The water was unkind.
It dragged them under cold, black, endless. Ava struggled, her lungs begging for breath. Her hand lost its grip, but Adrian's pulled hers back toward the soft sheen of moonlight above.
They broke the surface together, choking and gasping. SUV engines roared overhead as waves pounded against the pier posts. Headlights flashed over the water.
Swim!" Adrian shouted, his throat raw.
They fought through the waves, their bodies on fire. Bullets tore holes in the water around them, shooting strings of icy saltwater into their faces.
When they finally made it to the rocky beach, they flopped down on the wet sand, gasping for air. The metal box was still cradled against Ava's chest, its surface slippery but unbroken.
Adrian turned onto his back, eyes closed, chest heaving. "You okay?
Ava nodded feebly. "Alive… barely."
He turned his head her way, his expression grim. "We can't go home. They'll be waiting."
"I know." She trembled, her voice almost inaudible. "But we can't keep running blind. We have to know what's in here."
Adrian stopped and sat up. The rust had locked the box, but the fall had loosened it. He worked a piece of driftwood into position under the latch and turned until it creaked open.
The sound it made a metal click was too abrupt in the stillness.
Within, wrapped in waterproof material, was a thin folder, yellowed and delicate. Ava's fingers shook as she opened it. There were photographs, clipping from the newspaper, and a lone USB drive packaged in a plastic sleeve.
The first photograph chilled her blood.
It was a surveillance shot grainy, but distinguishable enough. Her mother. With the scarred man who had assaulted them in the penthouse.
And behind her, at a table, her father. Alive.
Ava's gasp stopped. "No… no, that can't be possible."
Adrian scowled at the photo, his face colorless. "That photo's recent. Look at the date in the corner. Two months ago."
She turned the next page a typed report marked CONFIDENTIAL: PROJECT HORIZON. At the foot of it, her father's name was scribbled again, signed at the end of a book of accounts with a few others, their mother among them.
"They lied to us," Ava panted. "Both of them."
Adrian clenched his jaw, his eyes blazing. "No. He wouldn't Dad would not do this."
Ava's head shook, tears scalding her eyes. "Then tell me about that picture. Tell me why anyone would tell me he was dead if he wasn't."
He gazed aside, unspeaking.
The USB drive's presence caught her notice. "We have to know what's on it."
They went inland, taking cover under an old boathouse. Adrian plugged the drive into his ancient laptop a battered hunk of hardware that had endured their father's paranoia and their own stupidity.
The screen flared to life.
A folder appeared: Final Transmission.
He double-clicked it. One video file began playing.
Their father's face filled the screen. Older, more gaunt but unambiguously alive.
"If you're reading this," his voice stated, deep and resolute, "then the truth has come to you sooner than I would have liked."
Ava's breath caught. Adrian's fingers froze on the keyboard.
I didn't die," their father continued. "Your mother and I made you believe that to save you. There are secrets in our family secrets in you two that can't be uncovered. I did this to bring them out, but they found out before I could. Your mother stayed back to stop them from killing me."
He paused, his jaw setting.
"If she has told you anything, understand this: she's not your enemy. She's their prisoner.".
Ava felt the world tilt. "What—what does that mean?" she whispered.
The video crackled, glitching for a second. When the feed cleared, his tone had shifted darker, urgent.
"They're coming for you. Trust no one not me, not her until you've found the key. It's hidden where it all began."
Static swallowed his last words.
Adrian replayed it twice, but the ending was the same.
Ava sat still, the ocean wind rushing through the creaks in the worn boathouse. "Where it all began…" she breathed. "The penthouse?"
Adrian's gaze met hers. "No." He shook his head emphatically. "He means before that."
"What are you talking about?"
His expression grew blacker. "The orphanage. The one we were staying at before Mom took us out."
Ava's heartbeat picked up. "You think"
"I don't think," Adrian interrupted, his voice hard. "I know. That's where it started. And whatever is there waiting for us it's not over."
He shut the laptop and looked out at the horizon, where daylight was starting to creep in.
Behind them, several miles away, the penthouse lights flashed once more.
The sun was rising over the harbour, a thin sliver of orange cutting through the mist. The twins hadn't spoken a word to one another in what felt like hours.
Ava sat beside the shattered window, knees hugged to her chest. There was a smell of rust and salt in the air.
"I don't know what to believe anymore," she breathed softly.
Adrian slumped in the doorway, looking out across the empty horizon. "Believe what you saw. Dad's alive."
She stood up to him, her voice trembling. "Alive, yes. But working for them? That's not the father we knew."
Adrian shook his head. "He was always ten steps ahead. Maybe he joined them. Maybe this was part of the plan."
"Then why lie to us?" she spat, standing up. "Why let us grieve him for years? Why let us grow up thinking it was all our fault?"
Her voice cracked. The echo was the sole sound in the space between them.
Adrian did not answer right away. His voice was quiet when he finally did. "Because possibly the truth is worse than the lie."
Ava turned aside, holding back tears. "You sound exactly like him."
Adrian's jaw was clenched, but he did not answer.
The USB device sat on the table beside the computer, the soft red light pulsing. Ava picked it up, turning it over in her hand. "He said something about a key," she breathed. "Where it all began."
Adrian nodded slowly. "The orphanage."
Ava's brow creased. "But why there? We barely remember that place."
He directed his gaze at her, his eyes shadowed. "Exactly. Maybe we're not supposed to."
Before she could talk, there was a metallic knock.
They froze.
There was a firmer knock, as the second one.
Adrian motioned for silence, picking up a rusty pipe from the corner of the boathouse. He walked towards the door. Ava's heart thumped inside her head.
"Who is there?" Adrian shouted.
There was silence.
He reached for the handle but before he could open it, a folded envelope slid under the door. The paper was damp and stamped with a faint seal ban emblem of two intertwined serpents.
Ava's voice was barely a whisper. "That's the same mark from Dad's letterhead."
Adrian picked up the envelope and tore it open. Inside was a single piece of paper. The handwriting was familiar.
They know you're alive.
They're coming for you before night.
Go to the orphanage. Trust no one not even her.
Below the signature were two letters: J.C.
Ava's stomach dropped. "It's him."
Adrian panted shakily. "Then he's outside observing us."
Ava glanced around the room. "Adrian, what if this is a trap? What if they're using his name to trap us outside?"
He crumpled the note, tucking it into his jacket. "Then we'll see. But we can't remain here."
As they stepped out into the morning fog, Ava cast one last glance back at the boathouse. The water sparkled in the rising sun's light but behind them, in the drifting fog, a dark shape waited.
A gray-clad man.
The same gray-clad man from the penthouse.
He held up a phone to his ear. "They bit," he commanded. "Clear the area."
Later That Day
The twins drove for an hour on the winding coast roads, the city falling away. The air was cooler, the trees fuller. At twilight, the orphanage appeared a ruined stone building swathed in ivy and shadow.
Ava stared out the window, her voice nearly too quiet to hear. "I dreamed of this place."
Adrian arched an eyebrow. "What kind of dreams?"
She hesitated. "The kind where I screamed waking up."
As they drove up near the gates, the remaining light of day faded behind the hills. The rain scent clung to the air, rich and earthy. The gate moaned open on its own, as though in anticipation.
Adrian took a step ahead. "Welcome home, Ava."
She shivered. "Don't say that.".
They stepped in. The hallways were lined with peeling photographs and chipped wallpaper. Children's artwork, worn, adorned the walls, their colors ghostly in the glow of the flashlight.
Ava's heart raced. "This house is… weird."
Adrian inched ahead, his beam settling on something carved into the wooden railing. Two letters, deeply gouged into the wood:
A + A.
Ava gasped. "We did that," she whispered. "When we were kids.".
Adrian stroked the carving with his fingers. "We were here longer than they told us."
Something creaked from somewhere behind them. They turned around but the corridor was empty.
"Let's take a look at what he left," Adrian whispered. "Before someone else does."
They walked deeper into the orphanage, not knowing that on the second floor, a single security camera light flickered to life red, pulsing gently like a heartbeat.
And miles away, in a dimly lit room filled with monitors, their mother watched the screen.
Her face was streaked with tears.
Her voice was barely a whisper.
"I'm so sorry… They were never supposed to go back there."