The morning air was sharp, laced with smoke and dew. August stepped out of the supply tent, hoodie zipped to her chin, eyes scanning the camp like she'd never left.
Some of the ghosts nodded at her. Others looked away.
She didn't care.
She walked the perimeter slowly, noting what had changed. Fewer guards. New faces. A different rhythm to the patrols. Rafel was rebuilding-but not well. He was desperate. That made him sloppy.
She found the old comms shack still locked, but the window latch was loose. She made a note of it.
—
At breakfast, she sat across from a boy named Kilo - barely older than her, with a scar across his eyebrow and a nervous twitch in his jaw.
"You really came back," he said, chewing on dry toast.
"Just for a visit."
He snorted. "No one visits this place."
August sipped her tea. "Then I guess I'm no one."
Kilo studied her. "Rafel's different now. Meaner."
"He was always mean."
"Yeah," Kilo said. "But now he's scared."
August tilted her head. "Of what?"
Kilo didn't answer.
That did not need a reply she already knew.
_____
By midday, she slipped into the old storage unit behind the mess hall. It was mostly empty now - just crates of canned food, a few rusted tools, and a locked cabinet she didn't remember.
She picked the lock in under a minute.
Inside: files. Paperwork. Flash drives. A burner laptop.
She opened it. No password.
The desktop was cluttered—maps, transaction logs, encrypted messages. One folder caught her eye: "SILVERLINE."
She clicked.
Inside: photos. Surveillance shots. One of Mark, stepping out of a black SUV. Another of Evelyne, walking through a courthouse gate. A third-August, in her school uniform, holding a juice box.
Her stomach dropped.
She copied everything to her own phone she was going to move this to her drives later on, heart pounding.
Then she heard footsteps.
She shut the laptop, slid the phone into her sock, and slipped out the back door just as two men entered, laughing about something she didn't catch.
She didn't stop moving until she was back at the edge of the camp.
And her search for cianly.. Well she had bigger problems not that Cia was not important but.. You know she can wait.
_____
That night, she returned home just after dark.
Evelyne was waiting on the porch, arms crossed, eyes tired.
"I called Lilay's mom," she said.
August froze.
Evelyne stepped forward. "She said Lilay was home all day."
August didn't lie.
She just looked down.
Evelyne sighed. "We'll talk tomorrow."
August nodded and slipped inside.
—
In her room, she locked the door and opened her phone and began copying everything to her drives.
She scrolled through the files again, slower this time.
One folder was labeled "PHOENIX."
Inside: a list of names.
Her name was at the top.
Next to it: "Asset. High-value. Unstable. Watch closely."
She stared at the screen.
Then her phone buzzed.
> RAFEL: "You shouldn't have opened that."
She didn't reply.
She just closed the laptop, turned off the light, and lay in the dark, heart steady.
She wasn't scared.
She was ready.
, anyway it was very stupid of her to think that Rafel would store important files inside and unlocked cabinet. not that she was really looking for anything in it but curiosity got the best of her and she decided to open it, although she was not scared.
now she has to look for a way to deal with the situation.
And a better excuse to give Evelyne the following morning,obviously she was going to use Cianly as bait and then she's going to ask Mark to use his resources to look for her.
Good thing she came home looking like a mess.