The storm had passed overnight, but the world outside still looked bruised—heavy clouds lingering low, streets damp and reflecting the faint morning glow. Inside the safehouse, the air felt equally heavy. Sleep had been impossible for everyone. Too many truths had surfaced in too little time.
Mira was the first to rise.
Her thoughts were tangled, replaying every conversation from the past week: the encrypted messages, the stolen flash drive, the betrayal within the agency, the revelation about her father, and worst of all—the sudden shift in Adrian's behavior last night. She could sense he was hiding something again. Something big.
She found him in the hallway, leaning against the wall with a stack of printed documents in hand. Dark circles shadowed his eyes.
"You didn't sleep," she said quietly.
Adrian didn't look up immediately. "Couldn't."
Mira stepped closer. "What did you find?"
He finally met her eyes—and she saw it. The very thing she feared: hesitation. Adrian never hesitated unless what he found was dangerous… or personal.
"Mira," he began slowly, "the encrypted log we recovered yesterday… it wasn't just about Project Helix."
Her pulse tightened. "Then what is it?"
Adrian handed her the top page.
When she saw the name printed in bold at the top, the world tilted beneath her.
—TARGET: MIRA LAINE
She stared at the letters as if they were alive, trying to claw their way off the page.
"No," she whispered. "This has to be fake."
"It's not."
Adrian's voice was steady but too controlled. He had known all night—had probably read the entire dossier before anyone else even woke up. But instead of telling her immediately, he'd locked himself away, trying to figure out how to deliver the blow.
Whoever had started Project Helix had marked Mira as a liability years ago. Her father's connection to the agency wasn't the reason at all. Mira herself was the reason.
She took a step back. "Why would they target me?"
Adrian drew a slow breath. "Because you were never just a witness… you were part of the experiment."
The silence that followed hit harder than any physical blow.
"What… what are you talking about?" Her voice cracked despite her attempt to stay calm.
Adrian lifted another sheet.
The second document contained medical logs—dates, signatures, test results. All stamped with the Helix insignia. Mira's name appeared again and again, recorded since she was a child.
"This can't be real," she muttered.
But deep inside, pieces of her memory—foggy, disjointed flashes of cold rooms and masked doctors—shifted like broken glass.
She backed away until her shoulders hit the wall. "They experimented on me?"
Adrian stepped forward, but she raised a hand to stop him.
"Tell me everything," she demanded. "No more secrets."
Adrian looked hurt, but he obeyed. "The logs say you were part of the early prototype trials. Before Project Helix became a weaponization program, it started as a genetic resilience study. They wanted to engineer individuals capable of resisting psychological manipulation. The agency believed a select group of children could be molded into the perfect operatives."
Mira felt a wave of nausea. "And my father… he knew?"
Adrian hesitated.
That hesitation was enough.
She turned away from him, hands gripping her head. "All those years he kept me away from the agency… was he trying to protect me or keep me from knowing?"
Adrian didn't reply. He couldn't.
Leo appeared at the doorway, rubbing sleep from his eyes. "What's going on—?"
The moment he saw the documents in Mira's hands, he froze. "Is that…?"
Mira nodded numbly. "I'm a target. And apparently something else too."
Leo stepped to her side immediately, bristling with protective anger. "You're not a target now. They'll have to go through us first."
Adrian's jaw tightened. "It's not that simple."
Leo glared at him. "Then make it simple."
Before an argument could ignite, Mira raised her voice. "Stop it. Both of you."
Her hands trembled, but only slightly. Her voice, however, carried the tone of someone who had just broken past a limit.
"We don't have time for your rivalry," she said. "We have to figure out why the agency wants me back now, after all these years."
Adrian lifted the last paper. "I think I know."
On the bottom half of the page, a newer entry had been added to the decades-old file:
—SUBJECT STATUS: REACTIVATED
—RETRIEVAL PRIORITY: CRITICAL
—DEADLINE: 14 DAYS
Mira felt the blood drain from her face. "Reactivated? For what?"
"We don't know yet," Adrian answered. "But whatever it is, they need you. And they're getting desperate."
Leo swore under his breath. "So this whole chase… wasn't about the drive at all."
Adrian nodded grimly. "It was about Mira."
She closed her eyes.
For the first time, everything made sense—the surveillance, the threats, the disappearance of her father, the agency's sudden urgency. She had been the center of the storm without even knowing it.
After a long moment, she straightened her back. "Then we stop running. We turn around and face them."
Leo blinked. "What? Mira, that's suicide."
"No," she said. "Running makes me prey. But confronting them—on our terms—gives us a chance."
Adrian studied her, and something like reluctant respect flickered in his eyes. "If we're going to expose Project Helix, we'll need evidence stronger than what we have. And access to the main archives."
Leo crossed his arms. "Meaning we break in."
Adrian nodded. "Meaning we break in."
Mira looked between them. "Then we do it. We go straight to the source."
But before she could lay out the next step, her phone—powered off since yesterday—buzzed violently inside her bag.
All three froze.
Mira hesitated, then picked it up.
UNKNOWN NUMBER
1 new message
Her throat tightened as she tapped it open.
A single line appeared:
Mira, your father is still alive.
If you want to save him, come alone.
Coordinates attached.
24 hours.
Leo cursed loudly.
Adrian's expression darkened into cold calculation.
Mira's heart stopped.
Her father—alive?
She looked up at the two men. "They know exactly how to pull me in."
Adrian stepped closer. "Mira. You cannot go alone."
Leo grabbed her arm. "They're baiting you. You walk into that trap, we lose you."
But Mira's mind was already spiraling. Every memory of her father—the warnings, the secrets, the fear—crashed back like a wave.
If he was alive…
If he needed her…
She shook her head. "I can't ignore this."
"We'll go with you," Leo insisted.
"No," Mira whispered. "They said alone. If I show up with both of you, they'll kill him."
Adrian clenched his jaw. "You don't know that."
"I do." Mira looked at him, eyes burning with something raw. "Because it's what I would do… if I were them."
Silence fell.
Then she exhaled shakily. "I want to save him. But I also want to end this. For good."
Adrian stepped into her line of sight. "Then let us make a plan. You won't go alone. I'll follow at a distance."
Leo nodded. "And I'll take the perimeter. No one touches you."
Mira closed her eyes, overwhelmed but grateful.
For the first time in her life, she didn't have to carry the weight alone.
She breathed out. "Okay. We do this together."
But even as she agreed, she couldn't shake the feeling forming in the pit of her stomach—an instinct whispering that tomorrow would change everything.
That whoever she met at the coordinates…
Wouldn't be the father she remembered.
And that once she stepped into that meeting, there would be no turning back.
Not for her.
Not for any of them.