Chapter 16 · The Erased Name

"Stop staring at it like it's a holy relic, Mara. It's just a list of dead people."

Kane’s voice was like a blade, cold and precise. He didn't look at me. He was leaning against the rusted console of the archive terminal, his arms crossed, his gaze fixed on the flickering screen where a series of encrypted files were slowly decrypting.

I didn't move. I couldn't. My eyes were glued to the scrolling text—names, dates, birth coordinates, all marked with a single, brutal red stamp: ERASED.

"They aren't dead," I snapped, my voice shaking. I stepped closer, the smell of ozone and old dust filling my lungs. "They're just... gone. The company took their identities. They turned kids into ghost numbers."

Kane finally looked at me. His eyes weren't sympathetic. They were hungry, like he was dissecting me. He stepped forward, closing the gap until I could feel the heat radiating off his chest. He didn't touch me, but the proximity felt like a physical weight, pressing me back against the cold metal of the terminal.

"And you think knowing that changes anything?" he whispered. His breath brushed against my ear, sending a traitorous shiver down my spine.