CHAPTER 39
Fractures
Riley's footsteps echoed through the bunker as she paced, her movements sharp and restless. The classified document sat open on the table between us like a loaded weapon, its presence heavier than the concrete walls surrounding us.
"You need to say something," she finally demanded, arms crossed, voice taut with frustration.
I exhaled, fingers flexing against the table. My heartbeat felt too loud in my ears. "I don't know what to tell you, Riley. I don't remember any of this."
"That's exactly the problem!" She turned to face me, her expression raw. "Your name is in that file, Nathan. Project Orion. Memory alteration trials. What if The Oath didn't just erase my past—what if they erased yours too?"
I shook my head, but the motion felt unsteady. "I would know if my mind had been tampered with."
"Would you?" she shot back. "Because I wouldn't. And apparently, I was part of it too."
I dragged a hand through my hair, my pulse pounding. The truth should've been simple. I was the one who had been fighting The Oath for years. I had seen the bodies they left behind, the lives they destroyed. Julian was the enemy. He always had been.
But now? Now the lines were blurring.
I glanced at the file again. At my name. At the hidden horrors wrapped beneath redacted lines and classified stamps.
Something deep in my brain twisted.
A shadow of something I should remember.
I forced the thought away. "Julian is a master manipulator. He wants us to doubt each other. This could be his way of breaking us from the inside."
Riley didn't look convinced. She studied me like I was something fragile, something dangerous. "Then prove it," she said quietly.
I bristled. "How?"
"Tell me something real, Nathan." Her eyes searched mine. "Something about your past. Something before The Oath. Before you were on the run. A childhood memory. A detail Julian couldn't fabricate."
I opened my mouth—then stopped.
Nothing came.
Cold spread through my limbs.
Riley's expression flickered. "You don't remember, do you?"
I did. I had to.
I tried again.
My parents. Where had I grown up? What was the name of my first teacher? My favorite book as a kid?
The harder I reached for the memories, the further they slipped away.
Like fingers grasping at smoke.
My breathing turned uneven. "That doesn't mean—"
"It means something," she said, voice softer now, but no less firm.
A part of me wanted to push back, to fight against the fear creeping into my bones. But another part—the part that had always sensed something off in the back of my mind—was telling me that Riley wasn't wrong.
Maybe I wasn't just missing pieces of the puzzle.
Maybe I was the puzzle.
I pressed my hands against the table, grounding myself. "I know who I am," I muttered.
Riley studied me for a long moment before speaking. "Then let's find out what they didn't want you to remember."
I swallowed, my throat dry. "And if I don't like the answer?"
Her jaw tightened. "Then at least we'll know the truth."
I exhaled shakily, nodding. "Okay."
The silence stretched.
Then—
A sudden, sharp click inside my head.
My entire body locked up. My vision fractured.
The world tilted violently, and before I could brace myself, a foreign sensation slammed into my skull—like a hidden door had just been kicked open.
A trigger.
Something buried. Something forgotten.
I gasped, stumbling back.
"Nathan?" Riley was suddenly beside me, gripping my arms. "What's wrong?"
My mouth opened, but the words didn't come.
Because I wasn't in the bunker anymore.
---
A memory.
No—not a memory. A reality.
I was somewhere else.
The room was sterile, cold. The walls were white, too white, the kind of artificial brightness designed to strip away identity.
A chair. A metal table. Restraints.
I was strapped down. My arms locked at my sides. My breathing ragged.
Figures stood around me, blurred at the edges. Their faces indistinct, but their presence suffocating.
A voice. Low. Measured.
"Again."
I tried to resist, but the machine above me hummed to life. A needle-thin wire connected to my temple, a burning sensation searing into my skull.
Pain.
A searing, blinding pain.
Memories unraveled, twisted, rewritten—
"What is your name?"
My lips trembled. "Nathan Vale."
The voice remained calm. "Wrong."
My heart pounded. "No. That's my name—"
The machine pulsed again.
The pain intensified.
Memories collapsed.
Suddenly, I wasn't sure anymore.
Who was I?
The voice repeated. "What is your name?"
I gasped, struggling, but my own mind was a battlefield, torn apart and rebuilt in real time.
The voice waited.
Then whispered:
"You belong to us now."
---
The bunker snapped back into focus.
I collapsed to my knees, gasping for air. My hands trembled violently, my skin damp with sweat. The remnants of the memory clung to me like ice, freezing my insides.
"Nathan!" Riley crouched beside me, gripping my shoulders. "Talk to me! What the hell just happened?"
I couldn't answer.
Because I wasn't sure if I was still me.
Shaking, I met her gaze.
And then, hoarsely, I whispered the only thing I knew for certain.
"They did something to me, Riley."
Her breath hitched.
I swallowed hard, my pulse a ragged drum against my ribs. "Julian didn't just frame me. He made me."
Riley's fingers tightened around my arms. "What do you mean?"
My throat felt tight. The memory still echoed in my head like a curse.
"I think… I think I used to work for them."
The words tasted like poison.
Riley went still.
For a moment, she didn't speak. Didn't breathe.
Then, ever so slightly, she pulled away.
And it shattered something inside me.
Because in that moment, I saw it in her eyes.
Doubt.
Fear.
Not of Julian. Not of The Oath.
But of me.
The walls of the bunker felt smaller. The air thinner.
I squeezed my eyes shut, fighting back the spiral threatening to pull me under.
What if I wasn't just their enemy?
What if I was their creation?
The thought sent ice through my veins.
I exhaled shakily. "I don't know who I am anymore."
Riley stood slowly, her expression unreadable.
And then, with a quiet, breaking voice, she whispered:
"Neither do I."