Alex blocked Charlotte as Noah and Ethan quickly cleared the unit for any obvious danger. Charlotte stepped forward, hergaze sweeping the small, claustrophobic space, breath held tight in her chest. The room wasn’t empty — not really.
A lone fluorescent light buzzed overhead, throwing a sickly pallor over the clutter. In one corner, battered metal shelving bowed under the weight of medical journals and textbooks. She caught glimpses of titles—Human Experimentation and Ethics, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders: A Clinical Study, The Evolution of Electroconvulsive Therapy—their spines cracked and greasy with age.
Beside them, a battered examination table, stained and rusted at the joints, loomed like a monument to things better left unspoken. And in the center: a single metal chair, restraints dangling from each leg like limp hands. A crate stamped with a bright banana logo sat next to it, absurd against the rest of the horror.
Charlotte flexed her gloved fingers once, then crossed the room. She could feel Alex and Noah behind her, silent and tense.
Noah let out a disbelieving snort. "That’s it?"
Alex moved past him, eyes scanning the floor, the walls. "This isn’t just a message. It’s a setup."
Charlotte didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Her throat was closing in. She crouched by the crate, heart hammering, and slowly lifted the lid.
Inside—files, sealed with twine. And beneath them, a heap of photographs, loose and jumbled like trash. She reached for the first one, fingers trembling despite herself.
The image cut straight through her defenses: a crime scene. One of Ward’s victims. She remembered this girl—the way her body was displayed, the obscene precision of it.
Charlotte swallowed hard, carefully pulling more photos free. They were stacked thick, one horror layered atop another, every wound documented in forensic detail. She handed the first fileoff to Olivia, who immediately started slipping each photo into an evidence bag, face pale.
Then Charlotte saw it—another photo tucked deep in the pile. Not a victim. Not blood or death.
Herself.
She froze. For a long, breathless second, she couldn’t move, couldn’t think. It was her—captured in brutal, vivid color. Crossing a parking lot. Then another of her eating lunch at her kitchen table. One of her sitting alone on a bench at the edge of a park. Unaware. Unprotected. All recent. Some from last week.
Alex noticed first, lunging toward her as she began to sway. He plucked the photographs from her rigid fingers and pulled her into him. She let him, too stunned to resist.
"Son of a bitch," Noah muttered, leaning closer to the photo.
Olivia’s voice shook. "Someone’s been following you."
Brad grabbed the open file, flipping quickly. "They’re all Charlotte. Every single one. If anyone else is in the frame, their face is blacked out." He whistled low. "There are... hundreds."
Ethan ripped open another file. His hands weren’t steady either. "Some of these—these are sealed court records. These aren’t copies. They’re the originals."
Charlotte’s skin crawled. The walls leaned in, pressing her down.
Alex let her go just enough to find her hand and link his fingers with hers. His grip was a lifeline, rough and grounding. "Who the hell had access to all of this?"
Charlotte’s mouth felt dry, voice barely a whisper. "Someone who wants me to remember."
And she did. Not everything. Not yet. But pieces of it. Enough to know whoever did this wasn’t bluffing. They knew exactly where to cut her open.
Alex’s jaw locked tight, fury radiating off him.
Noah rubbed his temple. "Two problems. One—someone’s waking up cases that were buried deep. Two—they’re always one step ahead."
Charlotte stared at the crate again. Beyond the fresh photos, beyond the evidence, she caught a glimpse of something handwritten. There were notes scribbled in the margins of journals. The neat, clinical language of a mind dissecting a human specimen. She tightened her grip on Alex’s hand.
He leaned in close, voice low and rough. "We’re going to find them. We’re going to end this."
Charlotte met his gaze, steady and unflinching. “Damn right we are.”
The fire in her voice didn’t match the hollow ache twisting in her gut, but she didn’t let that show. Doubt whispered in the corners of her mind, but she shoved it down, burying it under something harder. Her rage, resolve, memory. She’d survived worse than fear. And if they wanted a war, they picked the wrong woman to haunt.
Alex turned back to the evidence, the tension in his shoulders taut like a bowstring. He didn’t see it yet—not the pattern, not the message. This wasn’t just a threat. It was a blueprint. Every move calculated, every piece chosen to hurt her in the most personal way possible.
But Charlotte saw it. She saw exactly what it was.
