Chapter : Fractures in the Truth

The scent of smoke still clung to my hair as we returned home, hours after the hangar burned to ash. The sun hadn’t risen yet, but the horizon was painted with muted streaks of orange and gray—like the aftermath of a storm that never fully passed.

Camilla was silent in the back seat, her arms wrapped around herself like armor. Her eyes stayed fixed on the road, unblinking, haunted.

I sat beside her, unsure how to reach through the miles of memory tampering, pain, and guilt coiled inside her like barbed wire.

“You’re safe now,” I whispered.

She didn’t answer.

She hadn’t spoken a...