Chapter 2 - The Name Behind the FireFor twelve years, I had dreamed about the fire.
Not every night.
Only on the nights when sleep became too deep.
In those dreams, I was always sixteen.
Always running.
Always barefoot.
Always screaming for someone who never came.
My mother's voice.
My sister's voice.
My father's voice.
Then the explosion.
Then darkness.
When I woke in the hospital months later, I couldn't remember my own name.
The doctors called me Patient 17.
No family came.
No flowers.
No visitors.
No one claimed me.
Eventually, a nurse discovered an old burn victim registry and realized I matched an unidentified girl found near the Mercer estate.
That was how I learned the truth.
I had been alive.
My family had simply never looked.
Or worse...
They had known exactly where I was.
Marcus took me into a private room behind the ballroom.
"Tell me the name," I said.
He closed the door.
"You need to understand something first."
"I've understood enough."
"No. You haven't."
He placed a file on the table.
"The person who ordered the fire didn't act alone."
I stared at him.
"Who?"
Marcus opened the file.
Inside was a photograph.
My mother's younger brother.
Uncle Adrian.
I laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because it couldn't be true.
Adrian Mercer had died six years before the fire.
A heart attack.
I remembered his funeral.
I remembered standing beside my mother.
I remembered the black suit.
The flowers.
The rain.
"He's dead."
Marcus nodded.
"He was."
"Then how?"
"Because the order came through someone using his accounts."
I looked down.
Bank transfers.
Shell companies.
Insurance payments.
And one account opened three months before the fire.
The beneficiary was Juliette.
My sister.
My stomach tightened.
"She knew."
Marcus didn't answer.
That was answer enough.
I walked back into the ballroom.
Juliette was surrounded by people.
Daniel stood several feet away from her.
My father was nowhere to be seen.
I approached my sister.
She whispered, "Why did you come back?"
I leaned closer.
"Because you never came looking."
Her eyes filled with tears.
"I thought you were dead."
"You stopped searching after three days."
Her face changed.
That tiny reaction.
That was the first crack.
I knew there was something beneath it.
"What happened after the fire?" I asked.
She looked toward the ballroom doors.
"Not here."
"Why?"
"Because they'll kill you again."
I froze.
Juliette looked genuinely terrified.
Then someone grabbed my wrist.
My father.
"Come with me."
I pulled away.
"Don't touch me."
His eyes filled with tears.
"I thought I lost you."
"You buried me."
"I had no choice."
Those four words silenced me.
"No choice?"
He looked around.
Then whispered:
"They were watching us."
"Who?"
He couldn't answer.
A sharp sound came from the ballroom.
Glass breaking.
Everyone turned.
Daniel was standing over the champagne table.
His hand was bleeding.
And beside him was Marcus.
Daniel stared at me.
"You shouldn't have come here."
I looked at him.
"Why?"
He smiled.
It wasn't the smile of a frightened man.
It was the smile of someone who had just realized the game had changed.
"Because now they know you're alive."
A gunshot exploded through the ballroom.
People screamed.
The chandelier shattered.
Darkness swallowed the room.
Someone grabbed me from behind.
I fought.
Then a voice whispered into my ear.
"Run."
I recognized it.
May you like
And my blood turned cold.
It belonged to the man everyone had buried six years before the fire.
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