Chapter 20 · Subject 17

"Move."

Ella shoved the clinic door open. Her hands wouldn't stop shaking.

Not fear. Rage.

The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead—same hum they'd had twenty years ago when she'd opened this place. When she'd still thought healing could make up for standing by and doing nothing.

She crossed to the back wall, boots loud on tile. The file cabinet was old steel, painted over twice. She yanked the bottom drawer hard enough the whole thing rattled.

Dust came up in a cloud. These files hadn't been touched since the council's last records sweep. Five years, maybe six. She dug past incident reports and vaccination logs until her fingers hit the expandable folder shoved all the way back.

The label was faded but legible: **Cascade Reach – 2003**.

Her stomach turned.

She pulled it out anyway.

Thick. Way thicker than it should've been for a routine border dispute. She dropped it on the exam table under the light and flipped it open.

First page: incident summary. Coordinated hunter raid. Seventeen casualties. Twelve adults, three juveniles, two—

She stopped. Made herself keep reading.

Two unaccounted.

Someone had scrawled **PRESUMED DEAD** across the margin in block letters.