Audrey sat alone on the porch, boots crossed at the ankles, steam from her untouched coffee spiraling into the frozen morning air. The USB drive weighed heavy in her coat pocket—like it didn't just hold data, but fragments of the person she used to be. Or the weapon they once made her into.
Snowflakes drifted down in lazy spirals, catching in her lashes. She didn't brush them away.
Inside, raised voices clashed again. Sebastian's frustration was no longer masked. He paced like a man unraveling thread he didn't want to find the end of. Victor answered with the impassive calm of a soldier who'd already buried his regrets.
"I should've known," Sebastian said, voice low but sharp. "All this time… you stood by while they broke her. You watched."
"She was classified," Victor replied. "Not a girl. Not your lover. Not your concern."
Audrey didn't flinch. The words were designed to wound. But whatever hurt might've bloomed once, had long since gone cold. What remained wasn't sorrow.
It was purpose. And it was sharp enough to cut glass.
The door creaked behind her.
"You okay?" Sebastian asked softly.
"Define okay," she replied, gaze still fixed on the snow-draped treeline.
He crouched beside her, close enough that the warmth of him pushed back the wind. His shoulders were taut, his jaw tight, as if holding back a scream.
"I'm not asking you to forgive him," he said. "Or me. But I need to know what's on that drive."
She didn't answer right away. Her fingers found the USB in her pocket and closed around it like a blade hilt.
Then she handed it to him.
"Do it," she said. "Let's see what they turned me into."
Victor's war room was a relic from another life. Cold walls. Locked cabinets. A massive screen flickering faintly in the dim light. Outside, snow kept falling, indifferent to what unfolded inside.
The drive loaded.
Footage filled the screen—faces, numbers, classified files. Psychological reports. Combat statistics. Electrodes. Injections. Surveillance video of Audrey strapped to a chair, enduring simulations that pushed her to the edge. Hostage scenarios. Kill-confirmation drills. Neural scans.
Sebastian stood frozen. Audrey never blinked.
Victor spoke at last. "They ran you through the Heretic Protocol. Same as Lucien. But you… you survived longer. You stayed stable longer. Until Tunisia."
Audrey's brow furrowed. "Tunisia?"
"You vanished mid-op. Fontaine assumed you were dead. You resurfaced a year later—different name, new life. No memory. That's when I pulled funding."
Sebastian's voice was tight. "You pulled funding. Out of guilt?"
Victor shook his head. "Because Fontaine went rogue. I wanted her free. He wanted her perfected."
Audrey's throat caught. Of all the things Victor could've said, that hadn't been one she expected.
The screen shifted. An audio log began to play—crackled and mechanical.
"Asset Z–01 exhibits emotional resistance. Memory imprint of subject 'Bastian' interrupts neural conditioning. Reprogramming unsuccessful. Initiating erasure protocol."
"Final attempt."
Silence followed.
Sebastian turned to Audrey, his voice low. "You remembered me."
"I never stopped," she whispered. "Even when I didn't know why."
Their eyes locked.
Victor cleared his throat—gruff, but not unkind. "That's not all."
He opened another drawer and removed a slim red envelope. Inside: a faded black-and-white photograph.
Lucien. Fontaine. And a younger Audrey—barely eighteen.
"This was the first phase of the Heretic trials," Victor said. "You three were the foundation. Fontaine lied to us. Lucien wasn't terminated. He was redirected. Repurposed. And now…"
He laid the photo on the table.
"…he's coming for the one asset that escaped."
Audrey exhaled, slow and steady. "Then this ends with me."
"No," Sebastian said firmly. "It ends with us."
…
Sleep never came.
Audrey stood on the edge of the estate grounds, snow crunching softly beneath her boots, the mountains stretching silently beyond. Everything inside her felt jagged—like broken glass pressed into the shape of a girl who refused to shatter.
Behind her, she felt him before she heard him. Sebastian's presence was no longer a surprise. It was a tether.
His arms circled her waist from behind, drawing her back into his warmth.
"You don't have to be her anymore," he said.
She didn't answer right away.
"But I am," she said finally. "I'm what they built. And what they failed to break."
He turned her gently until they were face to face. "No. You're what you chose to become."
Then he kissed her.
It wasn't sweet. It wasn't gentle. It was fierce—born of memory and war, hunger and grief. The kind of kiss you gave when time was short, when you needed someone like breath.
And in that moment, in the frost-bitten dark, Audrey realized something terrifying.
She wasn't afraid of the war ahead.
She was afraid of what she might become to win it.
…
And somewhere in the dark, thousands of miles away, Lucien watched the feed flicker across his screen—and smiled.
"They're starting to remember. Good."