Chapter 11 - My Father's NameMy father's name was Daniel Carter.
He had been a police captain.
He had died in a car crash when I was twenty-two.
Or so I believed.
Logan had been the first to question the story.
He told me our father had secrets.
I dismissed him.
Now I knew why.
I stared at the photograph.
My father was standing beside Voss.
Both men looked younger.
Both wore the broken-circle symbol.
“Why would my father be involved?”
Evelyn answered quietly.
“Because he founded Helix.”
I felt something inside me collapse.
“No.”
“He believed memories could be controlled to prevent crime.”
“That sounds insane.”
“At first, he believed it would save lives.”
“And then?”
“People discovered they could use it to erase accountability.”
She glanced at Logan.
“Your father tried to shut it down.”
Logan nodded.
“Voss stopped him.”
“What happened to Dad?”
“He was taken.”
“Where?”
“Blackwater.”
Everything came back again.
Rain.
Blood.
Logan shouting.
A man with a silver ring.
But now another image appeared.
My father.
Kneeling.
Alive.
Someone standing behind him.
Me.
Holding a gun.
I screamed.
Marcus looked at me.
“What did you see?”
“My father.”
“What did you do?”
“I don't know.”
Evelyn stepped closer.
“Your mind is unlocking.”
“Then unlock everything.”
“You may not survive it.”
“I don't care.”
She studied me.
Then handed me a key.
“This opens the original Helix archive.”
“Where?”
“Under the Carter family home.”
I stared at her.
“My childhood house?”
“Yes.”
It had been abandoned since my father's supposed death.
We went there before dawn.
The house looked exactly as I remembered.
Dust.
Broken windows.
The old staircase.
The hallway where Logan and I had raced each other as children.
I stopped outside my father's study.
I remembered his voice.
Never open the bottom drawer.
I pulled it open.
Empty.
Logan walked in.
“Try the floor.”
I looked down.
A loose board.
Under it was a metal hatch.
The key fit.
We descended.
At the bottom was a room filled with photographs.
Hundreds of them.
People.
Police officers.
Families.
Children.
And one central wall covered entirely in photographs of me.
Different ages.
Different identities.
Different lives.
At the center was one sentence:
SUBJECT C-01 HAS BEEN RESET SEVEN TIMES.
I stared at the wall.
“What does that mean?”
Logan's face had gone white.
“It means…”
He couldn't finish.
I turned toward him.
“Tell me.”
He looked at me.
“You're not twenty-nine.”
I frowned.
“You're forty-one.”
The room spun.
“That’s impossible.”
“You've been reset seven times.”
My whole life...
May you like
Had been rewritten.
And Logan had known.
