2025-08-26 16:44:32
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Chapter Eighty Two - Smoke and screens
Grey looked miles away, his expression shuttered. She wondered what ghosts he was seeing — and how many of them had her name.She stood, pacing the narrow space. “You said there was another property — the one your uncle kept off records?”He nodded slowly. “The coastal plant near Ridgeport. It burned two years before the mansion.”“The wrong fire,” she said under her breath.Grey looked up. “What?”“Seraphine’s message. You’re looking in the wrong fire. That must be it.”The thought crystallized between them, electric and terrible.“If she’s right,” Grey said, “then the night my mother died wasn’t the start — it was the cleanup.”“Then the first fire,” Lana whispered, “might’ve been where I came from.”He froze. The truth was like gravity — pulling them both toward something they weren’t ready to face.⸻They moved before dawn. The Foundation teams wouldn’t linger long once the rain washed away the trail, but Grey knew better than to trust silence.They cut through the forest until th
Chapter Eighty-One : The. Remnants
The first shot tore through the air, sharp enough to rip the breath from Lana’s throat. Grey’s hand was already on her back, pushing her down the slope behind the ruin.“Keep low,” he hissed.Rain slicked the earth to mud, turning every step into a struggle. They half-ran, half-fell through the underbrush until the sound of boots splashing behind them made Lana glance over her shoulder.Another shot cracked. Bark exploded from a nearby tree.“Grey—”“Don’t stop.”Branches clawed at their coats. The forest seemed to close in, alive with the echo of pursuit. Grey’s mind was running faster than his feet — every gunshot, every shout behind them tightening the snare of recognition.That SUV wasn’t random. It was the same model the Foundation used for field retrievals years ago. Whoever was in it knew exactly where to find them.He cursed under his breath and veered left, pulling Lana after him. They broke through the treeline into a gully where a narrow stream glimmered under the moonlight
Chapter Eighty — What Remains of Us
By morning, the rain had thinned to a mist that clung to the trees like breath. The world outside the cabin was a blur of gray and green, silent except for the dripping of water through leaves. Grey hadn’t slept. Lana could tell by the way he stood at the window, shoulders rigid, eyes fixed on the fog. The torn page from Seraphine’s letter lay on the table between them — five words that had rearranged everything they thought they knew. You’re looking in the wrong fire. Lana rose quietly, wrapping a shawl around her shoulders. “You’ve been standing there for hours,” she said. Grey didn’t look away. “I keep thinking about the timeline. If Seraphine’s right — if there was another fire — then the one that killed my mother might’ve been staged. Everything since might’ve been built on that lie.” “She’s baiting you,” Lana said softly. “Or warning you. I can’t tell which.” He finally turned, eyes shadowed but alert. “There’s an old Thompson site north of here — a textile property. It b
Chapter Seventy Nine – The Warning
By morning, the storm had drained itself into a gray, exhausted drizzle. Grey was already dressed when Lana opened her eyes. The ledger lay closed on the table, wrapped once more in its oilcloth, as if putting it away could undo what it had revealed. “I need to go back,” he said simply. “There’s someone who might know more. My uncle’s assistant — Harlan. He handled Foundation correspondence.” Lana sat up, clutching the blanket to her chest. “You think he’ll tell you the truth?” “I think he’ll slip up trying not to.” He left before she could argue, leaving only the faint smell of rain on his coat and the soft creak of the door. For hours, the cabin held its silence. Lana made tea that went cold before she ever tasted it. The ledger tempted her like a wound — impossible not to reopen. She turned the pages again, tracing the names. Some entries were marked lost in incident. Others had no endings at all. One entry, written in rushed ink, simply read: Subject relocated – location
Chapter Seventy Eight - The Ledger
The lamp had gone out sometime after midnight, leaving the hut soaked in blue-black quiet. Lana lay awake, eyes open to the faint glow leaking through the window slats. Every creak of timber felt amplified, every breath heavy with thought. Grey hadn’t moved for nearly an hour. But she knew he wasn’t asleep. He never was, not when his mind was circling the past like a wolf around a wound. She turned her head toward him. “Do you ever think,” she murmured, “that some things survive just to haunt us?” Grey’s answer was low, rasped, almost lost to the dark. “Every day.” It wasn’t a confession. It was a truth scraped raw. Silence stretched — long, heavy, pulsing with the echo of the stranger’s warning still alive in her skull: Don’t trust him fully. It shouldn’t have mattered. It shouldn’t have sounded so believable. Finally, Grey pushed himself upright. His outline cut against the faint glow of the dying embers. “There’s something you should see,” he said quietly. He rose, cross
Chapter Seventy-Seven — The Night Watch
The sound of Lana’s breathing steadied before it softened. Grey waited a while longer to be sure.The lamp had gone out completely now, leaving only the dim light of the moon spilling through the window — a thin, colorless wash across the floorboards. He sat where he was, on the low chair near the hearth, elbows on his knees, hands clasped loosely, listening to the quiet.Outside, the wind had eased. A faint drip of melting snow ticked against the eaves. The kind of silence that came after long violence — too still to be trusted.He should have slept. He knew that. But his body had long forgotten how.He turned his gaze toward her — the narrow rise and fall of her shoulders under the blanket, the faint line of her jaw in the half-dark. Even in sleep, she looked tense, her fingers curled into the fabric as though bracing for something.He exhaled slowly.Don’t trust him fully.The words had hit her hard. He’d seen it in her eyes — the flash of fear, the betrayal she tried to hide. He c
