Ghost Protocols

The safe house was a low-rent apartment in a neighborhood where no one asked questions. A single light flickered above the peeling wooden door as Olivia pulled the SUV into the narrow alley beside it. Jessica and Leanna helped Sam out of the backseat, guiding him through the entrance while Olivia did one last check of the street before slipping inside and locking the door behind her.

Sam winced as he lowered himself onto the worn-out couch. Leanna immediately knelt in front of him, pulling antiseptic wipes from her bag. "You should see a doctor."

"I’ll live," Sam muttered, waving her off despite the obvious pain. "Hospitals ask too many questions and give too few answers."

Jessica sat down on the armrest, arms folded, her mind still racing. "We need to work fast. If Elias Raines is walking around, then someone’s resurrecting old ghosts—and not just his."

Olivia opened her laptop, already typing. "I checked the usual channels before we left the cabin. No public records on Raines for years. As far as the world’s concerned, he’s still dead."

"So why reveal himself now?" Leanna asked. "Why show his face at the cabin?"

Jessica exhaled slowly. "Because Vanguard doesn’t want us dead. Yet."

Sam scoffed. "And that should make us feel better?"

Leanna finished cleaning his wound and sat back. "No. It means they still need us for something."

Jessica turned to Olivia. "What about Camille’s flagged medical records? Any updates?"

Olivia shook her head. “I started scraping the surface on Camille’s file before the cabin. Picked up where I left off. So far, Everything about her past is buried under restricted access. But I traced her connections. She was a patient at a high-end private clinic a few years ago—one with ties to Vanguard’s medical subsidiary."

Jessica straightened. "And Esparza’s bank?"

"The usual Vanguard cocktail. Shell companies stacked like Russian dolls. Every one of them leads back to biotech. It’s a spiderweb." Olivia turned her screen around to show them a growing map of connections. "And there’s something else. The money moved in cycles, but there’s a spike in activity every few years—just before documented disappearances."

Leanna’s voice lowered. “What kind of disappearances?”

"People. Off the grid. No records, no social security, nothing. They don’t just vanish—they’re erased. And Camille was about to be one of them."

Jessica leaned forward, her mind piecing things together. Jessica stared at the map, the weight of it pressing down on her. “Raines showing up wasn’t just intimidation. It was for observation. Vanguard’s watching to see how fast we connect the dots.”

Sam exhaled. "So what do we do now?"

Jessica’s eyes darkened. "We go deeper. We stop reacting and start hunting."

A tense silence settled over the room. Olivia shut her laptop. "Then we better be ready. Because if we start hunting Vanguard… they’ll start hunting us back."

Jessica nodded, her voice steely. "Then let’s make sure we hit first."

---

Later that night, as the others slept, Jessica sat in the dimly lit kitchen, methodically cleaning her sidearm. The smell of gun oil grounded her more than any breath ever had. The smooth weight of the old Model 1911 in her hands was one of the few things that still gave her a sense of control. Each motion was precise, a habit burned into muscle memory.

"Didn’t peg you for an antique collector," Sam's voice broke the silence. He leaned against the counter, his movements slow, clearly still in pain.

Jessica smirked faintly, not looking up. "Magnum PI used one. I always liked that show. The memories might not be mine, but I have them."

Sam studied her carefully. "That what’s eating you? The past?"

She hesitated before responding. "It’s never just one thing. Every time I think I have answers, more questions show up. And now Raines… Vanguard… It’s like they’ve been controlling everything from the start. How much of me is real? How much was engineered?"

Sam exhaled, moving closer and easing himself into the chair across from her. "You ever read Nietzsche? He said it best—'Become who you are.' Doesn’t matter how you got here. What matters is who you are now. And from where I’m sitting, you’re a hell of a lot more real than the people trying to erase you."

Jessica’s fingers paused over the gun’s slide, gripping it a little tighter. "I want to believe that."

Sam smirked. "Then believe it. You’ve got people who would follow you through hell, Jess. Maybe it's time you started trusting yourself the way they trust you."

For the first time that night, Jessica let out a small breath of laughter. "Philosopher cop. That’s new."

Sam winced as he leaned back. "Stick around, I’ve got layers."

Jessica shook her head with a smirk, reassembling her weapon with practiced ease. Maybe Sam was right. Maybe it didn’t matter how she started—only where she was going.