CHAPTER FIVE: THE END OF AURORA 

The key turning in the safe house lock sounded like a coffin closing. Aurora’s coffin.

Marcus pushed open the door to what looked like a crime scene. Wallpaper peeling like old scabs and the carpet smelled like other people’s sadness.

“Sorry,” Marcus said. “It’s not much."

I stepped inside, each movement sending fire through my chest. The old me would’ve cried but the new me smiled.

“It’s perfect.”

Those six weeks in the hospital felt like a lifetime. Learning to walk again when every step reminded me of the night Adrian shot me. Physical therapy sessions where I would grip the parallel bars and force my legs to move, even when my body screamed no. The nurses were nice enough, but they didn't understand. They saw a woman recovering from a random attack. They had no idea I was learning how to become someone else entirely.

The worst part wasn't even the physical pain. It was waking up every morning and forgetting, just for a second, that my old life was over. I'd reach for my phone to text Adrian good morning, or wonder what we'd have for dinner that night. Then reality would crash back in. The bandages around my chest, the machines beeping, the memory of his face when he pulled that trigger.

The nightmares were even worse, not of the shooting, but of the good memories we shared together.

I would wake up from those dreams crying, and it took everything I had not to call him and to believe that maybe it was all some horrible mistake.But unfortunately it wasn't.

"Your name is Rory Black," I would whisper to myself in the bathroom mirror every morning. "Aurora Winters is dead."

It took practice, but eventually the words started feeling true.

Marcus visited almost every day during those hospital weeks. He would bring coffee that tasted like it came from a gas station and newspapers I didn't want to read. But he was there, and that mattered. When the doctors said I was finally strong enough to leave, he picked me up in a car and drove me to this little apartment outside the city.

Three months after I got out of the hospital, Marcus walked in with an envelope that changed everything. Inside was a death certificate with my name on it. Aurora Marie Winters. Dead at twenty-eight from surgical complications.

“Half the city came to your funeral,” he said softly. “Adrian gave a speech and cried so much in front of them.”

The fire inside me increased after hearing this.He wasn’t just hiding what he did, he was feeding off it and playing the grieving lover while the whole world pitied him.

That’s when Aurora truly died,and Rory Black opened her eyes.

“Good,” I said. Nothing else. Just that one word,sharp and final.

Building a new life took work. Marcus brought me everything Rory Black would need: college transcripts, tax records, even a six-year-old late payment on a student loan. The perfect, boring history.

I memorized it all like scripture. Every lie had to feel truer than the truth. Rory grew up in Chicago, not New York. She studied at Northwestern, not Columbia. She never ate at the little Italian place on 8th Street where Adrian first told me he loved me.I even change each and every habit to mine.

Leo came early, so tiny he looked breakable. Machines beeped around him, wires taped to his fragile skin. The first time I held him,I feltl very happy.Although he had Adrian's green eyes but it Didn't affect the joy and happiness I had.

“Hey there, baby,” I whispered. “It’s just you and me now. We’ll be fine.”

Leo was everything to me, and my only job was to keep him safe and make sure Adrian never got close enough to hurt him. Time passed quickly, marked by milestones that I cherished—his first smile at six weeks, his laugh at three months, the moment he rolled over at four—and each little victory reminded me that, despite all the pain, I had built something real and beautiful..

But I couldn’t relax,every day I practiced being Rory Black,I changed my handwriting and started walking with a different style.

Aurora had been soft but Rory was sharp.

I cut my hair short, dyed it dark,changed my makeup and my clothes. When I looked in the mirror, I barely recognized myself. That was the point.

On Leo’s first birthday, Marcus showed up with a box,there was no toys or cake,just a black suit and a file folder.

“It’s time,” Marcus said. “Thorne Industries wants you me you tomorrow for an interview as his assistant.”

Inside the folder was a company ID,my face,eyes and smile. But with the name Reina Vale.

Marcus watched me like he knew what I was thinking. “That’s who you will be from tomorrow.Not Rory or Reina,no matter he close he looks, he won't know who you truly are.”

That night, with Leo asleep in the next room, I stood in front of the cracked bathroom mirror. I touched my own face like I was trying to remember who I was. Rory Black, gone. Reina Vale, stepping in tomorrow.

I pulled out the ring Adrian once slipped on my finger with all his lies. It sparkled in the light, but the promises behind it were empty.

I put the ring on a chain and hung it around my neck, right over my scar as a constant remember of my pain.

I checked on Leo one last time. He slept with his little fist resting against his cheek, very peaceful and safe.Every risk I was about to take was for him.

I kissed his forehead. “Tomorrow, it all begins,” I whispered.

But when I lay down, staring at the ceiling,I couldn't fall asleep. Two years of planning and becoming someone else had led me here.

I thought I would be ready or maybe even excited.

Instead, one thought kept ringing in my head, over and over: What if I see Adrian tomorrow, and everything, every plan, every bit of anger, falls apart the moment our eyes meet? What if the girl I buried clawed her way back, and instead of hating him, I loved him all over again?