Page 149 of Fractured Devotion
The girl jerks.
Then she screams.
It’s not loud, and it’s not the volume that undoes me. It’s the pitch. It’s the same one I heard on the corrupted audio she accidentally leaked.
She screams like her lungs are glass.
Then she bites her own arm.
But not like she’s throwing a tantrum.
Like survival.
I slam the terminal shut and eject the drive with trembling fingers.
I don’t know if Rourke’s ever seen this file. But I don’t care.
Because I know what it means.
She wasn’t just part of Echo.
She was the prototype.
My hands don’t stop shaking even after I’ve tucked the drive back into the false bottom of the equipment case. The image won’t leave me—her as a child, fractured and weaponized before she even knew her own name.
I sit back down and breathe through my teeth. Everything in me wants to destroy the file, to erase it from every system, every node, and every node Rourke might have access to. But that’s not an option. Not yet.
It’s leverage now. Not data.
I copy the video, store it under a new encrypted partition on my secure terminal, and set it to erase if tampered with. No backups, no cloud. Just me and the code.
After, I write a single-line entry in my own offline journal.
“Project C0Z confirms prototype theory. Interface trauma loop predates current structure. Cross-reference with Rourke’s Phase 1 iterations. Possible theft of source identity.”
I don’t add a timestamp, and I don’t sign it. This entry isn’t for anyone but me.
A sound in the hallway startles me. I slide the case back into the storage slot and shut the terminal off.
My breath slows again.
But the knowledge doesn’t.
This isn’t just about what they did to her.
It’s about what they took from her.
And somehow, I’ve become the one person who knows.
I’m not a savior.
Just a witness.
And that’s almost worse.
I press my palms against the desk, feeling the cold press into my skin. The lights overhead hum low, casting long shadows across the terminal. The weight of what I’ve just seen presses against my ribs like a stone too heavy to move.
I close my eyes and breathe once through my teeth.
