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Her blind eyes blinked open, but there was only darkness. “Noah?” Her voice was hoarse, uncertain.

“I’m here,” he said softly.

She swallowed, her brows knitting together. “You’re always here.”

Noah let out a short breath, something like a laugh, but not quite. “Where else would I be?”

Her lips parted slightly. “I don’t know.” But this time, she felt more aware, her mind working through the haze.

The sound of footsteps. A presence approaching.Paul.

“Good. You’re awake.”

She licked her lips, her throat dry, aching. “I feel… a little better. I’m thirsty.”

“That’s because we figured out what was wrong,” Paul said.

Ruth frowned slightly. “What was wrong?”

Noah’s grip tightened. “You were poisoned.”

She froze. A beat of silence. “Poisoned?” Her own voice sounded foreign to her ears.

Paul’s voice came next, steady, clinical. “An anticoagulant. It was in your system for days. It’s why you kept getting worse.”

Her fingers twitched, and the world around her blurred further. The words pressed into her skull, sinking too deep, too heavy. She tried to think—tried to reach back through the shattered pieces of her memory. Something surfaced. A sharp inhale.

Noah immediately stiffened. “Rae? Here, take a sip.”

A straw pressed against her lips. She took a slow sip, the cool water easing her throat, but her mind wasn’t on that. She pressed a weak hand against her temple, wincing. “I… I think I remember something.”

Noah froze.

Paul’s voice was careful. “Take it slow.”

She exhaled shakily. “At my office, before the explosion. I don’t remember all of it, but… I think I found something I wasn’t supposed to.”

Noah’s voice remained calm, but she felt the tension in his grip. “What did you find?”

Her chest rose and fell too fast, her breath uneven. “I don’t know exactly… but I remember a little yellow envelope. A name.”

Paul and Noah must have exchanged a look. She felt it.

Paul’s voice. “What name?”

The memory drifted in, slippery but real. Her lips parted. “Verdant Horizons Accounts.” She shuddered.

Noah exhaled. “Where did you see it?”

Paul sat beside her as her breathing hitched, her pulse pounding too fast. Her fingers trembled, and the cup in her grasp tilted. Noah caught it before she dropped it.

“Noah…” Her voice cracked.

“I’m here, Rae. You’re safe. It’s just Paul and me.”

The images flashed through her mind—fragments, broken pieces of something bigger.

She and Noah were leaving. She had bent down… to get her boots. And then?—