “The kind that feel like fiction until someone recognizes themselves in them.”

I should have walked out. I didn’t.

I signed.

What followed wasn’t glamorous. It wasn’t cinematic or heroic. It was raw, messy, human. Beaumont sent me across the U.S.—small towns, big cities, communities tucked behind mountains or sprawled across deserts. I met people who had suffered more than I had. People who had risen anyway. People who had fallen and didn’t know if they wanted to get up again.

I wrote everything down.

Late nights in cheap motels with humming air conditioners. Early mornings in diners where the coffee tasted burnt but comforting. Afternoons spent talking to strangers who confessed things they hadn’t told their closest friends.

And for the first time, I felt… necessary.

But the more I wrote, the more I noticed patterns—coincidences too precise to be accidents. Every person Beaumont sent me to felt chosen for a reason. Their stories connected in ways I couldn’t explain. Threads weaving into something bigger.

Some nights, as trains clattered through cities or buses rattled through rural highways, I felt watched. Not in a paranoid way. In a targeted way.

One morning, I returned to my motel room in Chicago and found a note under my door.

You’re not just telling stories.
You’re part of one.

No signature. No explanation.

That night, Harrison called.

“You’re doing good work,” he said. “Important work.”

“What kind of work is this really?” I asked. “Because people are saying things—”

“People talk,” he said sharply. “Ignore them. Focus.”

But I couldn’t. Because something had shifted. I noticed a black SUV tailing me through three states. I caught glimpses of the same woman—a pale coat, red hair—in airports and train stations. And one day, in a motel parking lot outside Denver, someone slipped a file into my bag.

Inside were photos. Of me. From places I didn’t know I’d been watched. From angles that made my skin crawl. Notes about my behavior. Psychological observations.

And at the bottom:
Subject shows promising cognitive malleability.

I confronted Harrison.

He didn’t deny it.

“You’re a valuable asset,” he said simply. “We observe assets.”

“For what?” I demanded.

“To see if you’re ready.”

“For what?” I repeated.

He smiled in a way that made my stomach twist.

“For your real assignment.”

I didn’t sleep at all that night. Instead, I watched the American highway lights flash past my motel window in long, trembling lines, wondering how far I’d let myself fall into something I didn’t understand.

And then my phone buzzed again.

Evelyn.
We need to talk. Now. Don’t trust Harrison.

The moment I read it, everything snapped into terrifying clarity.

Because I had trusted her first.

And she had been the one who sent me here.

I packed my things. Grabbed my bag. Ran out into the cold Denver night. I didn’t know where I was going—just that I wasn’t staying.

Behind me, in the distance, the sound of an engine roared to life.

A black SUV.

I sprinted.

Across the parking lot. Through the quiet street. Into the maze of alleys behind the motel. My breath tore through my lungs, the cold slicing into me as the footsteps behind me grew louder.

Then a hand grabbed my arm.

I spun around, ready to fight—

It was Evelyn.

Her eyes were wide, frantic. “You need to listen,” she whispered. “I made a mistake sending you there. I thought Beaumont helped people. I didn’t know what they were really doing.”

“What are they doing?” I gasped.

“They’re collecting stories,” she said. “Not to publish. Not to share. To control. To predict. They’re mapping people—millions of them—through every story their writers gather. And the writers…” Her voice cracked. “They’re not just observers. They’re variables.”

“Variables?”

“Test subjects,” she whispered.

The SUV turned the corner.

Evelyn grabbed my hand. “Run.”

We dashed into the night—two people who had once shared childhood secrets now sharing a terror that felt bigger than both of us. The city spun around us—lights blurring, sirens echoing distantly, the looming sense that America’s vastness, its highways and suburbs and cities, had become a hunting ground.

We made it to the train station. Barely. The SUV screeched into the lot as we leapt onto the last train heading east.

Inside, breathless and shaking, I stared at Evelyn.

“What now?”

She swallowed hard. “Now we disappear. And you learn the truth about the story they wanted you to write.”

“What truth?”

“The one you’ve been running from since Thanksgiving,” she said softly. “You didn’t leave home because your father threw you out. You left because you needed someone else to tell you who you were.”

“And Beaumont took advantage of that?”

“Yes.”

“Then why help me now?” I whispered.

Her eyes softened. “Because you’re the only person I ever cared about enough to regret something.”

The train rattled through the dark, cutting across the vast American landscape like a blade.

For the first time, I realized the chandelier hadn’t shattered.
I had.
And now I was piecing myself back together on a runaway train with a woman whose truths were as dangerous as the agency hunting us.

We traveled for days, hopping from state to state, staying in small motels, avoiding patterns. Evelyn told me everything she knew—how Beaumont selected people, how they manipulated them, how they monetized fear and pain by turning writers into conduits for gathering emotional data. I began to see the country differently—every diner, every bus stop, every face in a crowd felt like part of a web I’d accidentally stepped into.

But the strangest thing?
The more I ran, the more alive I felt.

Because for the first time, my story was mine.

Not my father’s.
Not Harrison’s.
Not Beaumont’s.

One night, somewhere in rural Pennsylvania, we holed up in a faded motel with peeling paint and a flickering sign. The air smelled like rain. The room was small, two beds, thin sheets, one lamp. Evelyn sat at the edge of her bed, hands trembling.

“They won’t stop,” she whispered. “Beaumont doesn’t lose assets.”

“So what do we do?” I asked.

She met my eyes.

“We stop them.”

That night, I didn’t sleep. I stared at the ceiling and thought about every road I’d taken, every stranger I’d interviewed, every detail I’d absorbed. Beaumont had taught me how to collect stories. How to understand people. How to disappear into the background.

Now I would use those skills against them.

At dawn, we left the motel. The sky was a muted orange, the kind that makes you feel like you’re witnessing the quiet beginning of something enormous.

We caught a bus heading toward Washington, D.C.—the beating political heart of the country, the one place where information became power and power became exposure.

We didn’t have proof.
We didn’t have allies.
But we had a story.
And sometimes, in America, a story is enough to topple giants.

When we arrived, we made our way to a small newsroom Evelyn trusted. Independent. Fierce. Desperate for truth.

We walked in with shaking hands and burning determination.

And we told them everything.

The writers. The stories. The surveillance. The manipulation. The emotional mapping. The agency hiding in plain sight.

They listened.
They recorded.
They believed.

And by nightfall, the first article hit the internet like a lightning strike.

Underground Story Agency Accused of Exploiting Writers, Collecting Emotional Data.

Beaumont went silent.

Then furious.

Then gone.

Not legally dismantled. Not publicly destroyed.
Just… vanished.

But we didn’t care. Because they couldn’t touch us anymore.
Not after the truth spread across the country like wildfire.

A week later, I received a message from an unknown number.

Your story saved more people than you know.

Another message followed.

You’re not a failure. You never were.

I didn’t need to ask who sent it.

I blocked the number anyway.

Because my life was no longer defined by the people who tried to break me.

Evelyn stayed in D.C., working with the newsroom. I found a small apartment in a quiet neighborhood in Maryland, close enough that we could meet for coffee but far enough that I could breathe.

I started writing again—not for Beaumont, not for money, not for validation.
For myself.

And one crisp December morning, as snow dusted the sidewalks, I opened my laptop and typed the words that would become the beginning of the first book I ever truly meant to write:

The chandelier shattered before he did.

And for the first time, I understood what it meant to own a narrative.

Not as a weapon.
Not as a cage.
But as a key.

A key that unlocked an entirely new life—messy, unpredictable, deeply human, and entirely mine.

A life I chose.

A life no one could take away again.

The cold punched the air out of my lungs as I stared at the photo of Evelyn—her eyes swollen, a cut on her left cheek, her wrists tied behind a metal chair. The frame around her was dim, industrial, something like an abandoned warehouse or an underground storage facility. But what haunted me wasn’t the ropes or the bruises.

It was the look she gave the camera.

Not a plea.
Not a warning.
A knowing, deliberate message.

Don’t trust anyone. Not even me.

My fingers tightened around the phone until my knuckles whitened. The snow around me fell thicker, swallowing sound, swallowing light. It was as if the city had paused, holding me inside a moment I couldn’t escape.

A door slammed somewhere in the distance.

I jerked my head up. My breath frosted the air. Footsteps approached—slow, steady, purposeful.

Not the woman from the garage.
Someone heavier.
Two people, maybe three.

I shoved the phone into my coat pocket and ran again.

Washington, D.C. blurred into a maze of alleys, wet streets, and neon signs flickering through the storm. My boots slipped on the slick pavement, the cold slicing through my coat like knives. I didn’t know where I was going. I only knew I wasn’t going to stop.

Not yet.
Not until I could get to the one place that might still be safe.

The newsroom.

I reached the block where the independent news outlet stood—a small brick building wedged between a bakery and a discount clothing store. The sign above the entrance swayed in the wind, the lights dim but still on. I rushed to the door and pulled.

Locked.

I banged on it.

“Open! Please!”

Nothing.

My voice was swallowed by the storm. The street was empty except for swirling snow and the faint glow of traffic lights cycling pointlessly at the intersection.

A shadow moved behind me.

I spun.

A man stepped forward from across the street, wearing a dark coat dusted with snow. He wasn’t rushing. He wasn’t hiding. He was approaching like someone who already knew I had nowhere to go.

I recognized him.

But not from Beaumont.

He was one of the journalists.

Mason Rivera.
Tall, mid-thirties, sharp features softened by a permanent expression of tired empathy. He had interviewed me twice—once in a coffee shop, once on a bench outside Union Station. He always listened more than he spoke, as though gathering pieces of people instead of paragraphs.

When our eyes met, relief shot through me—quick, desperate, fragile.

“Mason—thank God—”

“Don’t,” he said, raising a hand.

The relief shattered.

His face wasn’t empathetic now.
It was grim.
Haunted.

“What are you doing out here?” I asked, but my voice faltered when I caught the look in his eyes.

Regret.

“Come inside,” he said, gesturing toward the side door of the building. “We need to talk.”

“Where’s Evelyn?” I demanded.

He didn’t answer.
Instead, he unlocked the door and stepped aside.

I hesitated.
One second.
Two.

He didn’t force me.
Didn’t grab me.
Didn’t threaten me.

He just waited.

And somehow, that was worse.

I stepped inside.

The newsroom was dark except for a few glowing monitors illuminating stacks of papers. The heating hummed softly. The place felt abandoned, like everyone had left in a hurry. Chairs were pulled away from desks. Coffee cups still half-full. A jacket draped over a chair.

“Where is everyone?” I whispered.

“Scattered,” Mason said, closing the door behind us. “Some went into hiding. Some were advised to lay low.”

“By who?”

“People who know more than we do.”

He walked ahead of me, moving toward the central desk where maps, documents, and printouts of the Beaumont article were spread out in chaotic layers. He reached for a file and handed it to me.

“Before we go any further, you need to see this.”

I opened the file.

My heart stopped.

Inside were pages—dozens of them—showing photographs, diagrams, psychological assessments. At the top of each page:

Project Orbit: Subject 14

My number.
My designation.

A cold wave washed through me as I scanned the pages.

Images of me at different ages, with dates scribbled in neat handwriting. Notes detailing my behaviors at school. My reactions to stress. My relationships. Even my dreams—the ones I used to write in journals and hide under my mattress.

“How did you get these?” I whispered.

“They were sent to us.”

“By who?”

“We don’t know,” he said quietly. “But whoever sent them wanted you to understand something.”

“What?” My voice cracked.

Mason hesitated.
Then:

“That Beaumont wasn’t just monitoring you.”
He exhaled. “They were shaping you.”

My throat tightened painfully. “Explain.”

“You think your father hated you spontaneously that night at Thanksgiving?” Mason asked. “You think every moment that broke you was accidental?”

My heartbeat roared.

“What are you saying?”

He pointed to a line in the file. A single sentence highlighted in yellow.

Subject experiences measurable emotional output following paternal rejection; continue reinforcement cycles to maintain narrative susceptibility.

I stumbled back. The room swayed.

“No,” I whispered. “No, that—that can’t—”

“Your father was manipulated too,” Mason said, voice soft but unflinching. “Beaumont didn’t just observe. They intervened. They triggered emotional catalysts to cultivate specific narrative patterns. You weren’t just useful because you had insight. You were useful because they engineered that insight.”

I felt sick.

All the pain.
All the shame.
All the years of feeling like I wasn’t enough.

Manufactured.
Harvested.
Used.

“Why?” I breathed.

“Because people like you can see threads in human behavior most can’t,” Mason said. “You can predict reactions, forecast emotions, identify vulnerabilities. They wanted to map that skill. Scale it. Weaponize it.”

I shook my head violently. “No. No. I would’ve known.”

“You were a child,” he said softly. “Children trust the world to make sense. You didn’t know your world had an editor.”

My knees nearly buckled.

Mason reached out, steadying me. “There’s more.”

“I don’t want—”

“You need to know.”

His voice was gentle, but firm. The kind of voice that carries truth even when truth feels like a blade.

He handed me another envelope.

This one marked:

Phase Two Directorate

My fingers trembled as I opened it. Inside were:

Blueprints.
Timelines.
A list of subjects—twenty of them. All with notes beside their names.

Only one entry had a star next to it.

Subject 14.

Me.

The note beside it read:

Highest predictive yield. Primary catalyst selected. Initiate re-acquisition protocol.

Re-acquisition.

They wanted me back.

“They didn’t send a team to silence you,” Mason said. “They sent a team to retrieve you.”

My stomach turned. “For what?”

He held my gaze.

“To finish what they started.”

I stepped back, shaking. “Where’s Evelyn?”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” he said. “Evelyn didn’t just stumble into Beaumont. She didn’t just leave because she didn’t like what they were doing.”

He hesitated.

“She was part of Project Orbit too.”

The words slammed into me.

“No,” I whispered. “She helped me escape—”

“And she cared about you,” Mason added. “That part was real. But she was still involved. She was meant to guide you into Beaumont. She was meant to anchor you emotionally. You were paired.”

I stared at him.

Paired.
The word echoed like a siren in my skull.

“You’re lying,” I said, but my voice lacked conviction.

He slid a photograph toward me.

Evelyn.
Younger.
In a lab.
Standing beside Harrison.

My chest constricted.

“She left the program,” Mason said. “She thought she could undo her part by sending you to us. But she underestimated how badly they needed you back.”

“What do they want with me?” I whispered.

“Your ability,” he said. “Your mind. Something about you makes emotional mapping more accurate than any model they’ve ever built.”

I swallowed hard, the room shrinking around me.
The air thickened.
My vision wavered.

“Why tell me this now?” I asked.

“Because they’re not just tracking you.” Mason’s voice softened. “They’re trying to activate you.”

“Activate—?”

A loud crash cut through the room.

Glass shattering.
A window breaking.

We both spun toward the sound.

Snow blew in through the shattered window at the far end of the newsroom. A dark figure climbed through the opening, boots crunching across broken glass.

Not the woman from the garage.

Someone bigger.
Masked.
Silent.

He started toward us.

Mason grabbed my arm. “Run!”

We bolted through the hallway toward the back exit, the sound of heavy footsteps pounding behind us. My breath came in sharp bursts as the cold corridor swallowed us. Mason shoved open the stairwell door, and we scrambled down the steps.

The masked man followed.

“Keep going!” Mason shouted.

We reached the bottom door—an emergency exit leading into an alley behind the building. Mason pushed me through.

“Go!” he shouted. “Don’t stop!”

“What about you?” I cried.

“I’ll hold him off!”

He slammed the door before I could protest.

I stumbled into the alley, snow whipping against my face. My boots slipped. I grabbed onto a frozen railing and steadied myself, heart pounding violently.

I heard the crash inside—the unmistakable sound of bodies hitting something hard.

“Mason!” I cried, but my voice drowned in the storm.

Then—

The door burst open.

But it wasn’t Mason who emerged.

It was the masked man.

He stepped into the alley.
Snow swirled around him.
His breath steamed through the holes of the mask.

He took one slow step.

Then another.

I backed away until my shoulder hit brick.

No escape.

Wind howled.
Snow spiraled.
The night tightened.

He raised a hand toward me.

I squeezed my eyes shut—

A loud crack split the air.

The masked man staggered.

Another crack.
A gunshot.

He collapsed into the snow, dark fabric soaking darker.

I turned.

The woman from the parking garage stood at the end of the alley, gun in hand, coat whipping in the wind.

“You’re coming with me,” she said.

This time, she wasn’t asking.

Snow clung to her dark braid as she lowered the gun, the metallic click echoing faintly in the alley. The masked man lay motionless in the snow between us, steam rising from his body as warmth bled into the freezing air.

My pulse thundered in my ears.

“You—” My voice cracked. “Why did you save me?”

The woman—calm, sharp, terrifyingly composed—holstered the gun inside her gray coat.

“Don’t romanticize it,” she said. “You’re not safer. You’re just… recalibrated.”

“Recalibrated?” I backed up instinctively until the brick wall pressed into my spine. “I’m not a machine.”

“You’re more predictable than one,” she said. “Which is precisely why they need you intact.”

She stepped closer. Not rushing. Not threatening. Just inevitable.

“Don’t come near me,” I warned.

“If I wanted to hurt you,” she said softly, “you would already be lying next to him.”

My stomach twisted. She wasn’t lying—every part of her radiated control, precision, authority. She was the type who could drop a person with a whisper or a gesture. Her presence alone destabilized the air.

“Where’s Mason?” I demanded.

She didn’t answer.

“Is he alive?”

Still nothing.

“I swear,” I whispered, anger slicing through the fear, “if you hurt him—”

“I didn’t,” she said finally. “He bought you ten seconds. Nothing more.”

That wasn’t an answer. Not really. But it was all she offered.

“Walk with me,” she said.

“No.”

She sighed. “If you stay here, three more teams will circle this block in under five minutes. You won’t outrun them. And you won’t outsmart them.” Her eyes held mine—steady, unblinking. “But you can outlive them. If you come with me.”

I hesitated.

Trusting her made no sense.
But staying here made even less.

“Who are you?” I asked.

Her lips curled slightly—not a smile, but the beginning of one. “Someone who used to be exactly what they want you to become.”

The wind roared down the alley, whipping snow between us like a curtain of sparks.

“Move,” she said.

I moved.

We slipped out of the alley and into a narrow side street where a second SUV waited—different from the one earlier. Smaller. Civilian plates. Fogged windows.

“Get in the passenger seat,” she instructed.

I hesitated again. “Where are we going?”

“To safety,” she said.

She saw the distrust on my face.

“Fine,” she added. “If ‘safety’ sounds too optimistic, think of it as a holding pattern. Somewhere you can’t be intercepted until you understand what’s coming.”

“What’s coming?” I asked.

“You.”

The words hit like cold water.

I got in the car.

She slid behind the wheel, started the engine, and pulled into the snowy street with smooth, controlled motions—someone who drove like she fought: efficient, precise, never wasting energy.

“Seat belt,” she said.

I buckled it automatically.

We rode in silence for two blocks before she finally spoke.

“You were never supposed to see your file.”

“Then why show it to me?” I asked.

“I didn’t. Rivera did.”

“Mason,” I said quietly.

“Yes. But Mason didn’t understand what he was holding.” She glanced at me. “He thought he was protecting you. He didn’t realize he was activating you.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“Your mind is… unique,” she said carefully. “It doesn’t just process emotion. It predicts emotional consequences. It sees the arc of human behavior like an equation.”

“I’m not special,” I snapped, anger bubbling again. “I’m just someone who’s been hurt.”

She shook her head. “No. That’s what they wanted you to believe. Because if you ever realized what you were capable of, you’d become uncontrollable.”

I stared out the window as the city passed by in blurs of white and amber. Snow coated the streets. Streetlights buzzed weakly through the flakes. The nation’s capital looked less like a center of power and more like a buried relic.

“You’re lying,” I whispered.

“Am I?” she asked. “Consider this: for years, you’ve been able to anticipate reactions before people had them. Your father’s insults didn’t break you—they sharpened you. Pain refined your vision. It trained you to read danger, tension, motive.”

I didn’t answer.

“You saw through Evelyn the moment she hesitated at that diner,” she continued. “You didn’t admit it to yourself, but your instinct registered the truth before you consciously understood it.”

“That’s not a gift,” I muttered. “That’s trauma.”

“It’s both,” she said. “And Beaumont exploited it.”

The road opened into a highway ramp. She veered onto it, merging into sparse traffic.

“Where are we going?” I asked again.

“To someone who can tell you the truth without manipulation,” she said. “Someone who knew you before Beaumont intervened.”

I frowned. “Who?”

She didn’t answer.

The highway stretched ahead, a ribbon of gray disappearing into a storm. The hum of the tires filled the silence as the woman beside me gripped the steering wheel with steady confidence. She didn’t look afraid. She didn’t look rushed. She looked like someone following a plan laid years before I ever understood I was part of one.

“Why help me?” I asked quietly.

This time, she hesitated.

“I’m not helping you,” she said. “I’m correcting a mistake.”

“What mistake?”

“Letting them choose you.” Her jaw tightened. “You were never supposed to be Subject Fourteen.”

Snow drifted across the windshield. The wipers brushed it aside like an afterthought.

“What happened to the original Subject Fourteen?” I asked.

Her expression didn’t change.

“You were the original,” she said.

My breath caught.

“What?”

“You heard me.” Her voice softened—not gentle, but careful, like she was choosing every syllable with surgical precision. “You’ve been part of this program longer than anyone else. Longer than Harrison. Longer than Evelyn. Longer than me.”

“That’s impossible.”

“It isn’t. You’ve forgotten most of it. They made sure of that.”

My skin prickled with goosebumps.

“Why are you telling me this?” I whispered.

“Because you’re out of time.”

Headlights appeared behind us—fast, approaching too quickly for the icy roads.

My pulse spiked. “Is that—”

“Yes,” she said, cutting across lanes. “Hold on.”

The SUV behind us accelerated, closing the gap with frightening speed. Another vehicle joined it on the right. A third on the left.

Three.

Forming a box around us.

“Oh God,” I breathed. “They found us.”

“They never lost us,” she said. “They’re testing your response.”

“What response?!”

“Fight or flight.” Her eyes flicked to the mirror. “They need to know which one you default to. It affects the next phase of your training.”

“I’m not going back to them!”

“Then stop acting like someone they can predict,” she snapped.

The lead SUV veered sharply, attempting to cut us off. She hit the brakes, spun the wheel, and slid into a narrow gap between two trailers with inches to spare.

My scream died in my throat.

The woman exhaled once—a slow, steadying breath.

“They’re coralling us,” she murmured. “Three vehicles means a retrieval unit. They won’t fire unless they decide you’re unrecoverable.”

“Unrecoverable?” I echoed.

“That means dead.”

My stomach lurched.

Another SUV swerved toward us, grazing the rear bumper. The car jerked violently, skidding across icy pavement. My shoulder slammed into the door.

“They’re trying to disable us,” she said. “Brace yourself.”

I gripped the seat.

She accelerated.

The engine roared, protesting the speed on slick roads, but she didn’t hesitate. We shot forward, weaving between vehicles like a needle stitching through fabric.

One SUV clipped a barrier and spun out behind us.

Two remained.

“Why don’t they want to kill me?” I shouted.

“Because you’re the only one who can finish Orbit!”

“I don’t want to finish anything!”

She glanced at me—an expression that was almost pity.

“No one ever does.”

The highway curved sharply.

She didn’t slow down.

We flew around the bend, tires squealing. Snow burst around us in a white cloud. The SUVs behind us struggled to maintain traction, skidding wide.

For a moment—a heartbeat—we gained distance.

“That won’t last,” she said. “We need to disappear.”

“How?”

She flicked on the blinker—not out of courtesy, but strategy—and took the next exit ramp, descending into a darker road lined with warehouses and chain-link fences.

The SUVs followed.

Of course they did.

“You used to know how to do this,” she muttered. “Instinctively.”

“I don’t know anything!”

“Then start remembering!”

She turned sharply onto a narrow industrial street. The buildings loomed tall, windowless, silent. Streetlights flickered overhead. The snow fell heavier, deadening the world.

“Where are we going?” I asked, gripping the door.

“To someone who can unlock what they buried in you,” she said.

“Who?”

She inhaled.

“Your mother.”

The words hit harder than the SUV’s sudden skid.

“My—my mother? No. She didn’t know anything. She never—she couldn’t—”

“Your father signed the papers,” the woman said. “But she was the one who objected. Loudly. Violently. She tried to pull you out of the program.”

My chest tightened painfully.

“No… She never said—”

“She wasn’t allowed to say anything,” the woman said simply. “Your father silenced her. And Beaumont enforced it.”

My world tilted.

“You’re lying,” I whispered.

“I don’t have to lie to you,” she said. “You’re too important for that.”

My breath came in ragged bursts.

The woman tightened her grip on the wheel. “Hold on.”

The SUVs turned onto the street behind us.

She slammed the accelerator.

The car lunged forward—

And suddenly—

A massive metal gate ahead began rising, slowly, painfully slow, pulled by an old hydraulic motor.

Behind it:

A dim warehouse.
Lights turning on.
A silhouette waiting inside.

The woman whispered:

“She’s here.”

I didn’t have time to question it.

The SUVs closed in.
She sped toward the rising gate.
Snow blasted across the windshield.

We shot under the gate—

Just as it slammed shut behind us with a deafening clang.

The SUVs skidded to a stop outside.
Blocked.
Locked out.

Inside the warehouse, the air was still.

Cold.

Echoing.

And then—I saw her.

A figure stepping into the pale industrial light.

My heart stopped.

My mother.

Alive.

Waiting for me.