They drove for hours—Lena clutching Jay's hand like he might vanish again if she let go.
The road twisted through forgotten coastal towns until they reached a small cabin nestled deep in the woods, the kind of place people didn't stumble upon by accident.
Jay stopped the car, scanning the trees. "No cameras. No signals. We'll be safe here—for now."
Lena stepped out, her boots crunching against gravel. The air smelled of pine and damp soil. Cold, but quiet.
Jay opened the door to the cabin. Dust lingered in the air, like no one had lived there in years.
"Where are we?" she asked.
"A safe house. One of the old ones they forgot."
He turned on a dim light. Inside were old books, maps, and a single photograph nailed to the wall—faces blurred out, a boat on a stormy sea in the background.
Jay closed the door, locking three different bolts. "We have to talk."
Lena nodded. "Then tell me everything."
He sat down at the wooden table and pulled a folded paper from his jacket. It was the same type of paper as the letter she'd found.
"There were ten of us," he said. "They picked us from different walks of life. All lost someone. All desperate. That's how they got in."
Lena listened as he described The Fold: a research program masked as therapy, using experimental methods to alter memory and identity. They were testing how much of a person could be rewritten before they lost who they were.
"They wiped memories. Implanted false ones. I was... someone else for months. But then I started to remember you. You were the thread that kept pulling me back."
Her eyes filled with tears.
"You remembered me," she whispered.
He nodded. "And that's when they tried to erase you completely. That's when I knew I had to leave."
Lena's mind raced. "Who are they, Jay? Why would anyone do this?"
He looked at her and said the one name she never expected:
**"Your father."**
Silence slammed into the room.
She stepped back. "No. My father's dead."
Jay's expression was haunted. "That's what they told you."
Lena felt her breath hitch. "He died in a lab explosion ten years ago."
Jay leaned forward. "No. He faked it. He's the one who started The Fold."
The room spun. Her father—the man who tucked her in at night, who disappeared in a fire, who she grieved for half her life—was alive?
And he had experimented on Jay?
Lena's voice trembled. "Why me?"
"I don't know yet. But your name... your photo... it was all over their files. They're watching you, Lena."
Suddenly, a light flickered outside.
Jay grabbed a flashlight and motioned for silence.
He peeked through the curtain. Nothing. But Lena noticed something he didn't.
**A figure in the woods. Still. Watching.**
When Jay turned back, she pointed—but the figure was already gone.
Jay's jaw tightened. "They found us."
Lena's chest tightened too—but not with fear.
With the realization that her entire life might be a lie.