CHAPTER 25

The Fracture Point

The past is a cruel thing. It waits in the dark corners of your mind, patient and still, until the moment you least expect it. Then it strikes—sinking its claws in, dragging you backward, forcing you to relive what you desperately want to forget.

I stare at the old military dossier sprawled across Riley's desk, my pulse hammering like a war drum. Coordinates, declassified reports, and the faded photograph of a place that should've been buried under history: an abandoned base, hidden deep in the forest, where The Oath had once carried out their most classified operations.

Riley moves beside me, flipping through the papers. Her sharp eyes dart between documents, lips pursed, the weight of the past pressing down on both of us.

"We leave at dawn," she says, but she's barely looking at me. Her fingers tighten on a report labeled "Incident Report: Julian Cain."

Julian.

The name sends a cold bolt through my spine. The night he died, my hands were shaking. My head was spinning. But the memory—the exact moment he was shot—is tangled in static.

And now, standing in the dim glow of Riley's workspace, I finally force the words out.

"I remember pulling the trigger," I say, voice barely above a whisper. "But I don't know if it was me who fired."

Riley's head snaps up. Her eyes widen slightly, then narrow with razor-sharp focus.

"Explain," she demands.

I exhale, rubbing the back of my neck. "That night, I had my gun raised. I know that much. But the shot…" I shake my head, clenching my fists. "I don't think it was mine. I didn't feel the recoil. I didn't make the decision. It was like…" My jaw tightens. "Like someone else was there."

Silence thickens between us.

Riley doesn't dismiss me. Don't scoff or tell me I'm grasping at ghosts. Instead, she pulls up the footage—the only recorded evidence of that night. She plays it, frame by frame, watching the grainy images like they hold the key to the past.

And then she freezes.

Her breath catches.

"Nathan…" Her voice is hushed, urgent. She rewinds, slows it down further, and leans in so close her face is inches from the screen. "Look at your hands."

My gaze locks on the footage. There I am, standing in the rain, gun raised—Julian in front of me.

The shot fires.

Julian collapses.

But my fingers... they weren't even on the trigger.

A sick wave of nausea rolls through me.

"What the hell," I whisper.

Riley rewinds again. "There," she murmurs, pointing.

A shadow. Just behind me, barely visible. A sliver of movement, a flicker in the rain, like a ghost had reached through me and fired the shot themselves.

"There was someone else," Riley breathes. "A hidden player."

The Oath had a phantom that night. And we never saw them coming.

We don't sleep.

Instead, we pack. Gear up. Silence settles between us, but it's not the kind that pushes people apart. It's the kind that binds them together under the weight of a revelation too heavy to carry alone.

By the time we're ready, the first threads of dawn creep across the sky, bleeding soft oranges into the dark horizon. Riley double-checks her weapons. I tighten the straps on my tactical vest.

We don't say it out loud, but we both know that if we go to that base, we're stepping into a place where ghosts still roam.

We move.

The drive is long. The road is desolate. Trees blur past in streaks of green and gray, the tension thickening with every mile.

I catch Riley stealing glances at me as if trying to read the storm brewing under my skin.

"You're awfully quiet," she finally says.

I smirk, but it's hollow. "Nothing much to say."

"Bullshit."

I exhale through my nose, gripping the steering wheel tighter. "I spent years thinking I killed Julian," I murmur. "Years convincing myself that I had to pull the trigger. That it was the only way." My fingers tighten until my knuckles turn white. "Now I find out I didn't? That someone else did, and I was just a pawn?"

Riley doesn't respond right away. But then she reaches over and rests a hand on my wrist—a small, grounding touch.

"We'll figure this out," she says. "Together."

I nod. Because anything else feels impossible.

We never make it to the base.

Not that night.

Just as we cross into the final stretch of road, Riley's laptop—wired into our system—emits a sharp, jarring beep. The screen flickers.

Then the entire system crashes.

"What the—" Riley yanks it open, typing furiously. "We're being hacked."

My gut clenches. "Who?"

The answer comes in the form of a flashing message, a black background, and bold white letters burning into the screen.

TURN BACK, OR YOU'LL END UP LIKE JULIAN.

The world stills.

A slow, creeping dread slithers up my spine.

Someone doesn't want us at that base. Someone who knows exactly what we're digging into.

And worse? They're watching.

"Riley," I say, voice dangerously low. "Shut it down. Now."

But before she can, the screen flickers again. A new message appears.

WE SEE YOU.

Then, just as suddenly as it started, the system went dark.

Riley exhales sharply, slamming the laptop shut.

"This just got a hell of a lot worse."

No kidding.

I reach for my gun, heart hammering.

"We need a new plan," I say.

Riley's eyes flick to mine, fierce and unwavering.

She nods once. "Agreed."

But as we sit in that car, in the middle of nowhere, with the weight of the past and an unseen enemy pressing in on all sides—one thing is certain.

The fracture point has come.

And there's no turning back.