“Your parents are at the main gate. Someone told them Noah was involved in a classified breach and that you were impersonating an officer.”
Obsidian didn’t just want the archive.
They wanted pressure. Family panic. Sentimental mistakes.
“Bring them in,” I said.
When the door opened, my father, Victor Ellison, entered first. My mother, Ruth, followed behind him, pale and frightened.
The first thing Dad saw was the field unit glowing between me and Noah.
The second was Colonel Sloane standing beside me.
The third made the color leave his face.
Price saluted me again.
Dad stared at that salute like it was designed to humiliate him.
“What is going on?” he demanded.
Sloane said, “You are civilians in a secure room. Follow instructions or leave.”
Dad looked at me.
“What did you do?”
There it was.
Not shock.
Confirmation.
He had been handed a story where I was the problem, and it fit too comfortably for him to resist.
“You always believed the worst version of me,” I said.
Before he could answer, the secure room door opened.
A man in a dark suit entered.
