The cold ripped through Rahma's lungs as she sprinted down the narrow service road behind the building. Dawn had barely cracked; the sky was the colour of unpolished steel, and her breath trailed behind her in pale bursts. She didn't slow until she reached the far end of the alley, ducking behind a row of overflowing bins.
Her heart was battering her ribs.
David. She hadn't heard him behind her. She didn't know if he'd escaped or if those men had taken him. She didn't even know who "they" were.
She pressed her back against the wet brick wall, forcing her breathing steady. Footsteps echoed faintly somewhere down the alley — too far to tell if they were looking for her. A door slammed. A car engine revved.
She risked a glance around the corner. Nothing. The alley was empty except for puddles reflecting the weak morning light.
Rahma wiped rain off her face and started walking, fast, head down.
Her mind ran sharper than her steps.
They had sent a field team.
Not police. Not ordinary corporate security. Someone with authority to cut power, isolate floors, and extract people without paperwork.
And someone with access to Port Authority surveillance — plus the capability to corrupt the feed in real time.
That meant this wasn't some rogue conspiracy. This was organised, well-funded, and already several moves ahead of her.
She crossed to the main road. Buses hissed past, splattering cold water over the pavement. Office workers clutched umbrellas and takeaway coffees. Nobody looked twice at her — a soaked journalist with trembling hands and a fast walk. London was generous like that: everybody had somewhere to be, and nobody had time to stare.
Her phone was still off. She didn't dare turn it on.
Instead, she ducked into a side street and found a tiny café barely open, windows fogged, the smell of baking bread drifting out. She went inside. A sleepy barista blinked at her.
"Tea?" he asked, already reaching for a cup.
"Hot water," she said. "No Wi-Fi."
He gave her a confused look, but nodded.
She took a table in the corner, her back against the wall, full view of the door. Her hands were still trembling, so she sat on them until they steadied.
A laminated menu sat on the table, already peeling at the edges. She flipped it over and began thinking in bullet points — the way she always did when panic was trying to claw its way through her.
Someone corrupted the CCTV at the exact moment Specter fell.
2. That same someone arrived at David's building minutes after she accessed the feed.
3. They recognised her name.
4. They knew about her father.
5. They wanted her alive — at least for now.
That detail chilled her. If they wanted her dead, they would've done it in the hallway. Clean. Quick. Instead, they wanted to take her. Why?
The barista set a mug of steaming water in front of her. She nodded her thanks.
She reached into her coat and took out the envelope again. The card.
Y.N. File.
DUSK.
Restricted.
It felt heavier than paper should.
Her father had worked for the Ministry of Energy. He'd died in a car accident — an impact so severe the reports said his vehicle had practically folded. Rahma had never believed it fully. Something about the way people avoided details afterwards… the way his colleagues muttered condolences without meeting her eyes…
The scrap of paper Specter left — look for the river cameras — was the first thing in twelve years that connected her father to anything suspicious.
She took a sip of hot water, letting the heat settle her nerves.
Then the door opened.
A man walked in — middle-aged, wearing a long overcoat, scarf undone. He shook rain from his hair and scanned the room casually.
Rahma's stomach flipped. She didn't recognise him. But people like the ones chasing her wouldn't send the same face twice. They'd adapt.
She lowered her gaze, pretending to read the menu. She listened instead.
Footsteps.
The scrape of a chair.
The barista's bored greeting.
Rahma didn't look up. She waited another minute, then checked her peripheral vision. The man was facing the door, not her.
Still, she didn't relax.
She needed a safe space. A neutral space. Somewhere nobody knew her face or name.
Only one place came to mind.
The Archive.
An underground records hub used by investigative journalists, historians, and, occasionally, whistleblowers. Rahma had used it twice — once for a political corruption story, once for an exposé on black-market data trade. It was secure, anonymous, and old-fashioned: paper logs, no digital trail, no ID checks.
If she wanted to search her father's past without being traced, that was the place.
She finished the drink, left a coin on the table, and stepped back into the street.
London traffic had thickened into the morning rush. The air smelled of diesel and wet pavement. Rahma kept her head down and joined the river of commuters.
The Archive was near Holborn, tucked beneath a stationery shop that pretended not to know what lay under it. She walked the route almost entirely by side streets, avoiding CCTV clusters where she could. It didn't matter — anyone with access to Port Authority feeds could find her if she wasn't careful. But she didn't have many options left.
When she reached the shop, she paused.
Nothing looked unusual. A delivery bike parked nearby. A woman smoking outside. The hum of city noise.
Rahma pushed the door open. Bells jingled overhead.
The shopkeeper — a thin older man with round spectacles — looked up from unpacking notebooks.
"Downstairs?" he asked softly.
She nodded.
He didn't ask her name. He didn't need to. He just jerked his head toward the back.
Rahma walked past shelves of pens and paper, through a beaded curtain, and down a narrow stone staircase that smelled of dust and old glue.
The Archive spread out beneath the city like a forgotten library — endless aisles of boxed files, microfilm reels, and physical records dating back decades. Dim yellow lights hung overhead, casting long shadows across the concrete floor.
A woman in a wool cardigan sat at the reception desk, knitting something purple. She didn't look up.
Rahma approached. "I need a booth," she said quietly.
The woman slid a key toward her without stopping her knitting. "Booth Three. Lock from inside. No phones."
"I know."
Rahma walked deeper into the maze until she reached a door marked 3. She slipped inside, locked it, and exhaled for the first time in hours.
The booth was a tiny room with a desk, a microfilm viewer, and a single hanging bulb. No cameras. No signals. No digital anything.
Safe — for now.
She spread out her notes, the envelope, the card, the scrap.
Then she wrote one question at the top of a fresh page:
What did my father know about DUSK — and who killed him?
Her hand tightened around the pen.
Whatever the answer was, London wasn't ready for it.
And neither was she.
Rain clawed at the windows of the newsroom as Rahma returned, hair damp, pulse still unsettled. The building felt different tonight—emptier, as if silence had been poured into the walls. The late shift usually hummed with keyboards and low conversations, but now only a single strip of fluorescent light flickered at the far end.
She walked in, scanning the desks.
Something was wrong.
The board was too clean.
The editorial whiteboard—usually cluttered with coloured sticky notes, deadlines, half-thought headlines—was wiped spotless. Every note from the investigative desk, including the ones she'd posted earlier about the warehouse lead, had vanished. She moved closer, noticing faint smudges where writing had recently been erased.
Her stomach tightened.
Someone had been here.
She hadn't told anyone about the clue she'd received tonight. No one except Khalid, who had left early. No editor would erase a board without checking with the investigative team. And nobody outside the staff had access to the newsroom floors.
Except security.
Except someone with a badge copied.
Except someone inside.
She pulled out her phone and recorded a quick three-second pan video of the wiped board. Documentation. Always document. She had learnt that the hard way two years ago when an entire story about financial corruption had mysteriously disappeared from the server. Everyone blamed a system glitch. Rahma didn't believe in convenient glitches.
She moved toward her desk, booting up her computer. A strange pop-up loaded first—an error she had never seen. It flashed:
ACCESS REVOKED.
Then the screen returned to the login page.
She froze.
She typed her password.
Rejected.
She tried her old password.
Rejected.
She clicked "Forgot password?"
A message appeared:
No account found. Contact administrator.
Her account… erased?
That wasn't a glitch. That was a deliberate wipe.
She stepped away from the desk just as the elevator chimed behind her. Her heart punched against her ribs. She turned sharply, expecting maybe a colleague—or worse.
But it was only the cleaning staff.
A woman pushing a trolley, headphones in, singing softly.
Rahma released a breath.
Still, the unease stayed.
She took the stairs down to the basement archive. If someone was interfering with her investigation, tampering with digital access, maybe they hadn't thought about the physical records. The old paper files and printed manifests. The things nobody bothered to check anymore.
The basement smelled of dust and forgotten deadlines. Metal shelves stretched in every direction, stacked with hard drives, boxes of photos, bundles of old newspaper issues tied with string. It was a graveyard of stories.
Rahma clicked on her small torch and moved down the first aisle.
She had archived her original warehouse clippings here—months ago, when she'd first noticed the pattern of anonymous shipments and silent drop-offs across East London. The folder had a label: H–W/Archive/Untitled Leads – R.K.
It should have been on the third row.
She reached the spot.
The folder was gone.
Her torch flickered over the space once, twice, as if disbelief could make it reappear. But the gap was clean, the dust disrupted only recently. Someone had taken it—and knew exactly which shelf, which row, which box belonged to her.
This was no coincidence.
Someone was tailing her leads.
Someone who worked inside The Standard.
A noise cracked behind her.
Rahma whipped around, torch raised like a weapon.
Nothing. Just shadows.
But shadows could hide anything.
She moved slowly toward the sound's origin—a row of metal lockers where freelancers stored their gear. Her footsteps were the only noise. The air felt too cold. The kind of cold that came before something bad.
She reached the lockers and checked each handle.
Most were locked.
One wasn't.
Locker 18.
She hesitated, then pulled it open.
Inside was a single black envelope. No markings. No dust. Placed neatly in the centre as if awaiting her.
She took it out, pulse racing.
The envelope was sealed with a thin strip of matte black tape—not tape from a stationery shop. Military-grade, tamper-proof. She'd seen similar stuff in conflict zones.
She peeled it open slowly.
Inside was a single photograph.
Rahma felt the blood drain from her face.
It was a photo of her—taken tonight.
Entering the alley behind the warehouse.
The time stamp: 22:41:03
The exact minute she had stood outside the metal door.
On the back, a message written in block letters:
STOP DIGGING.
YOU'RE ALREADY TOO LATE.
Her fingers trembled.
Someone had followed her.
Someone had known exactly where she would be, when she would be, how she would move. She wasn't just being monitored—she was being predicted.
And that meant whoever was behind this knew her patterns. Her behaviour. Maybe even her reports, drafts, searches. Someone inside the newsroom or someone who had infiltrated it.
She stuffed the photo back into the envelope and tucked it into her jacket. She needed to leave. Now.
As she turned, the basement lights flickered violently, then shut off.
Pitch black.
Rahma didn't breathe. She didn't move.
Only her torch gave any light.
Then a sound—soft. Deliberate.
A footstep.
Not hers.
Another.
Slow.
Coming closer down the aisle.
"Who's there?" she whispered, even though she knew no one would answer.
Another step.
Metal creaked.
Breathing—low, controlled—echoed in the dark.
She backed away slowly, torch shaking in her hand. Her beam landed on the edge of a tall shelving unit. She stepped behind it, crouching low, forcing her breath silent.
A shadow moved at the end of the row.
Rahma clenched her jaw.
She had two options:
Hide and hope whoever it was left.
Or move deeper into the archive and find another exit.
But her instincts told her the truth:
The person wasn't searching for something.
They were searching for her.
Rahma pressed her back against the cold metal shelving, trying to steady the tremor in her breathing. The air in the basement felt thick, like whatever lurked in the dark was swallowing all the oxygen.
Another footstep.
Closer.
Her torchlight trembled against the concrete floor. The beam caught the edge of a shadow—tall, deliberate, gliding more than walking. Whoever this was moved with certainty. They weren't exploring. They were following a path they already knew.
She swallowed hard.
Then silence.
Not the natural quiet of an empty basement.
A held breath.
A calculated pause.
Rahma knew that trick—pause to listen for movement. She'd done the same on dangerous assignments. Whoever was down here had training.
Her heart began to pound so loudly she feared it would give her away.
She counted silently in her head.
One… two… three…
A metallic scrape split the dark as the shadow moved again, and she forced herself to inch backwards, deeper into the archive. She flicked her torch off. Total blackness swallowed her, but at least she wasn't a beacon.
A breath escaped her.
Silent. Controlled.
She crouched lower and felt along the floor until her fingers brushed a small object—a pen someone must have dropped between shelves. Without breaking her silence, Rahma placed it in her palm and slid it across the floor several feet away.
The tiny sound echoed faintly.
The footsteps moved in that direction.
Good.
She had a small window.
Rahma rose, still hunched, and moved toward the back of the basement. She knew there was an old fire exit that led into the east wing loading corridor. Most staff didn't even know it existed because the door was masked behind a column and half-hidden by old photo archives.
She counted shelves in the dark.
One… two… three…
Another footstep—this one faster.
They had realised the pen was a decoy.
She quickened her pace, still crouched, feeling the shelving edge scrape lightly against her arm. Her fingers brushed a column. Good. She slid behind it, breath tight, and reached the old exit door.
Her hand found the handle.
Please let it still open.
She pressed.
It didn't move.
Locked from the outside.
A cold wave of dread washed through her.
A shadow shifted to her left.
A whisper of movement.
Almost behind her now.
She bit her lip hard to stay silent.
If she turned her torch back on, she'd light herself up like a target.
If she stayed still, she'd be trapped between a locked door and whoever was hunting her.
Her fingers slid down the door frame until they found a rusted hinge. The metal was soft—old enough that pressure might break it.
She pressed her shoulder against the frame, braced her feet, and pushed.
The hinge groaned.
The footsteps quickened.
She pushed harder.
Metal split with a sharp crack.
She froze.
Silence.
Then the footsteps broke into a run.
Rahma kicked the lower hinge.
It snapped, the weakened metal tearing loose as she shoved the door inward. The gap was small, but enough for her to slip through.
She plunged into the adjacent corridor, the darkness here thinner—lit faintly by distant red emergency bulbs. She slammed the broken door back into place without letting it latch.
Her lungs burned.
She ran.
Up the corridor, past stacks of old newspapers tied in bundles, past forgotten filing cabinets. The hum of the building's electrical systems grew louder as she neared the lift lobby.
The door behind her burst open.
Footsteps—fast, heavy—followed.
She sprinted, her feet slapping against the concrete. A turn at the end of the corridor led to a stairwell. She lunged toward it, grabbed the railing, and hurled herself down the first flight.
The footsteps echoed behind her.
Whoever it was kept pace.
She cut down two more flights, then pushed into the deserted reception area on the service level. The glass doors leading outside glowed faintly with London's wet streetlight haze.
She bolted toward them.
The security guard at the night desk looked up, startled.
"Everything alright, Miss Rah—?"
"Open the doors," she gasped. "Now!"
He blinked, confused.
Behind her, the stairwell door slammed.
Rahma didn't wait. She vaulted over the security desk, hit the door release button herself, and shoved the doors open. The guard shouted after her, but she was already out, plunging into the cold rain.
Her shoes splashed through puddles as she tore across the pavement, not stopping until she reached the opposite side of the street. She ducked behind a row of parked cars and looked back.
The building's service entrance stayed closed.
Whoever had chased her hadn't followed outside.
Not yet.
Her hands shook as she pulled out the black envelope again. The photo inside felt heavier now, like a warning she had failed to take seriously.
Someone had been at the warehouse before her.
Someone had erased her board.
Someone had gotten into the archive.
Someone had hunted her through her own newsroom.
And that someone knew her movements better than she'd ever realised.
She wiped rain from her face and forced herself to breathe.
She needed help.
Not from the police—not yet.
They'd ask why she was in an illegal site tonight. Why she'd received anonymous information. Why someone was following her.
No.
She needed someone who understood surveillance.
Patterns.
Invisible threats.
Someone who could see what she couldn't.
Her first thought was Khalid.
He was the only colleague she trusted, but something about tonight made her hesitate. She had told him about the warehouse conversation. And someone had been there, watching her. Inner-circle moves. Inside-access moves.
No. She needed someone outside the newsroom.
Someone who didn't know her routines.
Her breath came out shaky.
There was only one person who fit that category—
someone she hadn't spoken to in three years.
Someone she hoped she'd never have to contact again.
But tonight's chase left her no choice.
Rahma steadied herself, opened her phone, and dialled a number she'd memorised long before she'd sworn to forget it.
The line rang once.
Twice.
A click.
A cold, familiar voice answered.
"Rahma. If you're calling me, you're in trouble."
She swallowed.
"I'm being hunted," she whispered. "And I need to know why."
Understood — continuing immediately.
The voice on the line was one Rahma had sworn she would never hear again.
Precise. Controlled.
Too calm for the gravity of her situation.
"Where are you?" the voice asked.
Rahma pressed herself deeper into the shadow of the parked van, rain dripping from her hair onto her coat collar.
"Somewhere I shouldn't be," she whispered. "And someone inside The Standard knows it."
A quiet exhale sounded on the other end. Not surprise—calculation.
"Give me your coordinates."
"No," Rahma snapped, harsher than she intended. "Not over the phone. Not until I know this line is clean."
A pause.
Then: "It isn't."
Her stomach dropped.
She turned instinctively, scanning the wet street, the empty bus stop, the darkened windows above the shuttered bakery across the road. The rain blurred shapes, softened edges, made it impossible to tell if someone was watching.
"You shouldn't be outside," the voice said. "Move."
"Move where?"
"Anywhere with people. Noise. CCTVs. Somewhere unpredictable."
The last word hit her like a slap.
Predictable.
That was exactly how they had tracked her.
She steadied her breath.
"Fine. But I need answers first."
"You're not safe to talk."
"You think I don't know that?" Her whisper cracked. "Someone chased me through my own newsroom. They erased my files. My account. They were waiting in the basement. Whoever they are—they're inside the building."
Another pause. Longer.
She could almost hear the mind on the other end threading possibilities together.
Finally: "Tell me exactly what you found tonight."
Rahma glanced down the foggy street again. Empty. Silent.
"I found the warehouse. I spoke to the man who left the message. He was terrified. He gave me a name but didn't say it. He tried to give me a document but panicked and ran. And when I went back inside later…"
She hesitated, the image replaying in her mind:
— the hanging lamplight
— the static hiss
— the abandoned notepad
— the faint scrape of shoes
"…he was gone. Completely gone. Like someone disappeared him."
"You were followed from the moment you arrived," the voice said. "They were waiting to see if you'd take the bait."
"I didn't take anything."
"Yes, you did."
A soft, chilling note entered their tone.
"You stayed alive."
Rahma's throat tightened.
The engine of a passing car roared through the wet street, tires slicing water, the headlights washing over her hiding place for a split second. She flinched, ducking down.
"Listen," the voice continued, "you need to disappear from that location. Now."
She exhaled shakily. "If I walk out, they'll see me."
"You assume they're still outside," the voice said. "You assume they ever needed to be outside."
Another cold wave rushed through her.
She pulled the black envelope from her coat, the photograph inside still warm from her body heat.
"Someone took a picture of me tonight," she whispered. "Timestamped. Exact angle. They were there."
"Not necessarily," the voice said. "Not physically."
Rahma felt her pulse trip.
"What do you mean?"
"Have you checked your phone permissions recently?"
She froze.
"I—I don't—"
"You haven't," the voice said plainly. "Your phone has likely been compromised for weeks. Maybe months."
She squeezed her eyes shut as the truth hit her like a brutal strike.
Of course.
Of course.
She had received an anonymous message.
She had gone to a location at a precise time.
Her movements had been predicted.
Her files erased in minutes.
Her investigation infiltrated from inside.
Her phone wasn't just a device—
It was a leash.
A window.
A tracking beacon.
"Rahma," the voice said, quieter, closer, as if leaning through the dark, "tell me where you are."
She looked across the road again.
Still empty. Still rain-slick.
"Outside the east service entrance," she murmured. "Behind the old van. Across from the bakery."
"Don't move. I'm coming to you."
Her chest tightened. "No. That's not—"
"Stay put."
The call ended.
Rahma lowered the phone slowly.
Her fingers trembled.
She should run.
She shouldn't trust this person—not after what happened three years ago. Not after the fall-out, the blown investigation, the broken trust and betrayal she still couldn't fully unpack.
But tonight? Tonight felt different.
The rain thickened into a sheet.
A bus roared by, splashing water up her boots.
A flickering streetlamp buzzed overhead.
Minutes stretched like punishment.
She kept scanning each passing shadow.
Each reflection in a car window.
Each silhouette of umbrellas and hooded figures across the road.
Then—
A reflection moved that shouldn't have.
Small. Subtle. A glint in the glass of the bakery door opposite her hiding spot. Something metallic. Low to the ground.
She narrowed her eyes.
Not a person.
Not a car.
A small device.
Round.
Black.
Blinking a faint red light.
A camera.
One she had never seen before.
Her throat dried.
Her hand moved automatically to her pocket.
Her phone vibrated once—violently.
A message flashed:
DO NOT TURN AROUND.
Her heart stopped.
LOOK AT THE BAKERY DOOR GLASS. LOWER LEFT CORNER.
Her eyes dipped.
The device blinked twice.
Then stopped.
Her phone vibrated again:
YOU HAVE TEN SECONDS. MOVE NOW.
Rahma's breath ripped from her lungs—
And she ran.
Rahma's mind spiralled.
Khalid.
The thought of him made something twist painfully in her chest. He wasn't just a colleague — he was the closest thing she had to a partner in the newsroom. He had covered for her deadlines, swapped late shifts, even protected her sources once.
But now?
Yusuf watched her carefully, as though reading every flicker of doubt on her face.
"You're thinking about him," he said quietly.
Rahma stiffened. "I'm thinking about everyone. If my files were wiped from inside the building, that means someone with clearance — someone trusted — is involved."
"Which is why," Yusuf said, "you need to stop trusting anyone you work with."
The words landed like a blow.
Rahma paced the small concrete garage, hands buried in her damp hair. Rain dripped down her coat and pooled on the floor. Every instinct screamed at her to go back, confront the newsroom, tear it apart until she found the truth.
But she also knew what the truth could do to people.
What it had done to her before.
She stopped pacing.
Stopped shaking.
Stopped pretending she still understood the rules.
"Tell me what you know," she said.
"No riddles. No fragments. No games, Yusuf."
He didn't look away.
For once, there was no smirk, no guarded detachment — only a man weighing how much truth she could handle.
Finally:
"You were never meant to get that message."
Rahma blinked. "The man at the warehouse sent it—"
"No. He didn't."
Yusuf's tone was uncomfortably calm.
"That message wasn't from him."
Her heartbeat stumbled.
"But I heard him," she whispered. "He said—"
"He said what someone forced him to say," Yusuf interrupted. "That warehouse wasn't a meeting point. It was a recording stage. He was reading from a scripted prompt."
Her breath stopped.
"A script?"
Yusuf nodded once.
"The entire thing was staged to look urgent. Desperate. Genuine. And someone — someone with access to his life — pushed him into doing it."
"Why me?" Rahma demanded. "Why stage a message for me?"
"Because," Yusuf said, "they needed you to go there."
Rahma stepped back, the floor beneath her feeling suddenly unsteady.
Needed her there?
For what?
"What's in that warehouse?" she asked.
"What used to be in it," Yusuf corrected. "Until it was cleared weeks ago."
Her chest tightened.
The empty room.
The static-laced lamp.
The man's panic.
"Cleared for what?"
"That's the part I'm still piecing together," Yusuf said. "But I do know one thing — tonight wasn't about killing you. It was about watching you."
A shiver ripped down her spine.
"Watching me do what?"
"React," Yusuf said.
"Move."
"Run."
"Show your instincts."
Rahma stared at him.
"You think this was… a test?"
"I think," Yusuf said softly, "someone is mapping your behaviour with frightening precision."
Her throat tightened.
"You said someone intervened months ago… someone kept me alive. Why would they do that?"
Yusuf walked over to a metal cabinet, pulled it open, and removed a small, sealed pouch. Inside was a burner phone — basic, old, untraceable.
He held it out to her.
"Because you're part of something you don't realise you're in."
Rahma shook her head hard.
"No. I'm not. I write stories. I follow leads. I don't—"
Yusuf stepped closer.
"You exposed two trafficking networks before the police did.
You uncovered three illegal data operations in eighteen months.
You embarrassed a Member of Parliament on live television."
His voice hardened.
"People like you do not go unnoticed."
Rahma felt a jolt of cold fear — the kind that didn't stop at the skin.
"You think someone picked me," she whispered. "Specifically."
"I don't think, Rahma. I know."
She tried to speak, but her voice broke before the words came.
"What do they want from me?"
Yusuf hesitated, and she saw something rare flicker through his eyes — uncertainty.
"I don't know yet," he admitted.
"But whatever you think this is… it's bigger."
Rahma swallowed back the rising panic.
"Then who chased me tonight?"
"Professional," Yusuf said. "Fast. Trained. Probably former private security — not police, not military."
"And the SUV?"
"A separate team," he said. "They weren't chasing you. They were watching the watcher."
Rahma froze.
"Two teams?" she whispered. "Following me at the same time?"
He nodded.
"That's what makes this dangerous. Whoever staged the message… they're not aligned with whoever erased your files. You're caught between entities that don't trust each other and don't care if you get crushed in the middle."
The air left her lungs.
She leaned against a crate, suddenly dizzy.
"I need to call someone," she whispered. "My sister. She'll be worried."
"No." The word cracked like a whip.
"Rahma — listen to me — you call no one."
She looked up sharply.
"My sister has nothing to do with this."
"Exactly," Yusuf said. "And the quickest way to drag her into it is to let them see you panic."
Rahma pressed her palms to her eyes.
The garage felt too tight, too cold, too full of truths she wasn't ready for.
"Then what do I do?" she whispered. "Where do I go?"
Yusuf turned toward the shutter.
"We leave. Now. Before the SUV circles back."
"Where?" she pressed.
He didn't answer right away.
Finally, he looked at her with a seriousness that sent another chill through her.
"To the one place you were never supposed to return," he said.
"The place where this started three years ago."
Rahma's breath hitched.
She knew exactly which place he meant.
And she would rather face the tail on her heels than go back there.
But she didn't argue.
Because deep down, she knew the truth:
Everything she feared had been waiting for her there all along
"Possibly," Yusuf said. "But he's not the only one who knows your patterns. Think about it, Rahma. Tonight's events weren't improvised. They were orchestrated."
His words hung in the cold air like breath in winter.
Rahma pressed her palms to her temples.
"It doesn't make sense. Why drag me into a warehouse? Why send a man with a message if they were just going to erase all of this from my life?"
"Because the message wasn't for you," Yusuf said quietly. "It was for them."
"Who is them?" she snapped.
He studied her carefully.
"Whoever's been watching you long before tonight. Whoever knew you'd follow a lead. Whoever wanted to test your reactions, your instincts, your limits."
She stepped back.
"And you know all this— why? How?"
A shadow crossed Yusuf's face.
"Because you're not the first reporter they've done this to."
Rahma froze.
He continued:
"There were two others. Both digging into corruption, both getting too close to the wrong threads. Both received anonymous tips. Both ended up in carefully orchestrated 'incidents.' Both vanished from the public eye."
Her pulse kicked hard.
"Vanished as in… dead?"
"No."
Yusuf's voice lowered.
"Worse. They disappeared voluntarily."
"That doesn't make any sense."
"It does if you've been manipulated," he said. "Cornered. Gaslit. Made to believe you're losing your grip on reality. These people don't kill journalists; they dismantle them from the inside."
A chill climbed Rahma's spine.
She sat down without realising she'd moved.
Yusuf leaned against the metal table.
"Whoever chased you tonight had military precision. Whoever deleted your files had system-level access. Whoever set up that camera outside the warehouse had been watching for days."
Her mouth was dry when she finally spoke.
"What do they want with me?"
"That's what I've been trying to figure out," Yusuf said. "And I think I finally have a theory."
She looked up, bracing.
"They don't want to intimidate you," he said. "They don't want to scare you into backing off. They want to activate you."
Rahma stared.
"Activate me for what?"
"For something connected to your past."
"My past?" She almost laughed. "What past? I have none."
He held her gaze.
"You grew up on an estate in East London, didn't you?"
Rahma went still.
Every muscle in her body locked.
"Don't," she said sharply.
"We're not talking about that place."
"We have to," Yusuf insisted. "You think everything starts with your reporting career, but they started tracking you years before that. That estate—"
"That estate is irrelevant," she snapped.
"No," Yusuf said, stepping closer. "It's the key."
Her throat tightened.
Memories she never invited surged up like cold water:
Cracked stairways, broken lifts, nights filled with police sirens, whispers about the old block that was condemned and fenced off, the one she swore she would never return to.
"You're wrong," she whispered.
"They wouldn't know anything about my childhood. I barely remember it myself."
"That's what they're counting on," he said.
"But they know. They've always known."
Rahma shook her head.
"No. No. They couldn't have been watching me back then."
"Rahma," Yusuf said gently, "the man in the warehouse — he said something before he was grabbed. You told me."
She swallowed.
Her voice was small when she repeated it:
"He said: 'Your past is clawing its way back.'"
"And that wasn't metaphorical," Yusuf said.
"He meant it literally."
The room felt too cold.
As if the walls were closing.
Yusuf continued.
"In the files I salvaged from your encrypted backups, I found something you hadn't opened in years. Something you saved when you were sixteen."
Rahma's breath shortened.
"What… what files?"
Yusuf walked to his bag, pulled out a small hard drive, and placed it on the table.
"I didn't read the content," he said. "But I saw the titles. Security logs. Audio transcripts. A police witness statement with your name. And…"
He hesitated.
"And what?"
Rahma's voice trembled.
"And an unsigned letter," Yusuf said softly.
"Addressed to you. Sent from the building on your old estate that burned down."
Rahma's heart stopped.
She couldn't breathe.
She couldn't think.
"No." She shook her head violently. "Those can't be mine. Someone planted them."
"That's what I thought," Yusuf said. "But the metadata matches your old phone. The one you lost when you were a teenager."
Her world spun.
"How could anyone have those files?" she whispered. "How? That phone was destroyed. The police took it—"
Yusuf's eyes flickered.
"The police never logged it."
"What?"
"They never entered it into evidence. It disappeared. Just like the building. Just like the case."
Rahma stared at him, numb.
"What case?" she whispered.
"Yusuf… what case?"
He took a slow breath.
"The missing child from Block E."
Rahma's blood turned to ice.
"No," she said.
"No, no — that was a rumour. An urban legend. There was no missing child."
"Not a rumour," Yusuf said.
"A real case. A real child. And you were the last person to see her alive."
Rahma stumbled back as if struck.
"That's impossible," she gasped. "I would remember—"
"You were twelve," Yusuf said softly. "Trauma doesn't disappear. It buries itself."
Rahma trembled violently.
"And now," he added, "someone wants to dig it up."
The rain hammered harder outside, like fists on a door.
Rahma whispered the question forming in the dark corner of her mind:
"Why now?"
Yusuf met her eyes.
"Because the child who went missing…"
His voice lowered to a whisper.
"…wasn't officially declared dead."
Rahma felt something cold slide down her spine.
"And someone," he said, "just reopened the case. Three days ago."
Rahma's mind felt like it was splitting open.
The abandoned estate.
The case that never existed.
A missing child she couldn't remember.
Files from a phone she hadn't seen since she was twelve.
None of it made sense.
And yet every piece fit too cleanly to ignore.
She clutched the edge of the metal table.
"What do you mean the case was reopened? By who?"
"I don't know," Yusuf said. "The system entry was scrubbed the moment I found it. All that remained was the timestamp."
"Three days ago," Rahma repeated numbly.
"That's before any of this started. Before the warehouse. Before the man."
"Exactly," Yusuf said. "This wasn't triggered by your investigation tonight. You were already marked."
Rahma sank onto the crate again, heart slamming.
"If someone reopened the case… then someone connected to the estate must still be alive. Someone who remembers what happened."
"Or," Yusuf said quietly, "someone who was there wants the truth buried again."
She looked up sharply. "Yusuf— who else knew me back then?"
He hesitated.
Rahma felt dread coil in her stomach.
"What?"
"You say you barely remember your childhood," he said carefully, "but there were people in your life during that time. Social workers. Teachers. Neighbours. Police officers who patrolled the building. Anyone could be involved."
"No." Rahma shook her head. "This isn't about them. Whoever chased me tonight wasn't some leftover from my childhood."
"Maybe not," Yusuf replied. "But whoever erased your files knew where to look. Whoever sent that man with a message knew exactly what would destabilise you."
Rahma wrapped her arms around herself.
Her pulse wouldn't slow.
Her breath wouldn't settle.
"Yusuf… what if I was wrong?" she whispered.
"Wrong about what?"
"Everything."
Her voice cracked.
"My entire career. My instincts. What if this isn't the first time I've been manipulated? What if someone's been shaping my investigations from the beginning?"
Yusuf crouched down in front of her.
"Listen to me," he said firmly. "You're here because you're good. Too good for the people who want to control the narrative. They targeted you for the same reason they targeted the others: you see what everyone else overlooks."
She didn't answer.
He continued:
"But that also means they know your vulnerabilities. They know what you fear. They know your past is a blind spot."
Her jaw tightened.
"I don't have a past," she said.
"Just a postcode I escaped."
Yusuf exhaled slowly.
"Then you're going to have to go back."
Rahma shot to her feet.
"No."
"Rahma—"
"No," she said again, louder this time. "I'm not going back there. Ever."
"It's the only way to find out what they want from you."
"It's the only place I swore I would never return to."
"And yet," he said softly, "your name is already tied to that building again. Whether you face it or not."
Rahma braced a hand against the wall.
Her childhood estate wasn't simply a bad memory—
It was a void.
A hole in her history that she had deliberately, painstakingly sealed.
But now that void was stirring.
Now someone was dragging it back into the light.
"Yusuf," she whispered, "what if I did see something? What if I was involved and I don't remember?"
"Then it's time you found out," he said gently.
"But not alone."
She looked at him.
His expression was steady, resolute.
She hated how much she needed that steadiness right now.
She forced a breath.
"What's the plan?"
Yusuf stood and moved toward the back of the room.
"There's something you need to see."
He reached a shelf and pulled down a thin envelope— brown, worn, the edges warped as if it had been exposed to moisture.
It wasn't labelled.
"When I found your old files," Yusuf said, "this was stored separately. Hidden. Encrypted under a different alias."
Rahma stared at it like it was a trap.
"What's inside?"
"Paper," Yusuf said simply. "Just paper. No electronics. No tracking."
"Who put it there?"
"I don't know," he admitted. "But whoever did wanted you to find it now, not then."
Her throat tightened.
"What do you mean now?"
He handed it to her.
"It was time-locked."
Rahma froze.
"What?"
"Programmed to decrypt only after a specific date. Three days ago."
The same day the missing child case was reopened.
Her hands trembled as she took the envelope.
It felt far too heavy for something so thin.
"Open it," Yusuf said quietly.
Rahma slid her thumb beneath the flap and peeled it back.
Inside was a single sheet of paper.
Folded twice.
Handwritten.
Her breath caught.
She unfolded it slowly.
The handwriting was messy, rushed.
But unmistakably familiar.
She didn't recognise the words—
But she recognised the shape of them.
Because the handwriting was hers.
Her knees nearly gave out.
Yusuf caught her elbow.
"What does it say?"
Rahma swallowed and read aloud, voice cracking:
"If you're reading this, they found her. Don't let them take you too."
Silence filled the room.
Yusuf's expression shifted from confusion…
to horror.
"Rahma," he whispered.
"You wrote this."
She shook her head violently.
"No. I would remember. I— I couldn't have—"
But her twelve-year-old handwriting stared back at her.
And beneath the line she'd read, there was one more sentence.
A sentence that made her blood turn to ice.
"Check the burnt building. Basement. I left the rest there."
Rahma's voice collapsed into a whisper:
"I didn't write this. I didn't. I would remember."
Yusuf didn't move.
"You asked earlier why now," he said softly. "Why someone reopened the case."
Rahma's vision blurred.
"Because they found her?" she whispered.
"The missing girl?"
Yusuf hesitated… then nodded once.
"And they think you know something," he said.
Rahma gripped the letter so tightly it crumpled in her hands.
"I don't," she whispered.
"But someone wants me to believe I do."
Yusuf shook his head.
"No," he said.
"Someone wants you to remember."
Rahma stared at the letter until the words blurred.
Her handwriting.
Her warning.
Her panic sealed into an envelope more than a decade ago.
But she had no memory of ever writing it.
A buzzing sound filled her ears — faint at first, then louder, sharper, like electricity rising through the room.
She forced herself to speak.
"What if this is fake?" she whispered. "A setup? A way to push me toward that estate?"
"Then why use your handwriting?" Yusuf countered. "Why bury it inside files only you would recognise? Why time-lock it to this exact week?"
She opened her mouth — but nothing came out.
Because deep, deep in the part of her mind she hated, a thought had begun to crawl:
What if the girl wasn't the only one who disappeared?
What if a piece of me vanished too?
Yusuf watched her closely.
"You said you lost that phone when you were twelve," he said. "But the police never logged it. That means someone took it before it could enter evidence."
Rahma swallowed hard.
Her voice trembled when she asked:
"Why would they take a child's phone?"
"To hide whatever was on it."
She felt her blood run cold.
"And now," Yusuf continued, "whoever took it wants you to retrieve the rest."
"The rest of what?"
"I don't know," he admitted. "But something in that burnt building connects the missing girl, your past, and whoever is orchestrating this."
Rahma paced, tension crackling through her limbs.
"No," she said. "This isn't real. It's manipulation. This letter could have been forged."
"By who?" Yusuf asked quietly. "Who could imitate your handwriting from when you were twelve? Who had access to your old files, your lost phone, your encrypted backups?"
Rahma stopped.
She didn't have an answer.
Because there was no answer — not one that made sense.
A faint ringing echoed in her head — sharp, metallic.
She pressed a hand to her temple.
Yusuf straightened. "Rahma? You alright?"
"I'm fine," she said too quickly. "Just… overwhelmed."
"Does this trigger anything?" he asked. "The letter. The handwriting."
"No."
She squeezed her eyes shut.
"No, nothing."
But that wasn't entirely true.
She couldn't explain it — not even to herself — but the moment she touched the paper, she felt something stir.
Not a memory.
A sensation.
Like the echo of a place she'd been before.
A smell — smoke?
A sound — crying?
Or maybe it was her imagination, running wild from fear.
She didn't know.
She didn't want to know.
The rain hammered harder on the metal roof.
The wind rattled the shutter like someone knocking.
Rahma snapped her eyes open.
"We should go to the police," she said suddenly. "We can show them the letter. The files. Everything."
"No," Yusuf said immediately.
"Why not?"
"Because the type of people who orchestrate surveillance, erasure, and staged disappearances don't operate alone. They operate inside systems."
"You think the police are compromised?"
"I think someone inside the system is involved," he said. "And if we go to the wrong person—"
He didn't need to finish.
Rahma understood.
She walked to the window and peeked out through the edge of the shutter.
A dark street.
A single flickering streetlamp.
Rain streaming down onto slick pavement.
No movement.
No one.
But that didn't make her feel safer.
"Then what do we do?" she whispered.
Yusuf joined her at the window.
"We go to the source," he said.
Her stomach dropped.
"No."
"We have no choice."
"I'm not stepping in that building again," she snapped. "I'm not going back there."
"You don't have to go inside yet," he said. "But we need to get close enough to see what's changed. If someone reopened that case, they've been at the site."
Rahma's chest tightened.
"No," she said again. "You don't understand. That place—"
"I do understand," Yusuf said softly. "More than you think."
She turned sharply.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
He hesitated.
"Rahma," he said quietly, "I wasn't completely honest when I said I didn't know who reopened the case."
Her breath caught.
"Who?" she whispered.
Yusuf exhaled.
"The same person who reopened it once before."
Rahma felt the ground tilt beneath her.
"No."
She stepped back.
"No, that's not possible."
"It is," he said. "And you know it."
"Yusuf— who reopened the case?"
He met her eyes.
"You did."
Rahma's lungs emptied.
"No," she whispered.
"That's a lie. I would remember."
"You filed it anonymously," Yusuf said. "From a burner SIM. I traced the metadata. The report didn't include your name — but it included a location ping."
"What location?" she demanded.
Yusuf held her gaze.
"The burnt building."
Her vision blurred.
Her pulse hammered against her ribs.
"No," she said again, barely a whisper. "I wasn't there. I couldn't have been."
"You were," Yusuf said softly. "Two weeks ago. For exactly nineteen minutes."
Rahma staggered back like he'd hit her.
"I— I was home two weeks ago. Working on the trafficking story. I didn't leave the flat."
"You did," he said. "You just don't remember it."
Her knees weakened.
"You think I'm losing my mind?"
"No," he said quickly. "I think someone is making you doubt it. Someone is controlling the information around you. Someone wants you to feel unstable."
She dropped into the nearest chair, trembling.
"Yusuf…"
Her voice broke.
"I went back there. And I don't remember it. How is that even possible?"
He stepped closer.
"There's only one explanation," he said gently.
She lifted her eyes.
"What?" she whispered.
Yusuf took a breath.
"Because whatever happened to you in that building… didn't stay in your childhood."
He paused.
"It's happening again."
A sharp knock echoed through the warehouse.
Once.
Then again.
Faster.
Rahma froze.
Yusuf's eyes shot to the door.
He mouthed one word:
Hide.