Page 143 of Fractured Devotion
She’s younger. Barely seven.
But it’s unmistakably her.
And someone was training her to break.
Reyes puts a hand on the console. “We should stop. This… she doesn’t know. Not all of it.”
I nod, but my fingers twitch to click the next entry.
It’s another video, another mask, and another day that Celeste was bent into something she never chose to become.
I copy the files, but not all of them. Just enough to prove what we found. The rest stays buried. For now.
We leave the backups untouched because anything more would set off system flags. And right now, we need stealth more than closure.
As we exit, Reyes glances at me and asks, “Do we tell her?”
“Not yet,” I reply.
“Why not?”
“Because there’s still more beneath this. Someone greenlit these programs, and someone buried the records. If we show our hand now, they’ll lock down the rest.”
Reyes exhales slowly. “You think she’ll find out anyway?”
“She’s already digging.”
And if I know Celeste, when she reaches the truth, she won’t just burn the house down.
She’ll salt the earth underneath.
We secure the hatch behind us and step back into the corridor.
The lights flicker once, then settle.
The air feels colder than before.
Like it knows we saw something we were never meant to.
Like the system itself is watching us now.
And holding its breath.
Chapter 43 – Alec - Black Box Room
The hatch slams shut behind us. I hear it seal with a dull, pneumatic hiss, the sound of something old locking itself away beneath the surface and shutting out the world above.
I carry the drive inside my coat, pressed flat against my ribs, as though if I let it go too far from me, it’ll vanish, just like the rest of this place should’ve. Reyes doesn’t say much.
“I’ll parse what I can after my last session,” he mutters.
“Same. Let’s regroup at 7 p.m.?”
He nods once, then peels off toward his wing. I watch him go before turning the opposite direction and slipping back into the hum of clinic life.
It’s sometime after eleven when I spot them—Celeste and Kade, walking side by side near the west stairwell. He says something I can’t hear. She doesn’t laugh, but her mouth twitches like it wants to. Her arm brushes his. It’s not accidental.
A heat flickers deep in my gut. It’s irrational and fast.
