Page 31 of Fractured Devotion (Tainted Souls #1)

It’s been a week since Alec and Reyes pulled me aside with the first whisper of evidence, something subtle but troubling buried in Echo’s backend systems. It started with minor data drift, things that could be chalked up to server lag or human error, but Alec is too meticulous to let it go.

And when he looped Reyes in, they found more, such as login timestamps during hours no one should be active and cross-linked command chains sent from terminals never assigned to active sessions.

It all circles one question. Who’s inside our system that shouldn’t be?

Lately, everything feels like a shifting mirage.

The stories, the suspicions, the whispered truths…

they’re constantly evolving, making it harder to trust anything or anyone.

I’ve been keeping my distance from Kade, holding him at arm’s length with every excuse I can muster.

But that space is starting to wear thin.

Without solid proof to tether these suspicions, I’m not sure how much longer I can keep pretending I don’t want answers, or him.

I meet Alec and Reyes in Reyes’ office after hours.

The windows are blacked out, a pot of untouched coffee steaming between us.

Alec looks sharper than usual, tension tight across his shoulders.

Reyes flips through printed logs, his fingers slightly shaking as he slides the latest page in front of me.

“These entries here—” he points, “—they mimic the neural mapping update protocol. But they’re too frequent. And they’re not targeting inactive files. They’re overriding baseline sessions.”

My stomach knots. “You mean the live data?”

Alec nods. “Someone’s adjusting Echo’s calibration in real time by rewriting reaction thresholds and altering memory loop access triggers. It’s not massive yet, but the pattern is there.”

I sift through the papers, my eyes scanning the highlighted timestamps. There… an anomaly. At 3:17 a.m. Access granted under Harper’s terminal ID. Then again at 5:02 a.m., almost two hours later. Same ID and same function, but from a completely different network node.

“That’s not possible,” I whisper. “Harper wasn’t even in the building at that time.”

“She’s the only one whose credentials show up consistently in these logs,” Reyes adds, his voice low. “That’s why Alec came to me.”

I shake my head. “No. Harper’s paranoid and meticulous, but she wouldn’t risk this. She wouldn’t sabotage the system.”

Alec doesn’t say anything immediately. He slides a tablet across the desk. “These are the most recent logs I was able to extract,” he says. “I found a terminal echo in Lab C. It mimics Harper’s credential ID, but something’s off. The pattern is too precise to be a coincidence.”

The screen flickers as I tap through the feed. There it is again—Harper’s ID—tethered to an unauthorized dev protocol. Experimental. Dangerous. The kind of scripts that only core-level engineers should have access to.

“She’s either involved,” Alec mutters, “or being framed with remarkable precision.”

I study the logs and the echo commands. Some of it tracks back to a static IP embedded within the records vault. Reyes leans closer, his eyes narrowed. “That room’s been cold since last fall. Nobody should be using that network node.”

A chill rolls down my spine, and I frown. “You think someone’s rerouting through Harper’s ID from the vault?”

Alec nods once, slowly. “Or she’s more involved than we thought.”

There’s a beat of tense silence.

But my mind is already spinning. I’ve defended Harper and sworn by her caution. Her ethics. But this… it feels like betrayal. Or worse, like she’s slipping and becoming part of the shadows we’ve been chasing.

The meeting ends, tense and unresolved. I retreat to my office, needing some space to think. The scent of ink hits me as I close the door behind me. It’s familiar and grounding.

I sit and reach for my journal. It’s my tether to sanity, the only place I let the raw noise of my thoughts bleed without filter. But as I flip it open, a sharp dread coils in my stomach.

There, scrawled in the margin of the last page I touched are the words: Celestia remembers.

It’s not my handwriting. And not my ink.

Not my memory.

My breath hitches.

The name hits me like a static charge. It’s not a memory I recognize, but one that scratches at the walls of my mind.

I don’t know how it got there—on the page or in my thoughts—but it doesn’t belong.

I’ve never written it. Never even heard it spoken.

And yet, something about it feels… coded and intentional.

Like it was left for me to find. Or worse, like it leaked from a part of me that I no longer control.

I slam the journal shut.

My heart races.

Someone is messing with me and digging into my mind, or my space. Again.

And now, I don’t know if the enemy is hiding inside the system…

Or inside me.

Mara finds me a few minutes later, right as I’m trying to slow my breathing. Her knock is light, hesitant.

“Dr. Varon? You okay?”

I clear my throat before answering her. “Come in.”

She steps inside, clutching a tablet to her chest. There’s a nervous flicker in her gaze, something just shy of alarm. “Sorry to interrupt, but I thought you should see this.”

I take the tablet and scan the screen. It’s a flagged entry alert, a conflict in the neural recall buffer. The source ID? Mine. But it’s timestamped during the exact moment I was in Reyes’ office.

“Where did this come from?”

Mara swallows. “I was auditing the adaptive feedback logs and found the anomaly. It’s not just your ID. It’s like someone’s scripting your responses. A shadow input overriding your natural ones.”

“Show me.”

We walk to the system terminal near the diagnostics wing. Mara logs in, her fingers flying over the keys as she pulls up the layered script. And there it is, a ghost line, executing in parallel to mine.

“Could this be a mirrored construct?” I ask.

“Maybe,” she says. “But it’s too advanced. It’s anticipating before you input. It knows what you’re about to do.”

My skin crawls. This isn’t just surveillance.

It’s a rehearsal.

“Keep this between us,” I say in a hushed tone. “Don’t tell anyone. Not even Reyes.”

Mara hesitates, then nods. “Yes, Dr. Varon.”

I look at her one last time, trying to read her expression. There’s fear there. And something else. Something that feels like guilt. Or maybe I’m just starting to suspect everyone at this point.

I return to my office, my thoughts spiraling.

Whatever or whoever is watching me, it’s not just predicting.

It’s guiding.

My office feels colder now. The lights overhead buzz faintly, as though straining to stay awake.

I dim them with a flick on the wall pad, craving a softer ambiance.

Mara’s discovery is still scrolling through the terminal screen beside me, a trail of my thoughts apparently forecasted by someone else’s hand.

I sit, not at my desk, but on the floor with my back pressed against the cabinet and my knees pulled up. The place where I used to feel most in control is now the place I most suspect. I pull the journal from earlier into my lap and turn past the page that spooked me.

Another note, this one faint, is written in the lower margin of a past entry: The loop begins when the memory breaks.

I don’t remember writing that either, but it’s my handwriting. Almost.

A knock startles me.

“Mara?” I call out.

“No, it’s Alec.”

I hesitate, then I rise and move to unlock the door.

He walks in slowly, his eyes flicking to the darkness of the room. “You alright?”

I nod and lie, saying, “I just needed the lights low.”

He steps closer, holding out his phone. “Reyes asked me to show you this. It’s from earlier today.”

The video is grainy, pulled from a hallway camera near the East wing. It’s Harper. She’s standing at a junction console. But she’s not doing anything. She’s just standing. For ten minutes.

“Was she assigned to that wing?” I ask.

“No. Her schedule had her logging samples in Lab D. This is two floors off-path.”

“Did she access the system?”

“Not on record. But the terminal went live for seventy seconds while she was there.”

The unease crawling through my veins coils tighter.

“She could be spiraling,” Alec says gently. “Or compromised.”

“I always thought she was loyal, always eager to do more.”

He says nothing to that. I look up at him, finally meeting his eyes.

“I want to believe her,” I whisper. “But what if I’ve already been compromised?”

His jaw clenches. “Then we find out how. And we stop it.”

But in his eyes, I already see the fear. The one I’m starting to share.

That it’s not just Harper who’s been compromised.

It’s me.

By the time I leave the clinic, it’s past 9 p.m. The parking lot is mostly empty, lit only by a flickering overhead lamp that buzzes like a dying insect.

The air is colder than it should be for this time of year.

I pull my coat tighter around me and walk faster, my heels clicking on the concrete. I don’t look back.

I shouldn’t be walking out like this, not with everything circling the drain, but I can’t sit in that office one minute longer.

I can’t stand the press of recycled air and fluorescent light, or the thought that every surface might already be touched by someone else’s presence.

My backup apartment is only three floors up, but I haven’t been back to my main apartment in over a week, not since Kade subtly warned me to avoid it for a while.

I did trust him. Until now. And suddenly, I can’t stand the thought of being steered anymore.