The train rattled under Jude's feet like bones grinding together. Southbound, no destination in mind yet. He just needed movement. Noise. Anything to drown out the weight of Casey's dead eyes and the echo of his last words.
"She's still in danger."
She.
Leah.
Alive. Somewhere. For now.
He pressed his temple to the cold windowpane. Outside, the city blurred past in streaks of sodium light and rain. His reflection stared back at him—hollowed, sleepless, older than he remembered. A man who used to be something. A journalist. A truth-hunter. Now he was just a scavenger in the ruins of his own reputation.
His fingers gripped the photo again. It had curled more now, moisture warping the edges. He should've burned it. But he couldn't. Not until he knew.
Who had taken the photo?
Why now, after all these years?
And the biggest question:
Where was Leah?
His thoughts were interrupted by a voice.
"You got the time?"
Jude looked up. A guy in a security uniform stood across the aisle. Mid-30s. Unshaven. Too friendly.
"Uh… yeah," Jude said. "It's—"
He glanced down.
But his watch was gone.
His pulse jumped. He checked his pockets.
Gone.
Wallet. Phone. The flash drive.
Gone.
He shot to his feet. "Where the hell—"
But the security guy was already halfway down the train car, shoulder brushing past passengers with the practiced ease of someone used to slipping away.
"Hey! HEY!"
Jude pushed forward, but the man turned just before the next car and gave a faint smile—too calm for a pickpocket.
Then he slipped through the connecting door.
By the time Jude made it there, the car was empty. Just shadows and humming lights.
He looked around, panting.
Nothing.
It wasn't a mugging. It was a message.
They were watching him. Always had been.
---
By the time he got off the train, the sky had opened up. Rain, sharp and sudden. No umbrella. No coat. He let it soak through, walking aimlessly until the weight of the water matched the weight in his chest.
Eventually, he found himself on South Wexley. A part of town with broken neon signs and liquor stores that didn't ask for ID. His old world. Before rehab. Before he'd tried to claw his way back from the bottle.
He ducked into a bar.
The kind with vinyl booths and a jukebox that only played pain.
The bartender gave him a nod. "Mercer."
So they still remembered him.
That wasn't comforting.
"Whiskey," Jude said, sliding into a booth.
He stared at the cracked wood table. Watched a droplet fall from his hair, then another. He was leaking past and present. Casey's corpse. Leah's eyes. The flash drive. The theft.
They weren't just coming for information.
They were scrubbing it.
Burning every trail before it could lead back to whoever was behind Reynolds.
The bartender set the drink down. Jude stared at it. Let his fingers wrap around the glass.
He didn't drink it.
But God, he wanted to.
His phone buzzed.
A new number.
He hesitated.
Then answered.
Silence. Then static.
Then—her voice.
"You're being followed."
Leah.
He sat up straighter, heart racing. "Where are you?"
"You shouldn't have gone to Casey."
"You were the one who—he said you're still in danger. He died, Leah. Minutes after I found him."
Pause. "I know."
She sounded… older. Tired. Not the trembling girl from the fire. Not anymore.
"Who's after you?" he asked. "Who started the fire?"
A click. Then a deep inhale.
"There were files," she said. "On the second floor. They weren't supposed to exist. He tried to stop them from being destroyed. He failed. They burned the building to erase everything."
"Who's he?"
"Doesn't matter now. What matters is—"
Another click. Like interference.
Jude's chest tightened. "Leah?"
Static.
Then: "They're coming for you next. Don't trust the story. Don't trust—"
The line went dead.
---
Jude stood there, staring at his phone like it might speak again.
Don't trust the story.
He sat back down, every nerve on high alert.
Files. Evidence. A man who tried to protect them.
Could it be—
His mind skipped back. Ten years ago. The only person who had warned him to stay away from Reynolds entirely.
Richard Grayson.
Leah's father.
An ex-detective turned whistleblower. Suspended for "conduct violations" just weeks before the fire. Jude had dismissed him as paranoid. A loose cannon. The official report said he'd gone off-grid after his daughter's death.
But what if he hadn't?
What if he'd gone underground?
What if Leah hadn't just survived the fire—she'd been protected by him?
And now, the people who lit the match were cleaning house.
---
Back in his apartment, Jude laid out every scrap he had left.
The photo.
The ghost recording of his testimony.
The names on the survivor list.
The torn directory page with Grayson's name circled.
He was being pulled in two directions—toward the mystery and away from safety. But safety was an illusion. He'd been sitting in a broken life for a decade thinking he was just unlucky.
Now he knew better.
His laptop was gone, but his backup notes weren't digital. He'd made sure of that. Every name, every document he'd once dug up on Reynolds was still in his old filing cabinet—beneath two layers of junk and the paranoia he never outgrew.
He pulled them out, laid them on the floor.
That's when he found it.
A second photo.
One he didn't remember keeping.
It showed the interior of an office. Burned. But not completely. A whiteboard in the background, half-melted, still showed part of a name:
[REDACTED] INSTITUTE – MKCELL
The word hit him like a hammer.
MK.
As in MK-ULTRA? The old CIA mind-control program?
It couldn't be.
Unless—
He pulled out his notes. Searched for any reference to psychology programs, experiments, black-site funding. There, buried under interview notes, he found it.
A loose mention from one of the Reynolds janitors—"Weird basement stuff. Like labs. Never allowed near it."
Another had said: "Used to hear crying. Not kids. Older. Like… experiments?"
He hadn't believed them.
Now he wasn't so sure.
---
A knock at the door.
Jude froze.
One knock. Then silence.
Not his neighbors. They always knocked twice.
He stepped carefully toward the peephole.
Empty hallway.
No one.
He opened the door a crack—
Something hit the floor.
He looked down.
A manila envelope.
No label. No handwriting.
He picked it up with a trembling hand.
Back inside, he tore it open.
Inside was a photograph.
Of him.
Tonight.
In the train station.
A clear shot, high angle.
He was being watched.
And then—beneath it—a single sticky note, typed:
> "STOP ASKING ABOUT LEAH. OR YOU'LL JOIN THE LIST."