The child’s voice said Dana’s name and then stopped.
Not faded. Stopped. The way a recording stops when someone pulls the plug.
Dana was still holding the burnt match. She hadn’t dropped it yet. Her fingers were black at the tips.
Nobody moved.
Then Mira stood up. She crossed the room. She took the match from Dana’s hand, dropped it in the sink, and turned on the water. The hiss of the tap was the loudest thing in the shop.
"Say it," Mira said.
Dana looked at her.
"Say what?"
"Whatever you’re not saying."
Dana didn’t answer. She looked at the floorboards. At the empty blanket. At the space where Daniel had been sitting.
"He said six beds," Dana said. "Five empty. One occupied."
"Yes."
"He was in the bed. Younger."
"Yes."
"Ten years younger."
"Yes."
Dana looked up.
"I was in that bed," she said.
The room went quiet.
Mira turned off the tap.
"What?"
"Six years ago. When I went in after Sami." Dana sat down on the floor. Not gracefully. Just sat. "I don’t remember it. I told you that. I woke up on the sidewalk twelve feet back with this scar."
She pulled up her sleeve. The scar was there. Pale and uneven.
"But I remembered something while he was talking," she said. "A room. A bed. A bracelet on my wrist."
Nadia stepped forward. "What did the bracelet say?"
"My name."
"Just your name?"
"No." Dana looked at me. "It said ’Witness.’"
The mark on my palm pulsed. I felt it in my right hand. My left hand was resting on my knee. It didn’t register the pulse. It hadn’t registered anything since Dana’s shop three hours ago.
```
[RECORD UPDATED: WITNESS — REYES, DANA.]
[STATUS: PREVIOUS.]
```
Mira saw my face change. "What does it say?"
"It says Dana was a witness before me."
Nadia looked at Dana. "Before you?"
"Before him," Dana said. "Before Kael. I was the first witness. Six years ago."
"Then why are you still alive?" Nadia asked.
The question landed. Dana didn’t flinch.
"I don’t know."
"You don’t know, or you don’t want to say?"
"I don’t know."
Nadia opened her mouth. Mira cut her off.
"Enough."
Nadia turned. "We need to know—"
"We need to stop treating her like a source." Mira’s voice was flat. "She was in the bed. She doesn’t remember. She has the scar. That’s all she has."
Nadia looked at Mira. Then at Dana. Then at me.
"Fine," she said. "Then what do we do with what we have?"
I looked at my left arm. I flexed the fingers. They moved. I couldn’t feel them move. The mark had reached the elbow now. It was climbing. I could see it. I couldn’t feel it.
"We have seventy-two hours," I said. "Before it comes for Dana."
"Comes for her how?" Nadia asked.
"I don’t know."
"You don’t know much."
"No. But I know the last three people it targeted are gone."
Dana stood up. Slowly. She dusted off her pants. She walked to the workbench. She picked up the pipe and put it back in its place under the counter. Then she picked up the pistol and put it in her coat pocket.
"What are you doing?" Mira asked.
"Preparing."
"For what?"
"Whatever comes."
She said it the way someone says they’re going to work. Not dramatic. Not brave. Just factual.
I looked at her. "You don’t have to stay here."
"I know."
"You could leave. Go somewhere else. It might not find you."
"It found me six years ago when I wasn’t looking." She checked the pistol. "I’d rather be looking this time."
Nadia’s phone buzzed.
She looked at it. Her face changed.
"What?" I asked.
She turned the screen toward me.
MERCER_TRANSFER_04.
STATUS: COMPLETE.
SUBJECT: REYES, DANA.
LOCATION: PENDING.
"Pending?" I said.
"It hasn’t happened yet," Nadia said. "But it’s scheduled."
Dana looked at the screen. Then at me.
"How does it schedule a person?"
"I don’t know."
"You keep saying that."
"Because it keeps being true."
Mira walked to the window. She looked out at the street. The rain had stopped. The street was empty.
"There’s no one out there," she said.
"For now," I said.
She turned. "What about Daniel? If the building took him, where did it take him?"
"Below."
"Below where?"
I didn’t answer. I didn’t need to.
The floorboards under our feet creaked. Not from weight. From something else. Something moving.
Dana crouched. She put her palm flat on the floor. She held it there for a long time.
"It’s warm," she said.
Mira knelt beside her. Touched the floor.
"It’s cold," she said.
They looked at each other.
"It’s warm where I am," Dana said.
"It’s cold where I am."
I knelt. Put my right hand on the floor. Cold.
Then I put my left hand on the floor.
I couldn’t tell.
The skin was there. I could see my palm against the wood. I could see the mark, brighter than it had been an hour ago. But the floor had no temperature. No texture. No resistance. My left hand was touching wood, and my left hand was touching nothing.
"The mark," Mira said. "It’s changing what you feel."
"Or what’s real."
"That’s worse."
I pulled my left hand back. It hung at my side. I didn’t put it on my knee again. I didn’t know where to put it anymore. It was part of me and it wasn’t.
Nadia was still looking at her phone. "There’s something else."
"What?"
"The location. It changed."
She showed me. The screen read:
LOCATION: 3RD & MORROW.
"The building that isn’t there," I said.
"It’s there tonight."
Dana stood. She picked up a flashlight from the shelf. Clicked it on. Off. On.
"What are we waiting for?" she said.
Mira stared at her. "You can’t be serious."
"I’m the target. I decide."
"You don’t decide alone."
"I don’t need permission."
"You need backup."
"I have backup." Dana looked at me. Then at Nadia. Then at Mira. "I have three people. That’s more than I had six years ago."
Mira didn’t answer.
I stood up. My left arm hung. I picked up my phone with my right hand. Checked the screen. The mark on my palm was visible in the dark. It had reached my elbow. It was moving.
"We go now," I said.
Nadia nodded.
Mira closed her eyes. Then opened them.
"Fine."
She walked to the door. Stopped. Turned.
"But if something happens in there," she said, looking at me, "you don’t get to decide what I do. You don’t get to tell me to run. You don’t get to protect me from my own choices."
"I won’t."
"You will. You always do."
I looked at her. "Then don’t let me."
She held my gaze. Then nodded.
We left the shop.
The street outside was still empty. But it didn’t feel empty. It felt like a street where something had just left and would be back.
Nadia drove. Dana sat in the passenger seat. Mira sat in the back with me.
Nobody spoke for the first five minutes.
I tried to put my left hand on my lap. It slid off. Not because it moved. Because I didn’t feel it move. I looked down. My hand was against the door now. I didn’t know how it got there. I put it back on my knee. It stayed. For now.
Then Mira said, quietly:
"I saw Daniel’s face."
"What?"
"When he was talking. Before he vanished. I saw his face."
"And?"
"He wasn’t scared." She looked at me. "He was relieved."
"Relieved about what?"
"Leaving."
I looked out the window.
The city passed. Streetlights. Closed shops. Wet pavement.
Then Nadia said:
"We’re here."
I looked up.
Third and Morrow.
The building was there.
Not a wall. Not a gap. A building. Gray brick. Boarded windows. A black door.
It was open.
Dana got out first. She stood on the sidewalk. Looked at the door. Didn’t move.
"Six years," she said.
Mira stood beside her.
Nadia stood beside me.
I looked at the door. At the darkness inside.
Then I heard it.
Not a child’s voice. Not my father’s. Not Daniel’s.
My own voice. From inside the building.
Saying a name.
Elias.
Mira’s hand found my right hand. She didn’t reach for the left. She knew.
The mark on my palm burned.
Dana walked toward the door.
We followed.