Page 74 of Anchor
Reid stared at it.
“That’s the face the intel community trusted,” Apex said. “The one they gave keys to five continents.”
Reid’s voice was flat. “The one who called Claire Firefly.”
Apex’s expression darkened. “She said she remembered him watching her sleep.”
“He wasn’t watching,” Reid said. “He was testing. Conditioning. Seeing how close he could get before someone flinched.”
He pulled up a buried folder from Claire’s NSA archive. Flagged comm noise. Embedded patterns. The report that never reached command.
Three letters, scattered deep in the logic chain: V. O. S.
“A signature,” Apex muttered. “And a threat.”
Reid’s gaze sharpened. “And a dare.”
He turned to the larger map again. Forty-three incident nodes across three continents. Too scattered to be random. Too clean to be traced.
Vos wasn’t gone. He was moving. And he knew they were coming.
Reid exhaled. “We make noise. Pull every dead file, every black-site echo, every failure marked unsolved. Claire was the beginning. But we find the next move before he does.”
Apex folded his arms. “He’ll hear us coming.”
Reid nodded. “Good.”
He glanced toward the quiet bedroom door. Claire hadn’t stirred yet. But he knew she’d wake soon. And when she did,she’d ask what progress they’d made. This time, he’d have something to give her.
The airin the suite was too still. She could hear murmurs from the outer room. Reid and Apex poring over maps and intercepts, but none of it sounded real to her. It was like the floor had dropped again, only this time there was no pain, no blood. Just memory.
She stepped out slowly, one hand on the doorframe for balance. Her side ached, still tight from the wound. But something inside her was sharper than the pain. Something trying to come together.
The hum of screens dimmed as Claire shifted forward and leaned against the conference table, fingers pressing into the polished surface. Her voice was soft, almost fragile. “I need to say something before I lose the thread.”
Apex stopped scrolling. The room stilled.
“There was a man,” Claire said. “When I was eight. I had a fever. Bad enough that I thought I was going to die. My mom told me the doctor couldn’t come. She gave me aspirin and washed me with a cool washcloth. Then this man appeared.”
Reid took a step closer.
“He wasn’t a doctor. No bag. No name. Just a dark suit. He said he was a friend of my father’s. He didn’t check me the way a doctor would. He just held my wrist. Too long. Like he was… studying me.” She swallowed. “He called meFirefly.”
The name hung in the air. Reid’s jaw set hard.
“I wanted to tell him he was wrong,” Claire went on. “That only my dad called me that. But the last time I corrected him, mymom slapped me. Right in front of him. So, this time, I stayed quiet.”
Apex’s voice was low. “That man—was it Vos?”
Claire’s nod was slow, certain. “I didn’t know then. But I know now. Same eyes. Same voice. Before he left, he knelt by my bed and said, ‘I’ll see you again when the tide turns. Your father always knew where the storm would start.’”
Reid stepped closer, his eyes locked on hers. “Claire, that line about the storm. Your father kept records, didn’t he? Notes, journals, a ledger. Do you remember anything about them?”
Her eyes unfocused, pulling from memory. “He kept them in his office. I was eleven when he died. My mom moved everything that was his. Vault level. Bowman estate. The desk was moved the morning after the funeral. The key… my mother kept it in her jewelry safe. Top drawer. Left side.”
Apex turned back to the console. “We’ll dispatch a retrieval team.”
But Claire wasn’t finished. Her voice dropped, distant, her gaze unfixed. “After he left that night, I dreamed. Too clear, too sharp. They weren’t like fever dreams. They felt planted, like I was carrying thoughts that weren’t mine.”
