## PART 2 — THE MAN WHO WASN’T DEAD
For several seconds, nobody in the clinic moved.
Rain tapped against the windows.
Somewhere behind the reception desk, the printer Paula had been fighting with finally groaned to life and spat out a single crooked page.
It sounded absurdly loud.
Ghost pressed his entire body against my leg.
Not leaning.
Anchoring.
Military dogs were trained to remain functional under gunfire, explosions, screaming, blood, chaos. They did not tremble without reason.
Ghost was trembling.
I ran my hand slowly along his neck, feeling the coarse fur beneath my fingers, the heat of him, the familiar ridge of an old scar beneath his right ear.
My throat tightened.
I knew that scar.
I had stitched it myself in a mud-walled compound outside Kandahar after a piece of shattered doorframe had caught him during a breach.
Seven years ago.
I looked at the SEAL.
“What’s your name?”
His hesitation lasted less than a second.
“Chief Petty Officer Logan Mercer.”
“Who assigned you this dog?”
His jaw tightened.
“That’s not a conversation we’re having here.”
“Then we’ll have it somewhere else.”
“Dr. Cole—”
“Rook.”
He stopped.
The word came out of me colder than I intended.
“My name on that mission was Rook.”
His face changed.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
That frightened me more than anything.
Paula looked between us.
“Madison?”
I stood.
“Clear the clinic.”
“What?”
“Cancel the morning appointments. Tell everyone we have an emergency plumbing issue.”
One of the veterans in the waiting room, an old Marine named Daniels, gave me a long look. He had been coming to me for four years with his arthritic Labrador.
His eyes dropped to Ghost.
Then returned to me.
“You need help?”
“No.”
It came out too quickly.
Daniels nodded once anyway.
The kind of nod soldiers gave when they understood that “no” did not mean no.
It meant not yet.
Paula began ushering people outside.
Mercer watched her.
Then me.
Then Ghost.
“You have no idea what you just stepped into.”
I laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“I stepped into it seven years ago.”
I reached beneath Ghost’s harness and pulled the worn metal tag free enough to inspect it again.
E.C.
Two letters carved by hand.
Ethan had always hated issued identification tags on dogs.
“Soul belongs to the animal,” he used to say. “Numbers belong to paperwork.”
So he engraved his own tags.
Every deployment.
Every dog.
The E was slightly deeper than the C because Ethan always pressed too hard at the beginning.
This was his.
No question.
“Where did you get Ghost?”
Mercer said nothing.
I stepped closer.
“Chief.”
His eyes hardened.
“You really want an answer?”
“Yes.”
“You won’t like it.”
“I’ve had seven years to practice not liking answers.”
For the first time, something like sympathy entered his expression.
Then it vanished.
“He came out of a black-site rehabilitation program eighteen months ago.”
My skin went cold.
“Where?”
“Classified.”
“Try again.”
“Somewhere that officially doesn’t exist.”
“That narrows it down.”
He exhaled through his nose.
Ghost’s ears shifted toward him.
“Eastern Mediterranean.”
That wasn’t an answer.
But it was enough to change the shape of the nightmare.
“Turkey?”
Mercer’s silence confirmed it.
I stared at him.
Ghost remained pressed against me.
“What was the program?”
Mercer looked toward the now-empty lobby.
“Can we go somewhere private?”
I led him into Exam Room Three.
Ghost followed without being asked.
Mercer gave him three commands on the way.
Ghost ignored all three.
The second I pointed at the floor beside the examination table, he sat.
Mercer looked like he’d been slapped.
Inside the room, I locked the door.
Then I closed the blinds.
“Talk.”
Mercer leaned against the counter.
“Eighteen months ago, my team was tasked with extracting an intelligence asset from a facility outside Adana. Officially, it was a private veterinary research center.”
My pulse quickened.
“Unofficially?”
“A holding site.”
“For dogs?”
“For anything useful.”
The words sat between us.
I did not ask him to clarify.
I had seen enough of the world to understand.
“Ghost was there?”
“In a subterranean kennel.”
“Alone?”
Mercer looked away.
“That’s complicated.”
“How many dogs?”
“Seven.”
“What happened to the others?”
“Three died during extraction. Two were transferred. One was put down.”
“And Ghost?”
“He attacked the first handler assigned to him.”
I looked at the dog.
Ghost’s eyes were on me.
Calm now.
Almost peaceful.
“Why?”
“Because the guy used the wrong command.”
“What command?”
Mercer hesitated.
“Lantern.”
Every muscle in my body locked.
“What?”
Mercer’s voice lowered.
“That word was in Ghost’s behavioral profile.”
“No.”
“It was.”
“No one knew that command.”
“Somebody did.”
“Three living souls knew it.”
I stopped.
Had known it.
Ethan.
Me.
And Captain Silas Vane.
Our mission commander.
The man who identified Ethan’s body.
The man who personally handed me the folded flag at a private ceremony three weeks after the mission.
The man who looked me in the eye and told me Ghost had been killed beside him.
I whispered, “Silas.”
Mercer frowned.
“You know that name?”
I looked at him sharply.
“Why?”
“Because it appeared in the facility.”
My heart slammed against my ribs.
“How?”
“Written on a wall.”
“With what?”
Mercer didn’t answer immediately.
That was answer enough.
“Blood?”
He nodded.
My stomach turned.
“Whose?”
“We never determined that.”
Ghost rose suddenly.
He went rigid.
His ears pointed toward the hallway.
Mercer’s hand instinctively moved toward the concealed pistol beneath his jacket.
I held up one finger.
“Ghost.”
The Malinois remained still.
Listening.
I heard it then.
A soft scrape.
Outside the examination room.
Someone was in the hallway.
Paula should have been at the front desk.
The clinic was closed.
Mercer drew his weapon.
I pointed toward the back exit.
He shook his head.
I mouthed, Front.
He nodded.
Ghost watched me.
The old instincts came back so naturally it frightened me.
Seven years disappeared.
The room became a tactical box.
One door.
One window.
One armed ally.
One unknown contact.
I lowered my hand toward Ghost.
Two fingers.
Flat palm.
Rotate wrist.
A hand signal I hadn’t used since Afghanistan.
Ghost silently moved beside the door.
Mercer stared.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
The handle turned.
Slowly.
Mercer raised his pistol.
The door opened two inches.
Ghost launched.
A man shouted.
There was a crash in the hallway.
Mercer ripped open the door.
Ghost had a stranger pinned against the tile, his jaws clamped around the sleeve of a dark raincoat.
The man underneath him was in his late forties.
Gray hair.
Clean-shaven.
Expensive shoes.
Not the kind of person who wandered into veterinary clinics by accident.
“Call him off!” the man gasped.
I stepped into the hallway.
“Ghost. Release.”
Instantly, Ghost released and backed to my side.
Mercer kept the pistol trained on the stranger.
“Who are you?”
The man pushed himself upright.
He looked at Mercer.
Then at Ghost.
Then at me.
His expression changed when he saw my face.
“Dr. Madison Cole.”
I said nothing.
He knew me.
That was obvious.
He slowly reached into his coat.
Mercer raised the weapon.
“Don’t.”
The man froze.
“Inside pocket. Identification.”
“I’ll get it.”
Mercer removed a leather wallet.
Opened it.
His jaw tightened.
He handed it to me.
Department of Defense.
Office of Security Review.
The name meant nothing to me.
Dr. Adrian Kessler.
“Why are you here?”
Kessler straightened his coat.
“Because Chief Mercer made a very serious mistake.”
Mercer’s voice turned dangerous.
“What mistake?”
“Bringing the dog here.”
Kessler looked at Ghost.
“Especially to her.”
I stepped closer.
“You have thirty seconds.”
“You always were impatient, Rook.”
My blood went cold.
Mercer looked at me.
I looked at Kessler.
“Who told you that name?”
Kessler almost smiled.
“The same person who told me you would eventually use Lantern.”
I grabbed his collar and slammed him against the wall.
Mercer didn’t stop me.
“Ethan?”
Kessler’s expression remained calm.
Too calm.
“Is Ethan alive?”
No answer.
I tightened my grip.
“Is Ethan Cross alive?”
Kessler studied me.
Then he said five words.
“You shouldn’t ask that here.”
A sound came from the front of the clinic.
Glass breaking.
Mercer spun.
Ghost snarled.
Not a warning growl.
A kill-room growl.
Then the lights went out.
The clinic dropped into darkness.
“Down!” Mercer shouted.
Gunfire shattered the front windows.
I hit the floor.
Bullets punched through drywall.
Glass exploded.
Paula screamed from the reception area.
“Paula!”
I started to rise.
Mercer grabbed me.
“Stay down!”
“Get your hands off me!”
Ghost disappeared into the darkness.
I heard paws hammer against tile.
Then a man screamed.
Another gunshot.
A crash.
Mercer moved toward the lobby.
I followed.
Muscle memory controlled me now.
Low posture.
Wall cover.
Corners.
Listen.
Breathe.
We reached reception.
Emergency lights flickered red.
A masked man lay near the entrance.
Ghost stood over him.
Blood covered one sleeve.
The attacker was alive.
Barely.
Paula crouched behind the desk.
“Madison!”
I ran to her.
“You hit?”
“No.”
“Stay down.”
Another figure moved outside the shattered window.
Mercer fired twice.
The figure vanished.
Tires screamed.
A vehicle accelerated away.
Then silence.
Only rain.
Only breathing.
Only Ghost’s low growl.
I turned back toward the hallway.
“Kessler.”
He was gone.
The rear door stood open.
Mercer swore.
I looked at the wounded attacker.
He wore no identification.
No insignia.
Professional equipment.
A suppressed handgun.
Disposable gloves.
Sterile boots.
This had not been intimidation.
It had been cleanup.
Mercer knelt beside him and pulled off the mask.
The man’s eyes fluttered.
“Who sent you?”
No response.
Mercer slapped his cheek.
“Who sent you?”
The attacker opened his eyes.
Saw me.
And smiled.
“Rook.”
My stomach dropped.
He knew me too.
I knelt beside him.
“Where is Ethan?”
His smile widened.
Then he whispered, “He said you’d still ask the wrong question.”
“Who said?”
The man coughed.
Blood appeared at the corner of his mouth.
“Cross.”
My entire world stopped.
I grabbed his vest.
“Ethan sent you?”
The attacker’s eyes began to close.
“Did Ethan send you?”
He whispered something.
I leaned closer.
“What?”
“Ghost…”
His breath rattled.
“…was never the weapon.”
Then he died.
Sirens approached in the distance.
Mercer stared at the body.
I stared at Ghost.
The Malinois sat beside me, blood on his muzzle, watching with the same dark, intelligent eyes I remembered from another life.
Ghost was never the weapon.
Then what was?
Police arrived within minutes.
Local officers came first.
Then federal agents.
Then two men in gray suits who arrived too quickly to have been called after the shooting.
That bothered me.
Everything bothered me.
By noon, my clinic had become a restricted scene.
By one, the dead attacker’s body had disappeared into federal custody.
By two, there was no public record that a shooting had occurred.
I knew because Paula searched.
Nothing.
No incident report.
No emergency dispatch summary.
Nothing.
At 2:17 p.m., three federal officials entered my office and advised me not to discuss what had happened.
At 2:22, I asked whether that advice came with a warrant.
At 2:23, they left.
Mercer remained.
So did Ghost.
We sat in the darkened examination room.
Neither of us spoke for several minutes.
Finally, Mercer said, “You were special operations.”
“Something adjacent.”
“That’s not a thing.”
“It was where I worked.”
“What unit?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“It matters if people are shooting at my dog.”
“Your dog?”
He looked at Ghost.
Ghost was resting with his head on my boot.
Mercer sighed.
“Fair point.”
I leaned back against the cabinet.
“You said Ghost came from a facility in Turkey.”
“Yes.”
“What else was there?”
His face became guarded.
“Mercer.”
He rubbed his jaw.
“There was a room beneath the kennels.”
“What kind of room?”
“Medical.”
“For the dogs?”
“No.”
I waited.
He looked me in the eyes.
“Human subjects.”
Something hollow opened inside me.
“How many?”
“We found evidence of at least twelve.”
“Bodies?”
“No.”
“That’s worse.”
“Yes.”
“What was being done to them?”
“Neurological conditioning. Drug-assisted memory suppression. Behavioral reconstruction.”
I stared at him.
“You’re talking about brainwashing.”
“I’m telling you what the files said.”
“And Ethan?”
“One file used his service number.”
My breathing stopped.
“You saw it?”
“Yes.”
“Alive or dead?”
“No status.”
“When was the file dated?”
Mercer looked away.
My voice broke.
“When?”
“Four months before the extraction.”
Eighteen months ago.
Four months before.
Meaning the record was created less than two years ago.
Ethan had been declared dead seven years ago.
The room tilted.
I gripped the table.
Mercer watched me carefully.
“There’s more.”
“Of course there is.”
“In the file, Cross wasn’t listed as a prisoner.”
I looked at him.
“What was he listed as?”
Mercer’s next words struck harder than the gunfire had.
“Program director.”
I stood so fast the chair fell over.
“No.”
“That’s what the file said.”
“No.”
“I’m not saying I believe it.”
“You don’t know him.”
“No. I don’t.”
“He would never—”
I stopped.
Because memory is cruel.
Memory does not care what you need to believe.
I remembered Ethan during our final months together.
Sleepless.
Secretive.
Taking calls he wouldn’t explain.
Arguing with Captain Vane behind closed doors.
Once, in Afghanistan, I had walked into a briefing room and found Ethan burning a sheet of paper over a metal wastebasket.
He told me it was nothing.
I believed him because I loved him.
Love makes excellent camouflage.
Mercer stood.
“If Ethan Cross survived, he might not be the man you remember.”
I turned on him.
“Or someone wants me to think that.”
“Also possible.”
Ghost suddenly lifted his head.
He walked toward my desk.
Stopped.
Stared at the bottom drawer.
I frowned.
“What?”
He scratched once.
Then looked at me.
I opened the drawer.
Medical files.
Old photographs.
A spare pistol I had not touched in years.
Ghost scratched again.
Behind the drawer.
I removed it completely.
Something was taped to the rear panel.
A small black plastic capsule.
I stared.
“I didn’t put that there.”
Mercer drew his weapon.
“Don’t touch it.”
Ghost sat.
Then pawed once.
A signal.
I recognized it.
Search complete.
Safe.
My fingers shook as I peeled the capsule free.
Inside was a microSD card.
Nothing else.
Mercer stared at me.
“How long has that drawer been here?”
“Six years.”
“So somebody accessed your office.”
“Or it’s been there six years.”
We looked at Ghost.
He had known where to find it.
I inserted the card into an isolated laptop in the treatment room.
There was one file.
Video.
No title.
No metadata.
I clicked play.
The screen remained black.
Static crackled.
Then a man appeared.
Older.
Thinner.
Bearded.
A pale scar ran from his temple to his jaw.
My heart forgot how to beat.
Ethan.
Alive.
He sat beneath a bare light.
His hands rested on a metal table.
He looked exhausted.
But it was him.
The eyes.
The slight tilt of his head.
The crooked line of his nose from a college boxing injury.
Seven years collapsed into one second.
I reached toward the screen without realizing it.
“Ethan.”
In the recording, he looked directly into the camera.
“If you’re watching this, Madison, Ghost found you.”
My vision blurred.
Mercer became perfectly still beside me.
Ethan continued.
“I need you to listen without stopping the recording. I need you to ignore what you’ve been told about me.”
He swallowed.
“They will tell you I ran the program.”
Mercer and I exchanged a look.
“They will show you records. Signatures. Authorization codes. Videos, maybe. Most of them will be real.”
My stomach twisted.
“Because I did run part of it.”
I stepped back.
The room felt colder.
Ethan looked down.
“When Operation Palisade failed, Silas Vane sold us out. The mission wasn’t compromised by insurgents. It was compromised by our own command.”
I whispered, “Silas.”
“They took Ghost. They took me. They tried to take you too, but you had already been extracted after the first blast.”
My hand covered my mouth.
I remembered the explosion.
The chaos.
The helicopter.
Being told Ethan’s team never reached extraction.
Ethan continued.
“I survived because they needed me.”
He leaned closer to the camera.
“They had spent years studying military working dogs—loyalty, recognition, stress response, command imprinting. But dogs were only the prototype.”
Mercer muttered, “Jesus.”
“They wanted to transfer the same principles to human operatives.”
The words from the dead attacker returned.
Ghost was never the weapon.
Ethan stared into the camera.
“The weapon was memory.”
The recording flickered.
“They learned how to break associations. Rewrite trust. Destroy recognition. Build false emotional anchors.”
He paused.
“I helped them.”
My chest tightened.
“I helped because Ghost was alive. Because they told me you were dead. Because every time I resisted, they put someone else in the chair.”
He looked older than forty.
He looked ancient.
“Eventually, I discovered they had lied about you. That was when I began sabotaging the program from inside.”
His expression changed.
Urgency.
“If Ghost has reached you, the program is active again.”
A noise sounded somewhere off camera.
Ethan glanced to the side.
Then back.
“There’s one thing you need to understand. Ghost remembers people the program erased.”
I looked down at the dog.
“He remembers truth.”
The video glitched.
Ethan’s face returned.
“Madison, do not trust anyone from Palisade.”
My skin prickled.
“Do not trust Silas Vane.”
Expected.
“Do not trust Adrian Kessler.”
Also expected.
Then Ethan said:
“And do not trust Logan Mercer.”
The room went silent.
I turned.
Mercer was staring at the screen.
His face had gone white.
Slowly, I stepped away from him.
He raised both hands.
“I don’t know why he said that.”
My eyes dropped to his jacket.
His concealed weapon.
“Madison.”
“Take it out.”
“What?”
“Your pistol. Two fingers. Put it on the floor.”
“You think I’m part of this?”
“I think a dead man just told me not to trust you.”
“He’s not dead.”
“That’s the problem.”
Mercer slowly removed the pistol and placed it on the floor.
Ghost stood.
His body became rigid.
But he wasn’t looking at Mercer.
He was looking behind me.
At the laptop.
Ethan’s recording had continued.
We both turned.
Onscreen, Ethan was speaking rapidly.
“If Mercer is with you, there may still be time. He doesn’t know what they did to him.”
Mercer froze.
“What?”
Ethan’s voice sharpened.
“Logan, if you’re hearing this, check beneath your left shoulder blade.”
Mercer stared at the screen.
Then at me.
“Check it,” I said.
He pulled off his jacket.
Raised his shirt.
There, beneath his left shoulder blade, was a thin surgical scar.
Perfectly horizontal.
Mercer touched it.
His face emptied.
“I don’t remember this.”
The video continued.
“You were at the facility before your team extracted Ghost.”
Mercer shook his head.
“No.”
“You weren’t the rescuer, Logan.”
“No.”
“You were a patient.”
Mercer backed into the wall.
“No.”
Ethan leaned toward the camera.
“They put you back into your unit with a reconstructed memory.”
Mercer’s breathing became ragged.
“No.”
Ghost barked.
Once.
Sharp.
The laptop screen flickered again.
The image cut to black.
Then new text appeared.
COLE RESIDENCE.
23:40.
COME ALONE.
Mercer stared.
“Trap.”
“Yes.”
“You’re not going.”
“Yes, I am.”
“Absolutely not.”
I looked at him.
“Your memories might not be real.”
His face tightened.
“That doesn’t mean I’m your enemy.”
“No.”
I picked up his pistol and handed it back to him.
“But Ethan knew you’d be here.”
Mercer took the weapon slowly.
I looked at Ghost.
“And Ghost knew where the recording was.”
That night, I went home alone.
At least, that was the plan.
At 11:36 p.m., I parked two streets from my house and approached on foot through the rain.
I had changed out of my scrubs.
Dark jeans.
Black jacket.
Hair tied back.
The pistol sat against my spine.
Ghost walked beside me.
I had tried to leave him at the clinic.
He climbed into my truck.
I ordered him out.
He stared at me.
I used every command I knew.
Nothing.
Finally, I whispered, “Fine.”
His tail moved once.
Now, four minutes before midnight, we reached my backyard.
No lights.
No movement.
My house looked exactly as I had left it.
That made it worse.
The back door was unlocked.
I had locked it that morning.
Ghost entered first.
Silent.
We moved through the kitchen.
Living room.
Hallway.
Nothing.
Then Ghost stopped outside my bedroom.
He whined.
I had never heard him make that sound.
Not once.
I opened the door.
A man stood beside the window.
Tall.
Thin.
A pistol hung loosely at his side.
Moonlight illuminated the scar running along his face.
For seven years, I had imagined this moment.
In dreams.
In grief.
In anger.
Sometimes Ethan came home smiling.
Sometimes wounded.
Sometimes accusing me of leaving him behind.
But my imagination had never prepared me for the reality of him standing twelve feet away.
Alive.
Older.
Real.
My knees nearly failed.
“Ethan.”
His eyes filled with something I could not identify.
Love.
Grief.
Fear.
Maybe all three.
Ghost rushed forward.
Ethan dropped to one knee.
The dog slammed into him.
For one impossible moment, all three of us existed in the past.
A team.
A family.
Alive.
Ethan buried his face in Ghost’s fur.
“You found her.”
His voice broke.
“You actually found her.”
Tears burned my eyes.
I raised the gun.
Ethan saw it.
He did not move.
“Are you going to shoot me?”
“I haven’t decided.”
He nodded.
“Fair.”
“You let me think you were dead.”
“I know.”
“Seven years.”
“I know.”
“I buried an empty coffin.”
His eyes lowered.
“I know.”
My voice cracked.
“Stop saying that.”
Ghost looked between us.
Ethan slowly stood.
“You have every right to hate me.”
“I don’t know what I feel.”
“Good.”
“Why good?”
“Because if you felt exactly what you think you should feel, I’d know they’d gotten to you too.”
The words cut through everything.
“What does that mean?”
Ethan looked toward the hallway.
“We don’t have much time.”
“Then start talking.”
He stepped closer.
I tightened my grip.
He stopped.
“Palisade wasn’t terminated.”
“I know.”
“No. You know the first part.”
My skin prickled.
“What’s the second?”
Ethan’s eyes moved to Ghost.
“Dogs weren’t the prototype.”
“But you said—”
“The recording was incomplete.”
A distant engine sounded outside.
Ethan glanced toward the window.
“They already knew how to rewrite humans before Ghost was taken.”
My mouth went dry.
“Then why study dogs?”
“Because dogs can detect what humans can’t.”
“Detect what?”
“Replacement.”
I stared at him.
Ethan spoke carefully.
“Changes in scent. Hormones. microexpressions. stress patterns. A trained dog can recognize that someone is physically familiar but behaviorally wrong.”
I felt cold.
“So Ghost was used to test conditioned operatives.”
“Yes.”
The engine outside stopped.
Ethan looked at me.
“They made people betray friends. Kill teammates. Protect enemies. Then they put them in front of Ghost.”
My grip tightened on the pistol.
“And Ghost knew.”
“Every time.”
Footsteps sounded outside.
More than one person.
Ethan moved toward me.
“Madison, listen carefully.”
Ghost growled at the bedroom door.
“The reason I sent him to find you wasn’t because I needed you to find me.”
My heartbeat hammered.
“Then why?”
Ethan’s face twisted with pain.
“Because seven years ago, you weren’t extracted from Palisade.”
I stared at him.
“Yes, I was.”
“No.”
“I remember the helicopter.”
“I know.”
“I remember the hospital.”
“I know.”
“I remember Silas telling me you were dead.”
Ethan’s eyes filled.
“Those memories were given to you.”
The world seemed to disappear.
I shook my head.
“No.”
“Madison—”
“No.”
Ghost turned toward me.
Not Ethan.
Me.
And began to growl.
A low, uncertain sound.
The same sound he had made years ago when something familiar felt wrong.
I looked at Ethan.
He whispered, “That’s why Lantern matters.”
My hand began to shake.
“What are you saying?”
Someone kicked the front door downstairs.
Wood splintered.
Ethan grabbed my wrist.
“Lantern isn’t a command for Ghost.”
Footsteps rushed into the house.
“It never was.”
My breath stopped.
“What was it?”
Ethan stared directly into my eyes.
“A command for you.”
The hallway filled with shadows.
Ghost barked.
Ethan shouted one word.
“Lantern!”
Pain exploded behind my eyes.
The pistol fell from my hand.
I collapsed.
Images tore through my mind.
A metal chair.
White lights.
Needles.
Silas Vane standing behind glass.
Ethan screaming my name.
Ghost chained to a floor.
My own voice repeating numbers.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Then one final memory surfaced.
Not Afghanistan.
Virginia.
Three years ago.
Me standing in a dark warehouse.
Holding a suppressed pistol.
A man kneeling in front of me.
Logan Mercer.
And beside me, Captain Silas Vane whispering:
“Good, Rook. Now forget.”
I opened my eyes.
Ethan was kneeling over me.
Gunfire thundered downstairs.
Ghost stood over us, teeth bared.
I grabbed Ethan’s jacket.
My voice came out broken.
“I remember Mercer.”
Ethan went still.
“What?”
“I knew him before today.”
The bedroom door burst open.
A figure stepped inside.
Gray hair.
Calm eyes.
Silas Vane.
Seven years older.
Not dead.
Not retired.
Smiling.
He raised a pistol.
“Hello, Rook.”
Behind him stood Logan Mercer.
Gun raised.
Pointed directly at Ethan.
Mercer’s face was expressionless.
Empty.
Conditioned.
Silas smiled wider.
“You see, Madison?”
He tapped one finger against his temple.
“Ghost remembers the truth.”
Then he looked at me.
“But the fascinating question is…”
His finger moved toward Mercer.
“…which one of you will remember it first?”
…If you want to know what happened next, please type “YES” and like for more.
