EZRA POV
I dropped the medical supplies I was holding.
They clattered across the floor, but I didn't care. I couldn't move. Couldn't think.
Because Sera Vance was standing fifteen feet away, showing someone how to clean a wound.
Dead people don't teach first aid.
Dead people don't laugh at jokes.
Dead people don't exist.
But I had signed her death certificate three days before the Pulse. I had watched them zip her body into a black bag. I had stood at her tribute service and cried like my soul was being ripped out.
Yet here she was. Alive. Moving. Breathing.
My hands started shaking.
"Dr. Stone?" One of the nurses touched my arm. "Are you okay?"
"I need air." I stumbled outside before anyone could see me lose control.
The night was cold. I pressed my back against the tent wall and tried to remember how to breathe properly. This wasn't possible. Science didn't work this way. People didn't come back from the dead.
Unless someone brought them back.
The thought hit me like ice water. What if someone had taken Sera's body? What if they'd done something to her? Used some kind of technology that— No. That was crazy. Technology was dead. The Pulse had killed everything computerized.
Except Sera had survived it somehow.
I needed answers. Now.
I waited until midnight when most people were asleep. Then I walked to the small tent where Helena had given Sera a place to stay.
My heart pounded as I knocked softly. "Sera? It's Dr. Stone. Can we talk?"
Silence. Then footsteps.
She opened the tent flap. She looked tired and scared. "It's late."
"I know. But this can't wait." I kept my voice quiet even though I wanted to scream. "Please. Five minutes."
She studied my face for a long moment. Then she nodded and let me inside.
The tent was small and dark. One light flickered on a crate. Sera sat on her sleeping bag and hugged her knees. She looked so young. So exposed.
So exactly like the woman I'd loved.
"What do you want to talk about?" she asked softly.
I sat across from her. "The day you died."
Her face went pale. "What?"
"Three days before the Pulse. There was a blast at the Kronos Institute laboratory. You were inside." My voice cracked. "I was there, Sera. I saw them bring out your body."
"That's impossible. I've never worked at any school. I'm just a teacher who—"
"Don't lie to me!" I didn't mean to yell, but the words burst out. "I know your face. I know your voice. I know the way you bite your lip when you're thinking hard. We worked together for three years!"
Tears filled her eyes. "I don't remember any of that."
"Or someone made you forget." I leaned forward. "Sera, what's the last thing you remember before waking up after the Pulse?"
"I told Helena. I was making dinner in my apartment, then nothing until I woke up in the hospital tent."
"That's a lie. You didn't have a room. You lived at the research center because our work was classified. Top secret. We weren't allowed to leave."
She wrapped her arms tighter around herself. "You're scaring me."
"Good. You should be scared." I pulled a small picture from my pocket. My hands shook as I held it up. "Look at this."
In the candlelight, she could see it clearly. A picture of her and me, standing in front of massive computer equipment. She was happy. I had my arm around her shoulders.
The photo was taken two weeks before the Pulse.
"Where did you get this?" she whispered.
"I took it. Because we were partners. Because I—" I stopped myself. "Because we were friends and I wanted to remember us before everything changed."
She stared at the photo like it might bite her. "I don't remember this. Any of this."
"Someone erased your memories. Deliberately." I put the picture away. "And I think I know who."
"Who?" "Helena Voss. "
Sera's eyes widened. "Dr. Voss? But she's been helping me. She saved me."
"Did she? Or did she put you in danger in the first place?" I moved closer. "Helena was our boss at the Kronos Institute. She ran the entire project. And on the day you reportedly died, she sent you into that laboratory alone. Against protocol. Against safety rules."
"Why would she do that?"
"Because our project wasn't what they told the world it was." I took a deep breath. "We weren't studying clean energy or medical science. We were making something else. Something that could change everything." "What?"
Before I could answer, someone coughed outside the tent.
We both froze.
"Dr. Stone?" A man's words. One of Helena's guards. "Dr. Voss wants to see you. Now."
My stomach dropped. She knew I was here.
"Tell her I'll come in the morning," I called out.
"She said now. It's important."
Sera grabbed my wrist. Her touch was powerful. "Don't leave me alone. Please. I'm scared."
"I won't be long. Just lock the tent and don't open it for anyone except me." I squeezed her hand. "I promise I'll explain everything when I get back."
But as I walked toward Helena's building, fear filled my chest.
Helena was waiting in her room. She sat behind a desk made from old doors, looking calm and collected.
Too quiet.
"Ezra. Thank you for coming." She pointed to a chair. "Sit."
"What's this about?"
"You visited Sera tonight." It wasn't a question. "You showed her the photograph."
My blood turned cold. "How did you—"
"I have eyes everywhere." Helena stood up slowly. "You shouldn't have done that. She's not ready for the truth yet."
"The fact that you killed her? That you brought her back somehow?"
"I didn't kill her, Ezra." Helena walked to the window. "You did."
The room spun. "What?"
"The lab blast. You caused it." She turned to face me. "Don't you remember? Or did you block that out too?"
"That's a lie. I was in the viewing room when—"
"When you hit the wrong button. When you overloaded the system. When the blast tore through the building and burned Sera alive." Helena's voice was ice. "I have the security tape. Would you like to see it?"
"No." My legs went weak. "No, I didn't... I couldn't have..."
But doubt crept in. Because parts of that day were fuzzy in my mind. Gaps I couldn't explain.
What if she was right?
"You blocked it out," Helena said softly. "Guilt does that. But now you're digging into Sera's past, and that's risky. For both of you."
"What did you do to her?" I asked. "How is she alive?"
Helena smiled. It was the scariest thing I'd ever seen.
"I gave her a second chance. And I can take it away just as easily." She walked back to her desk. "Stay away from Sera, Ezra. Stop asking questions. Or I'll show her the film of you killing her. Let her see what you really are."
"You can't—"
"I can do anything I want." She sat down. "Now get out."
I stumbled back to my tent in a daze. My mind wouldn't stop spinning. What if Helena was saying the truth? What if I really had killed Sera?
But something didn't make sense. If I'd killed her, why would Helena bring her back? Why not just let her stay dead?
Unless Sera was worth more living than dead.
Unless Helena needed her for something.
I reached my tent and stopped cold.
The flap was open. Moving in the wind.
I'd locked it before I left.
Heart beating, I ducked inside and lit my emergency candle.
Everything was wrong. My study notes were scattered. My personal things had been searched. Someone had torn through my things looking for something.
Then I saw it.
On my sleeping bag, put carefully in the center where I couldn't miss it: Another photograph. But not one I'd taken.
This picture showed Sera in the laboratory. Standing at a computer panel. Her finger hovering over a big red button.
And in the bottom, a timestamp: Three hours before the Pulse that ended the world.
Written across the bottom in red ink: "SHE KNEW WHAT SHE WAS DOING."
My hands shook so hard I almost dropped it.
If this photo was real, it meant Sera hadn't just escaped the apocalypse.
She had caused it.