Through the Gate

The wind moved softly through the empty Madrid street, carrying the scent of stone and rain. Jessica stood between Leanna and Olivia, the warmth of their presence grounding her in a way she hadn’t realized she needed.

For a long moment, none of them spoke.

Then, Leanna let out a sharp exhale, crossing her arms. “So.”

Jessica tilted her head. “So.”

Olivia leaned against the railing of the bridge, her eyes scanning Jessica’s face, reading the weight that still lingered in her expression. “You’re different,” she murmured.

Jessica smirked faintly. “You say that like I haven’t been different a hundred times before.”

Olivia didn’t return the smirk. “No,” she said. “Not like this.”

Jessica swallowed, looking down at her hands.

Because Olivia was right. She had changed. Not because she had remembered. Not because she had survived. But because she had chosen.

For centuries, for lifetimes, the vessels before her had stood at the same threshold and made the same decision, to erase, to forget, to start over.

But she had stood at the precipice. And instead of turning back, she had walked forward. She had walked through the gate. She remembered the story, buried somewhere in the pages of Kafka, in the spaces between his words. A man comes to a great gate. Beyond it lies the truth. He waits. For years, he waits, begging the gatekeeper to let him pass.

But the gatekeeper tells him not yet. So the man stays. He grows old. Weak. Until, at last, with his final breath, he asks—

“If this gate was meant for me, why has no one else tried to pass?”

And the gatekeeper looks at him.

“Because this gate was only ever meant for you.”

Then, the man dies. And the gate closes forever.

Jessica exhaled.

She had always thought the story was about being denied the truth. But now, she understood it differently. The man had been waiting for permission to pass. But the gatekeeper never actually stopped him. He just let him wait. And the man, trapped by his own hesitation, had let the moment slip away.

Jessica lifted her gaze. She wasn’t going to wait anymore. She had already stepped through. Now, she wasn’t asking what it meant. She was asking what came next.

* * *

Leanna studied her carefully. “What now?”

Jessica let the words settle. For years, that question had been a burden, a weight pressing against her ribs, pulling her toward paths she hadn’t chosen. But now? Now, the question felt lighter. Because she had the answer.

She gave a slow smile, tilting her head toward the street ahead of them. “Now,” she murmured, “we go get a drink.”

Leanna blinked. “That’s it?”

Jessica shrugged. “For tonight, yeah.”

Olivia chuckled, shaking her head. “You’re impossible.”

Jessica grinned. “I try.”

Leanna sighed, but there was something lighter in her expression now. “Fine. But you’re buying.”

Jessica smirked, stepping forward, the rhythm of her boots steady against the pavement. “Deal.”

She didn’t look back. She had already walked through the gate. And now? She was going to keep walking.

End of Volume 11

Jessica Sanchez will return inThe Dominion Protocol Volume 12: Forgotten stories