Chapter 69
David stood, every movement of his body slow, deliberate. “This is slander,” he said, voice rising with practiced outrage. Manipulated data. Fabricated nonsense from a camp that’s losing ground.”
I didn’t flinch. “If you’re so confident,” I said, my voice steady but sharp, “release your internal comm logs.”
He stared at me, a beat too long. His hands curled slightly at his sides.
Then he turned and left. No fanfare. No rebuttal. Just the heavy slam of the chamber door as the silence swallowed everything he
left behind.
The silence that followed was volcanic.
Back in the strategy room, I spread out the latest folder Richard had brought. The fire crackled in the corner, the warmth completely at odds with the chaos we were sorting through. Coded messages, fragmented reports, half–legible scrawl from intercepted field notes.
Again and again, the same phrase: Echo Sector–Phase Four.
My spine prickled. I reached for the folder we’d archived from Sector Delta, flipping through until I found the map fragment. There it was–bottom right corner, almost erased by time. Same words.
“We’ve been looking in the wrong place,” I said, pushing the pieces together. “It’s not about what happened. It’s about what was supposed to happen next.”
The phrase wasn’t a memory.
It was a plan.
And it was still in motion.
Richard leaned over my shoulder. “This might be bigger than anything we’ve thought.”
I looked up at him. “Then we need to make it louder.”
“I think it’s time we stop hiding,” I said later, as Richard joined me on the balcony outside the strategy room. Rain pelted the glass. The city below flickered with lightning.
He studied me for a moment. “Are you sure?”
I nodded. “If we wait, we lose the narrative. And if we lose the narrative, we lose the chance to protect people before they become collateral.”
He didn’t argue. He didn’t need to. His trust was wordless and complete. But his gaze lingered, longer than it needed to. A question behind it. One he didn’t ask.
With his blessing, I called a press briefing. Last–minute. No spin. No time for it. The announcement sent tremors through the summit–there was no precedent for this kind of direct transparency. But we didn’t have the luxury of precedent anymore.
The forum chamber lights buzzed overhead as I stood beneath them, the board we’d once kept in secret now behind me in full display–maps, strings, photos, documents. The investigation laid bare.
I walked them through it all.
The photo of my mother. The Clearwater name. The tampered drafts. The spyware. The surveillance. The war records. The threats. The disappearances. The map. The words that kept coming back–Echo Sector.
It was the first time I’d ever spoken her name in front of a crowd.
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Chapter 69
+25 BONUS
“Elena Clearwater was more than a medic,” I said. “She was a witness. And for that, someone made her disappear.”
You could’ve heard a pin drop.
When I finished, I let the silence hang. I didn’t fill it. I let them sit in the weight of it, because they needed to. Because I needed them to feel how heavy truth can be.
Then Richard stepped forward.
“We stand for truth,” he said, voice firm. “Even when it’s dangerous. Especially then.”
Flashbulbs burst. Reporters scrawled furiously. I could see the shift begin–eyes changing, postures adjusting. Some of them were still unsure. But some of them believed.
We walked offstage together, side by side.
Just before the corridor split, Richard slowed.
“There’s no turning back now,” he murmured.
I stopped, turned to face him.
“Good,” I said. “I’m tired of hiding.”
We stood there for a moment longer, close enough to feel the electricity in the air–not just from the storm. Something had shifted. Not in the room. Not on the board, between us.
Chapter 70
Chapter 70
