The silence in the room was almost unnatural. Ava sat alone on the edge of the bed in the motel she and Caroline had rented just two hours ago. Her fingers were curled tightly around the cassette tape now labeled only with a number: "4." It was the next clue, the next unraveling thread in the web Ben had left behind. She was supposed to feel closer to the truth, but all she felt was distance.
Caroline entered the room carrying two cups of coffee, one of them trembling slightly in her hand. "Still nothing from the recorder?"
Ava shook her head. "It's jammed. Or maybe the tape's degraded. Either way, we need to find another deck. Something older. More analog."
Caroline placed the cups down and took a seat across from her. The light from the single lamp flickered above them. "We're running out of time. Whoever was in the townhouse that day—he might know we have this."
"I know," Ava said, gripping the tape tighter. "But what if this one is different? What if this is the one that finally reveals what Cassandra really was?"
Caroline leaned forward. "Or who she was. Maybe she wasn't just an idea. Maybe she was a person. A real one."
The air grew heavier with that thought. The more they uncovered, the more abstract the picture became. Cassandra, the name written on walls, files, memories. Cassandra, the voice in Ben's recording, warning, whispering.
They left the motel shortly after midnight, driving into a nearby antique district in hopes that one of the shops had a working tape deck. The roads were quiet. Only the sound of the tires over wet asphalt kept Ava grounded. She couldn't stop thinking about the moment Ben had first said the name "Cassandra" to her.
It was in the garden behind his mother's house. Summer. The smell of jasmine. His eyes had been so distant, like he was talking to someone she couldn't see.
They found a store with a neon sign still lit: "Rutherford & Sons: Vintage Audio."
A bell chimed as they entered. An older man behind the counter looked up, his glasses slipping down the bridge of his nose. "Help you ladies with something?"
Ava stepped forward. "We're looking for a cassette player. Something that still works. It's urgent."
The man arched a brow but didn't ask questions. He led them to a shelf in the back lined with radios and tape decks. Ava picked the most promising one, and the man even offered them a stool to test it.
She inserted the tape and pressed play.
Static.
Then a voice.
"If you're hearing this, then it means you've come too far. You weren't supposed to find the others. Not this one, especially."
Caroline's hand found Ava's.
The voice continued. It wasn't Ben's. It was a woman's.
"Cassandra was never a person. She was a fail-safe. A code embedded into memory, into people. We were trying to engineer a kind of prophecy, but something went wrong. Terribly wrong."
The tape crackled.
"They called it cognitive echo. But it was more than that. It wasn't just memories repeating. It was the past demanding to live again. Through us."
Ava leaned in closer. Every word struck her like ice.
"Ben tried to shut it down. But they found him first. They always do."
The voice paused.
"And if you're hearing this… they'll come for you too."
The tape ended in silence.
The man at the counter said nothing. Ava slowly removed the cassette and placed it back in her pocket.
"Thank you," she said quietly.
As they drove back, neither spoke. Ava stared out the window, the city blurred in the darkness.
"We need to go back to Waverly Place," Caroline finally said. "There's more there. Something we missed."
Ava nodded. "Tomorrow. At dawn."
They returned to the motel. Ava didn't sleep. She sat by the window, watching shadows shift under the streetlamp.
In her hand, she held a second tape she hadn't told Caroline about.
It was labeled simply: "Endgame."
And Ava had a sinking feeling she already knew how it would end.
---