Chapter 8 - The Last SevenWe all answered our phones.
No caller ID.
No number.
Just silence.
Then the same message appeared.
LOOK AT THE PHOTOGRAPH.
I opened the image.
The photograph from the helicopter.
Seven soldiers.
Smoke behind them.
I zoomed in.
“Wait.”
I pointed.
There was a patch on each uniform.
Seven tiny symbols.
I recognized mine.
A crescent.
Chase's was a vertical line.
Evan's was a star.
The others were different.
General Hale understood immediately.
“They weren't unit patches.”
“What were they?”
“Markers.”
“For what?”
He didn't answer.
Colonel Pierce did.
“For the seven witnesses.”
The room went still.
“Witnesses to what?”
Pierce looked at the photograph.
“To the breach.”
I stared at the seven people.
“Then why were we seven?”
“Because each of you saw a different part of it.”
Chase leaned over the photograph.
“There's something missing.”
“What?”
He pointed to the edge.
“Look at the helicopter.”
I zoomed in.
A case was being carried out.
“What's inside?”
Chase whispered,
“The drive.”
But there was another detail.
The person carrying it wasn't Evan.
It was me.
I froze.
“That isn't possible.”
Pierce corrected me.
“It is.”
I stared at the image.
“Why don't I remember?”
“Because you were drugged.”
My head snapped toward him.
“What?”
“After the extraction.”
General Hale looked at Pierce.
“Explain.”
“The field hospital report was altered.”
“By whom?”
Pierce hesitated.
“Vivian.”
Everyone looked at her.
She broke down.
“I didn't know what it was.”
“You altered a medical report?”
“They threatened me.”
“Who?”
“I don't know!”
Her voice cracked.
“They told me Mara had been exposed to a chemical agent.”
I remembered waking in a hospital.
The lights.
The headache.
The missing hours.
The doctor telling me I had suffered exhaustion.
I had always thought the memory gaps were trauma.
Maybe they were not.
“What did they do to me?”
Pierce looked at General Hale.
“They removed a memory.”
My body went cold.
“That's impossible.”
“Not literally.”
He stepped closer.
“You were unconscious for twenty hours. Someone kept you sedated while they extracted the information you had memorized.”
“What information?”
“The drive wasn't just digital.”
He pointed to my head.
“You had the access key stored mentally.”
I stared at him.
Evan had taught me it on the flight before the mission.
Seven numbers.
Seven names.
One phrase.
A phrase I had never forgotten.
I whispered it.
“Night falls twice.”
General Hale's eyes widened.
“That's it.”
“That's the key?”
“Yes.”
“But what does it unlock?”
Pierce looked at the door.
“The second archive.”
I frowned.
“There's a second archive?”
“Underground.”
“Where?”
He paused.
“Fort Avery.”
A military facility no longer listed on public maps.
My father looked confused.
“Why hide an archive?”
Pierce answered.
“Because the first archive contained the official story.”
“And the second?”
“The real one.”
Chase looked at me.
“Then let's go.”
General Hale nodded.
“We leave now.”
But as we turned toward the door, Vivian grabbed my sleeve.
“Mara.”
I stopped.
She looked terrified.
“There is something else.”
“What?”
She glanced at Chase.
Then at my father.
Then back at me.
“I didn't tell you everything about Evan.”
“What didn't you tell me?”
She whispered,
“Evan came to me after he visited your father.”
I frowned.
“My father?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“The night before the operation.”
General Hale stepped closer.
“What did he say?”
Vivian swallowed.
“He told me your father was innocent.”
My heart tightened.
“Then why was his name on the list?”
“Because…”
She stared at me.
“Evan told me the list had been changed.”
“Changed by whom?”
Vivian's voice dropped to a whisper.
“By the real traitor.”
“Who?”
She looked at Chase.
May you like
And then said:
“Your mother.”
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