FAZER LOGINVICTORIAI told Clark and Isabella where I was going.I wasn't reckless. I had learned that lesson a long time ago, the hard way, and it had stuck. You had to tell the people who would come for you where you were going. You didn’t just disappear without a word just because the moment felt personal.But I made this drive alone. Isabella tried to come with me. She argued her case confidently. I listened to the whole thing, told her I heard her, and got in the car by myself.Clark didn't argue. He just looked at me for a moment and nodded. That was one of the things about him that still surprised me sometimes.The drive was two hours. Connecticut came up gradually around me as the city gave way to slower roads, and the light changed as I got further from the buildings and closer to trees and long grass, everywhere feeling quiet.I thought about what I was going to say. I had rehearsed it probably a hundred times over the last two years in my subconscious, in those moments late at night w
VICTORIAOnce I saw it, I couldn't unsee it.I sat down again and rebuilt the picture itself from the beginning, only this time I was arranging the pieces differently. Now it wasn’t a story about a woman who had been taken away. It was a story about a woman who had survived what was done to her by making herself difficult to dispose of.My mother had been poisoned seventeen years ago. She didn't die, which wasn't luck. It was because of the way her body had handled it, and the speed with which she had gotten care. She had been removed from her life after that and placed somewhere she could be controlled. And then at some point, the woman who raised me had done the thing I would have done in her position.She found a way to become useful.You couldn’t stay hidden in a room for seventeen years unless you could give the people controlling you a reason to keep you in it instead of getting rid of you. My mother was intelligent. She understood people. She had watched my father operate in bu
VICTORIAI had learned something important over the last two years: timing was everything when it came to asking hard questions.Ask too soon, while everything was still hot and loud and everyone was still in reaction mode, and you would get defensive answers, with people protecting themselves instead of telling you the truth. But ask at the right moment when the noise had settled and the walls had come down just a little, and you would get something real.So I waited.I waited through the drive back to the city. I waited through the debrief with Elio, which took almost an hour because there was a lot to cover and Elio was thorough. I waited while Clark made his calls, standing by the window with his phone against his ear, his voice sounding low and calm as he talked to people on the other end who were probably somewhere else in the world.I waited until the apartment was quiet and the city was half asleep, because New York never really slept. Then I sat down across from Clark at the
VICTORIAThe note was three sentences long.I read it once. Then I read it again. Then two more times after that.The first sentence was just my name. Victoria. Like she wanted to make sure I knew it was for me and no one else.The second sentence said: I know what they want to do to you and I can't let them use me to do it.The third sentence said: I have somewhere to go that they haven't found. I will find you when it's safe.That was it. No apology. No explanation for the last seventeen years. No tears folded into the paper. Just three sentences from a woman who had learned how to survive by being careful, so careful that even her reunion with her daughter felt just like a plan.I read it a fourth time. Then I folded it and put it in my inside jacket pocket, right against my chest, and left it there.Clark watched me do it. He didn't say a word and I was grateful for that. Some moments don't need words. They just needed to be allowed to happen. He understood that about me, which wa
VICTORIA I didn't step back.I looked at the connecting door the way I looked at every problem—straight at it, without flinching, taking in the details. It was a standard interior door made of thin wood. The kind between adjoining suites that swung open easily. There was no sound coming from the other side right now, which either meant no one was there, or someone was standing very still and waiting.I was betting on the second one though.Clark had already moved. He positioned himself between me and the connecting door without me having to ask him to, not making it a big show of it. He just shifted smoothly and was suddenly standing there.I put my hand on his arm. He looked at me."Don't make the first move," I said quietly. "They want a reaction. Whatever they came in here to do, they need us to react in a particular way for it to work."He understood immediately. He held his position but relaxed slightly, making himself look less like a wall and more like someone who had simply
VICTORIAI didn't stop to figure out why the nurse had helped us. There would be time to think about that later. Right now, the hallway was ahead of us and room fourteen was somewhere down it, and that was the only thing that mattered.I walked with my spine straight, pace even, face saying, “I know where I'm going and I have every right to be here.” Not because it was always true, but because the way you carried yourself would tell people what to expect from you before you had said a word. I had learned that early when I was rebuilding, and it had never stopped being useful.Clark stayed half a step behind me, not in front of me because he wasn't trying to go first. He was half a step back, where he could move fast if he needed to and stay out of the way if he didn't.The hallway was carpeted and quiet. There were a few framed prints on the walls and numbered doors on both sides, all closed. The soft music from earlier was farther away back here. I counted the numbers as we went.Roo
VICTORIAThe duplicate’s hand shook as she held the knife, but her face stayed empty. Her eyes didn’t blink or soften. She didn’t even react to Diana’s crying. It was like her body was there, but her mind was somewhere else, locked behind a wall Daniel had built piece by piece.Diana thrashed again
VICTORIAThe dark figure was still standing over my bed, looking tall and still as he watched. Daniel didn’t rush or hide. He just stood there like he owned the space or he belonged in the room.My body reacted before my mind could catch up. A sharp chill ran up my spine. My hands tingled. My heart
VICTORIATraffic slowed so much that it almost stopped. Cars crept along like they were scared to move too fast, and I knew why.The drivers were staring. Some had phones lifted. Some had mouths open. Others pretended not to look but still did. The billboard looming over the highway was huge, brig
VICTORIAThe second the guard said someone was in my closet, my whole body snapped into motion. I didn’t even wait for Clark to speak. I headed straight for the private garage with fast steps, my heart banging hard but not from fear. I was angry. Really angry. I hated the idea of someone walking i







