The folder lay heavy in Aric's hands. Government seals, half-burned pages, words twisting like snakes between the lines. He wanted answers, but the Circle's eyes were on him. Watching.weighting.
The activist girl stepped forward. Thin frame, cracked lips, but her eyes burned brighter than the fire in the oil drum. She looked like she hadn't eaten in days, yet her voice cut through the warehouse air with steel.
"You want to know what your sister died for?" she asked. "Then you'll know why I can't stop."
Her name was Mira Elen. She'd been a student once, the kind who carried books bigger than her arms. But when the war came, the schools closed, and students were sent to "labor camps for rebuilding." That's what the posters called them.
Her younger brother, barely thirteen, was taken. "To help rebuild the nation," the officials said. He never came back.
Mira had searched every list, every record. Nothing. His name had been erased. Not marked dead. Not missing. Erased.
"I screamed in front of their offices until they dragged me out," Mira said, voice cracking. "Then a woman came to me. Liora Vale. Your sister."
Aric's chest tightened.
"She told me I wasn't crazy. That the government wasn't just lying. They were burying the truth. She showed me files that shouldn't exist—camps marked as 'resource reallocation centers.'" Mira's fists trembled. "That's where they sent my brother. Not to work. To vanish."
The thief scoffed, flipping his coin. "Sad story, but crying won't bring him back. We're here to survive, not play heroes."
The veteran glared. "Shut your mouth. You weren't the one who heard kids screaming through the smoke."
Aric let the voices clash around him, but his eyes stayed on Mira. Her anger. Her grief. It was raw, but it was fuel. Just like his own.
She noticed his stare. "Your sister believed the records could bring them down. Proof that the war wasn't about victory—it was about profit. Every erased name fed their pockets. That's why she died. If you're here to play detective, then understand—this isn't just about your blood. It's about all of us."
The warehouse door rattled suddenly. Everyone froze. A shadow moved outside. Boots on the dock. Too many. Too steady.
The woman who had brought Aric here whispered sharply, "They've found us."
Mira grabbed the half-burned folder and shoved it against Aric's chest. "You want answers? Then run. Keep her work alive."
The oil drum fire flickered wildly as the Circle scattered into the shadows. Aric's revolver was already in his hand.
For the first time in three years, he felt something other than grief. He felt the hunt beginning.