Lara woke to the cold blue of overhead fluorescent lights. She put a hand to her head, suddenly aware of a dull ache. The room was bare, save for a small cot hanging from the wall. 

  A single door to her right appeared open, prompting her to climb off the cot and wander toward it. In an effort to test the exit, she extended an arm. Reaffirming her suspicions, the palm of her hand collided with the glass, which prompted the appearance of an aquamarine screen. Lara jerked back.

  At the door’s alert, a guard peered around the corner of his post. 

  He approached the door while tapping his helmet twice and proceeded to ramble off a string of codes. 

  “Commencing transport,” he ended.

  The door flickered to life as his hand drew an invisible image on the screen. Lara recognized it as the same code Auras had used to activate and direct their train car.

  Auras, she thought, stomach turning.

  She had no idea what she’d gotten herself into.

  The soldier stepped in, gun positioned.

  “Hands up.”

  Lara complied, noticing a small metal band around her wrist. It appeared to be the same material as his helmet: a type of black glass. With a swipe of his hand the band’s display flashed to life, actively detailing her vitals. 

  With another tap of his headpiece, he instructed her to follow him.

  The narrow hallway leading from her holding place was illuminated by the cell’s same glow. Lara glanced down at her feet, scratched and bare against the tiles. 

  They turned a corner as her skull ached with greater intensity. Lara mentally sifted through the stream of fuzzy memories that had continued to trickle through the broken dam in her head. 

  But her heart stung as she recalled the images of the younger girl. 

  A rowboat sat miles away in a muddled thought. A muffled splash bounced around in her ears. 

  She’d found it harder to walk, using the wall for both support and to anchor her to her sense of the present. 

  And… Jonathan.

  She could remember his name. But she couldn’t, for the life of her, remember anyone else’s. Lara felt her face redden, and her hands shot up to gently pat her cheeks.

  “Hands down!” The guard shouted without turning to look at her.

  She did as ordered.

  The two came to a grey armored door. The guard tapped his helmet, rattling off another code, and the door clicked open in response. Inside led a short hallway -- a holding area -- followed by another door. The guard held it open, revealing a small room with a white table and two opposing chairs in its center. 

  Lara took the furthest seat, listening to the door latch shut, and sat in ensuing silence. 

  While time passed, she attempted to sort through the images which felt aged and spotty. The haze of amnesia still clung to them. It was even more of a task weaving them into the present.

  The little boy, Knox, had unraveled the veil. Some of it, at least.

  But he had also called Jonathan ‘Papa’. 

  Her heart skipped, a foul taste bleeding into her mouth as she jumped between the sight of Knox going towards him, and the memory of the catwalk. 

  Lost in her thoughts, she swung her leg over her knee, forgetting her shoeless disposition. She only returned her foot to the ground under the creeping suspicion that she was being watched. 

  Instinctively, she peered at the right-hand wall, and its supposed innocence greeted her. But as her eyes lingered, she felt the sensation disappear. 

  At the other end of the wall opposite from where she’d entered, a camouflaged door clicked open.

  The same muddy-brown hair Lara had spent the last few minutes envisioning draped Jonathan’s forehead before he swept it back with one hand. The other hand rested comfortably in his suit pants. 

  Lara struggled to swallow back her heart as it pushed its way up her chest with its surely obnoxious pounding.

  “Lara?” He asked, standing in front of the table. 

  The door thunked shut.

  “Jonathan.” She responded, a bit more aggressively than she could rationalize.

  But still, the strange, miniscule parasite of hope clung to the crevices of her heart for something that she couldn’t remember fully.

  “Lara Ravenswood?”

  She blanked, taken aback by the use of her full name. A vein pulsed unforgivingly at the sudden remembrance of her identity, but she masked her discomfort with a placid face.

  He watched her as if she were a ghost; in one blink she’d disappear. “How… what…” Jonathan dragged a hand over the bottom half of his face, massaging his jaw. He spun the empty chair around and eased himself onto it. “You’re alive.”

  They sat for a moment, the hum of the pipe lamp above them.

  “How did you get here? When did you get here?” 

  Once more, she met him with silence. She couldn’t tell him. She didn’t know. She couldn’t even coherently explain what she’d experienced within the past 48 hours to herself.

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  Or within the last year, and beyond. 

  The corners of Jonathan’s lips contorted with growing discontent.

  Lara ignored him, looking off to the side. She didn’t know where her prickling contempt had come from, but it was certainly there. She had every right to be frustrated, she thought.

  Maybe.

  “Look, I know this is strange. Beyond strange. But I have questions. And if we could just get this part out of the way, we could get you out of here.”

  Lara straightened her back. “I don’t have answers,” she could’ve ended there, but she side-eyed him. “Honestly, at this point, your son would probably know more than I do.” 

  Jonathan’s face paled. The very notion that he’d expressed even a minor emotive admission of guilt encouraged a sense of betrayal within her she was trying so hard to repress.

  “I’m glad you two could bond,” he finally responded, his voice carefully neutral.

  “Yes, it was as pleasant as could be, considering the fact that he found me and not the other way around as the gunshots suggested.”

  “My son went missing.”

  “So you told them to shoot whomever happens to find him.”

  “No.”

  “Do you have so little faith in people?”

  “From the reports, things didn’t exactly seem right.”

  Lara looked down, glaring at the table. “That wasn’t my fault.”

  “What wasn’t?” When she didn’t answer, he explored her options. “I was torn between the incapacitated soldier, or the crying child.” 

  She ground her teeth. “Listen, I didn’t,” she refrained from using the wrong word, and settled on something somewhat accurate. “I didn’t expect to meet you here. I don’t,” she stuttered. “I don’t even know what you’re doing here.”

  Jonathan’s irritation tainted the air. “How long have you been here?”

  “A few hours.”

  He rapped his knuckles against the table, watching them impatiently before continuing. “You’re here a few hours and my son happens to find you.”

  “Yes.”

  “After he’s been missing for a few hours.”

  Lara’s eyes met his. “I didn’t know that.” 

  “When I couldn’t.” he cut off. 

  Lara glanced at him. “Now I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  He swallowed, stony. “What’re you doing here?”

  Her lids flickered. “I don’t know.”

  Jonathan let out a tense chuckle. “Haven’t changed much.”

  “I would like to say the same.” She lied, playing on a thought she faintly recalled. 

  “And that’s what makes it so hard to believe. How aren’t you dead?”

  The air hung with the blunt trauma of his words.

  She didn’t realize the touch of cold that’d encased her eyes. She refrained from blinking, lest she give away the fact that she didn’t know, either.

  “I’m sorry,” Jonathan said, attempting to backtrack on the severity of his words. 

  Lara’s eyes sank to the table, in search of answers.

  “Best you can do?” Lara asked, feeling herself losing control of her reserve. “I should be dead but you shouldn’t?” She added, more quietly than she’d hoped. “It’s been so long I don’t even remember you.”

  “I saw it. I watched it happen.” The existence of some underlying emotion betrayed itself through the forced restraint in Jonathan’s voice as he tried to appeal to her. “You don’t know what that did to--” He cut off, rolling his jaw. 

  Lara clenched her teeth, willing herself to ignore the knot she felt growing in her throat as the pause serviced his recomposure. “What are you talking about?”

  “I see you’re still difficult. But, honestly, I didn’t believe there was any way you could’ve made it.” He added, “Out of the bombings.” 

  When she gave him a quizzical look, he glanced at the wall beside them, seemingly blinking away the glaze coating his eyes. It was the same location where she’d originally felt someone’s watch. 

  Despite her venom, Lara’s face softened in understanding, swallowing her retorts. He’d let go of his true inquisition at the cost of the reunion. The real conversation was over.

  “Coming from Whales in the midst of the chaos must’ve been hard,” Jonathan continued, more relaxed now that Lara was aware of their surveillance.

  After a brief deliberation, she sighed and played along. “A friend brought me.” She paused, deciding to reciprocate a kernel of truth in exchange for a bit of his honesty. “ I don’t really know -- remember -- much of what happened after the ‘bombings’.” The smell of the stake haunted her. “I think I was badly burned. ” 

  Prior to her encounter with Knox, those brief gaps of reality had been her clearer companions. The interior of cabins and abandoned homes; the image of charred forests always accompanied by the echo of her screams. She drifted off to them, allowing herself to acknowledge the events for the first time since she’d regained full autonomy. 

  Jonathan watched her, treading lightly but still unwilling to abandon their progress. “You said someone took care of you; who was it?”

  “A friend.” 

  Auras.

  “Lili?”

  The name rattled her. Lara found her breathing harder to salvage from the shallows.

  “Nina?” His eyes bore into her. 

  “I don’t--” 

  “Where are the rest of the Ravenswoods?”

  A feeling crawled on her chest. 

  “What happened to your family? Are they with you?”

  Before Lara could respond, the door opened behind him.

  “I’m sorry, Director, but I’m going to have to step in from here,” the suit announced as he entered the room.

  Jonathan looked surprised by the intrusion. “You weren’t listed for administration today, Zanatos.” 

  Zanatos flashed a sharp-toothed smile. “The lab finally released a very riveting analysis of Ms. Ravenswood’s vitals,” he looked at her, triggering goosebumps on her skin. “I believe I can proceed with my new hire for the operations unit.” 

  “Really, now?” Jonathan stood and reached for the thick manila folder in Zanatos’ hand, but Zanatos obscured the file behind his own back. 

  “Oh, I couldn’t possibly pull you into more work. In fact, that is the other reason I have to assume administrative duties in your stead. Before all the chaos this evening, I believe Lady Julia was looking for you. For dinner.”

  Jonathan stiffened. 

  After a pause, he cleared his throat and buttoned his suit jacket. “Thank you, Zanatos.” He gestured toward Lara. “Please show Ms. Ravenswood to her room once this is complete.”

  “My room?” Lara burst as he headed for the door. 

  He glanced at her, but the coordinator spoke first. “An executive decision has been made to keep you in Freehelm until everything has been sorted out.”

  “What? By who?!” 

  Jonathan brushed his hair back with a hand and exited the interrogation room.

  Zanatos waited for the door to close behind him before he stepped closer, opting to stand rather than sit. Lara felt a strange kind of restraint.

  “Now, there, Ms. Ravenswood, there’s little need for anger. You will be free to leave if you’d like -- once you have completed this task.”

  “Task, what ‘task’?”

  “Special operations can mean any number of things here. However, particular projects require very particular candidates.” 

  Lara tried hard not to laugh, exacerbated by his explanation. “And that’s supposed to mean…?”

  “It’s pleasing to hear you so avid and willing.” He said, disregarding her tone, and placed the manilla folder in front of her.

  Lara flipped it open to reveal an initial page with bold-print. It was proceeded by only one sheet detailing specifics on what she assumed to be another building with maps and security statistics. On the bottom right hand corner was a diagram of a pocket watch, and mechanical information written to its left.

  “What does this have to do with me?” she asked as she finished reviewing its contents.

  “We need you to retrieve something.”

  Lara glanced at the page once more and eyed the illustrated watch. “This?” She asked, pointing at the pocket watch.

  Zanatos cocked his head to the side, responding with a lack of any discernible expression.

  She paused, glancing to the side of the room in thought and then back at him. “Then I can go? I can leave, if I do this?” 

  “Wonderful; you caught the gist in one try.”

  Lara propped her elbows on the table and rubbed her temples. Whatever she’d anticipated -- whatever she’d felt any excitement for -- had so quickly been distorted. Remaining confined within the same building as Jonathan with a  jumble of memories and torrential emotions was scarcely appealing. 

  “Shall I show you back to your room, instead?”

  “No,” she sighed, standing. “Just tell me what to do.” 

  The corners of Zanatos’ lips stretched across his face as he shut the folder. He walked to the door, motioning for her to follow. “Then let’s do our best to prepare you.”

  “It’s a watch; I think I’ll be fine.”

  Zanatos chuckled. “Then I have full faith you’ll do swimmingly.”