The photo sat there, curled slightly at the corners, like it had been plucked from a grave and laid out just to rot again. Jude stared at it as if it might move, as if the girl inside it—her blurred figure on the edge of the flame, smoke catching in her hair—might turn her head and look right at him. He didn't touch it. Couldn't.
His coffee had gone cold, untouched since the moment she said his name.
"You saw her die."
He hadn't remembered standing. But here he was, knees locked, muscles twitching, his mind clawing back through time like an animal trapped in rubble.
Leah.
Not possible. Not her. Not after that night. Not after what he saw in the hallway—the open flame licking at the rafters, the screaming, the skin-melting heat that sent him fleeing with nothing but a half-filled notebook and the lie he'd been told to tell.
Ten years.
And now this.
He moved toward the photograph like it might detonate. Picked it up. Turned it over. Nothing on the back. No message, no number, no warning. Just the faintest scent of ash.
Someone had taken this photo after the fire had started. It was a still from the crime scene—no, a frame from a video. Security cam? Phone footage? He couldn't tell. But the timestamp in the corner...
"3:21 a.m.," he whispered.
He had told the public the fire started at 3:40.
And he had signed the report. The story. The lie.
His stomach lurched. He turned away, stumbling toward the bathroom, gripping the sink like it was an anchor. His reflection looked like a man in a dream—beard a mess, circles under his eyes purple like bruises, blood vessels spidering across the whites. A recovery face. A coward's face.
He turned on the tap and splashed water across his skin, ice cold and biting.
---
When he came back out, the apartment felt different. Still and wrong.
He checked the door. Locked.
The window. Shut.
He checked under the couch out of habit—why, he didn't know. She was long gone.
He half-expected the photograph to be gone too.
It wasn't.
But beside it now, on the coffee table, was a flash drive. Small, black, unmarked. Had it been there before? Was it hers?
He didn't remember it being there.
Jude picked it up carefully, like it might contain poison.
He booted up the laptop. Outdated, sluggish, but functional. He slotted in the drive and waited, heart in his throat.
One folder.
REYNOLDS
He clicked.
Inside—three files.
1. 001–Survivor_List.pdf
2. 002–Security_Feed_Trim.mp4
3. 003–Mercer_Testimony.mp3
His hand hovered over the mouse.
That last file—his name on it. A recording? A copy of his original testimony?
No. He never recorded anything.
Did he?
His hand shook as he clicked on the second file—the video. If he was going to spiral, better to do it with images.
The video opened in a grainy player. The timestamp matched the photo. 3:21 a.m. The angle was low, like it had been recorded from a waist-high security cam, positioned in a corridor of the building. Jude recognized the hallway instantly. It was where he'd stood, notebook in hand, frozen, watching smoke slither under the doorframes like fingers.
The screen trembled slightly—camera shake? No, the building was already unstable.
At the 12-second mark, a girl burst through the hallway—running barefoot, gasping, looking back.
Leah.
Ten years ago. Ten. And yet here she was, alive, real, moving.
She slipped on debris, hit her knee, scrambled up.
And then—
She turned toward the camera. Just for a second.
Not just a scared child. Not just fleeing.
She looked directly at the lens. Eyes wild. Lips moving.
Mouthing words.
Jude hit pause.
Rewound. Slowed playback.
Focused on her lips.
She said: "Tell him I lived."
---
Jude couldn't breathe. The room pressed in like a box.
He clicked the first file. The survivor list.
There were eight names. Seven marked "deceased."
Only one remained unmarked.
Leah Grayson — Status: Unknown
Next to her name: "Last seen exiting corridor C."
Right where the footage was taken.
Right where she looked into the camera.
---
The third file haunted him now. 003–Mercer_Testimony.mp3
He clicked it.
His own voice came through, but not in a tone he recognized. This wasn't his official debrief. This was something else—recorded secretly, maybe. A backroom, perhaps. Late. He sounded tired. Defeated.
> "I didn't see her. I saw smoke. A lot of smoke. There were too many bodies. I… I heard a girl screaming but I thought it was someone else. A hallucination, maybe. Adrenaline. Heat does that. I panicked. I left."
He paused the track.
He remembered none of this. Or maybe he did. Maybe it was buried under the months of alcohol, shame, and public disgrace. After the fire, his editor had told him to sign the statement, push the official timeline, move on. It was the cost of survival.
He played the rest.
> "She didn't make it. I'm sure of it. There's no way she got out."
[A pause. Then, quieter.]
"If she did… I'm not sure I deserve to know."
---
The recording ended.
He stared at the screen. Everything was wrong.
Leah had lived.
She had seen the camera.
She had tried to reach him.
And now she was back.
Jude ejected the drive and snapped the laptop shut. He felt cold and exposed. Like the walls were listening.
His hands itched for a cigarette, but he didn't smoke anymore. His sponsor would call him "emotional flooding." He called it proof that the world didn't forget. It just waited until you were weakest.
He opened the drawer beside the couch. Pulled out the notebook.
Not the digital one.
The notebook. The one he'd kept during the Reynolds investigation—the only thing he hadn't burned or lost in court.
Taped to the inside cover was a page torn from a directory. A name scribbled in red: Casey Drennan. The night janitor. The last person to see the victims alive before the fire.
He hadn't thought about Casey in years.
Jude flipped to the back of the notebook. Found the address.
He grabbed his coat.
---
South Chicago — 9:42 PM
The apartment building looked abandoned from the outside. A skeletal frame of brick and rusted metal. No lights on. A buzzer panel long dead.
Jude knocked anyway.
No answer.
He knocked again—louder.
Still nothing.
He was about to leave when he heard it.
A thump. Then silence.
He tried the door. Unlocked.
He stepped inside.
The hallway smelled like mildew and old cigarettes. He followed the sound—bare feet on warped floorboards. An apartment door at the end stood ajar.
"Casey?" he called.
Nothing.
He pushed the door open.
And froze.
Casey Drennan was there. Slumped in a folding chair. Shirtless. His arms crisscrossed with scars—old burns, some fresh. He looked like he'd been through hell and never left.
But he was alive.
Barely.
There was an oxygen tank by his feet.
His eyes opened slowly. "You're him."
Jude nodded.
"You saw her?" Casey whispered.
Jude stepped closer. "She came to my apartment."
Casey's mouth twitched. "I told 'em. I told 'em she lived. They called me a drunk. Said I was lying. I saw her run. I saw her in the flames."
Jude swallowed. "She left me this."
He pulled out the photo.
Casey didn't touch it. Just stared.
"They killed everyone who talked," Casey rasped. "Fire was the start. The cleanup came after. All the others—dead."
Jude crouched in front of him. "Why? What were they covering up?"
Casey's breath wheezed.
He looked at Jude like a man measuring the last few words of his life.
Then he said, "You weren't supposed to be there that night."
Jude's blood ran cold. "What?"
"You weren't supposed to see what you saw."
The wheezing got louder.
Casey clutched his chest.
Jude reached for the oxygen tank, but Casey waved him off.
"They knew you'd tell. So they gave you the story. Let you bury yourself in it."
Jude leaned closer. "Who are they?"
But Casey was slipping now—eyes rolling, mouth parting.
Jude grabbed his phone. "Hold on, I'm calling 911—"
Casey's hand clamped onto his wrist with surprising strength.
His voice dropped to a whisper.
"She's still in danger."
Then his eyes went glassy.
His grip loosened.
Jude felt it immediately.
Casey Drennan was dead.
---
Jude backed out of the apartment in silence. He didn't call it in. Not yet. Not until he knew what this was. He stood in the hallway, pulse hammering, the photo burning a hole in his pocket.
The world had started to tilt.
Someone had cleaned up the Reynolds case.
Someone had killed every witness.
Except Leah.
And now… Casey.
Now Jude was the last one left.
What remained after?
Only him.
And the truth.