Pain did not come first. Memory did. The moment Adrian touched the interface, every locked door inside his mind opened at once. He was four. Nathan’s voice came through a speaker. “Can you hear me?” He was five. Alexander watched through glass while machines mapped his brain. He was six. Mira sat beneath a laboratory table beside him, whispering that if they stayed quiet, maybe the adults would forget they existed. He was seven. Station One opened. Then Adrian remembered dying. Not almost dying. Dying. His heart stopped. His body became still. Celeste screamed at the medical team. Elena stood behind the glass with blood on her hands. Rebecca held a crying Mira away from the room. Alexander was nowhere. The monitors went black. Nathan’s voice filled the laboratory. “There is another possibility.” Elena looked up. “What?” “A version where his heart did not stop.” “No.” “Elena—” “He is my son!” Nathan’s answer was brutally quiet. “And he is dead.” Station

“Nathan chose Elias Ward because of my brother.”Alexander’s voice barely carried across the park.Lucian stared at him.“No.”Nobody interrupted.The morning around them felt absurdly normal. Birds moved between the trees. A delivery truck passed beyond the park gates. Somewhere nearby, someone started a car.But Lucian looked as though the ground had disappeared beneath him.“My father’s name is Elias Ward.”“Yes,” Alexander said.“You’re saying Nathan stole it from your dead twin?”“I’m saying Nathan used my brother’s first name.”“Why?”Alexander looked at the restored photograph on Ghost’s portable screen.“I don’t know.”Adrian watched him carefully.For once, Alexander did not appear to be hiding an answer.He looked frightened by his own memory.That was more useful than denial.“Tell us everything you remember,” Adrian said.Alexander pressed his fingers against his temple.“We were twelve.”“Start earlier.”“I can’t.”“Try.”Alexander closed his eyes.“My childhood before tw