The Burned File

The air in D.C. had a weight to it, thick with the scent of damp stone and diesel fuel. It was a city that thrived on deception, where power didn’t just shift. It was sculpted, bent, wielded. Jessica had spent years avoiding places like this. Now, she was walking straight into its heart.

The cab pulled up in front of the J. Edgar Hoover Building, its stark, Brutalist architecture looming like a concrete fortress. Jessica stared at it through the window, fingers tightening around the worn leather strap of her bag.

How many times had she imagined this moment?

Leanna and Olivia had already set off to navigate the bureaucratic maze of White House credentials, leaving Jessica with her own mission. One she wasn’t sure she had the stomach for.

She stepped out, paid the driver, and inhaled sharply. She stood at the base of the Hoover Building, the wind tugging at her coat, the memory of another life clawing at her spine. Every step inside felt like peeling back scar tissue. She had buried this part of herself. Now she was digging it up.

The FBI lobby was sterile, all glass and steel, the hum of voices and clicking heels filling the air. Security scanners loomed ahead, agents moving with the kind of efficiency that suggested control.

Jessica’s breath came slower, heavier, and then, the memories hit. She remembered the feeling of waking up in a body that wasn’t hers, disoriented, fractured. Becoming Jessica for the first time. The bonfire night, where she chose Leanna, Olivia, Hannah, and Kevin over everything else. A new family, a new life. The cold horror of the crypt in Sleepy Hollow, where Vanguard’s experiments had reached something monstrous. Ryan in the hospital, barely alive, slipping through her fingers. And finally, the moment she walked away, erasing herself to protect the people she loved.

It all led back to one man. Agent Samuel Richter. He had been the one to make her disappear. The one who had risked his career, his life, to help her vanish. Now, she was walking back into his world, throwing it all away.

She stepped toward the security checkpoint. A guard glanced at her ID. Fake name. Clean record. She had been erased well.

"Purpose of visit?"

She swallowed. "Meeting with Agent Samuel Richter. Tell him… tell him it's a matter of national security."

* * *

Richter’s office was in the back, away from the chaos of the field agents. The halls smelled of paper and burnt coffee, the same scent she remembered from years ago.

Richter was at his desk, mid-conversation with a junior agent, but the second he saw her, he stopped. His jaw tightened. His fingers curled slightly against the desk. Recognition. Shock. Maybe even anger.

The junior agent hesitated. “Sir?”

Richter exhaled sharply. “Give us the room.”

The agent left, shutting the door behind him.

Jessica stood still, watching Richter's expression shift from calculating to unreadable. He looked older, the kind of exhaustion that settled into a man’s bones.

Finally, he leaned back, studying her like an apparition.

"I burned your file," he said. "I watched them delete you. You don’t exist."

Jessica's voice was steady. "Then pretend I’m a ghost."

A beat. Richter let out a quiet, humorless laugh. "Jesus Christ. You have any idea how much I risked to get you out? And now you just walk back in?”

Jessica stepped forward, resting her hands on the chair across from him. “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t important.”

Richter exhaled through his nose. "It always is."

Jessica laid it out clean. No embellishments, no theatrics. The President. The shifts in speech. The Vanguard money trail. Richter listened, expression unreadable, until she finished. Then he leaned back in his chair, rubbing his temples.

"You hear yourself, right? You’re asking me to believe that the President of the United States has been…” He paused looking for the words, “what? Reprogrammed?"

Jessica met his gaze. “You helped me disappear because you believed me. Do you really think I’d risk everything if I wasn’t sure?”

Richter was silent. For a long time.

Then he exhaled. "I can't help you, Jessica."

She stiffened. “You can’t, or you won’t?”

"I can't because if this is real…really real…then the people behind it are untouchable. You don’t just pull a thread on something like this. If you pull that thread, Jess, you won’t find truth. You vanish."

Jessica’s jaw tightened. “I’m already erased.”

Richter studied her, then glanced at the door—thinking, calculating. Finally, he sighed.

"I won’t touch this officially." He reached into his desk, pulling out a slip of paper. "But I’ll give you a lead."

Jessica took the note. A single word.

Langley.

She frowned. "Who?"

Richter shook his head. "Not who. Where."

Jessica felt something cold settle in her stomach. Langley. CIA headquarters.

"You're saying this goes that high?"

Richter exhaled, rubbing his jaw. "I'm saying if you want answers, that's where you start. But getting to the right person? That’s a whole different game."

Jessica turned the slip of paper over in her fingers. She stared at the word. Not a name. A location. A warning. Langley wasn’t a lead, it was a threshold.