OPERATION WINTERSPINE (Strings Between Us Book 2)

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: OF FIREWALLS, GHOST NAMES, AND THE BOY WE TRIED TO UNMAKE

Alexie's eyes widened. "What?"

Dad walked to the center of the room, the old rebel now giving testimony to a younger court.

"Amara, already planning her escape with Caelum, sent out a code through a channel she knew Dana used before vanishing. It was a gamble—but Dana didn't answer. I did."

We all looked at Dad.

"You might ask why? Because I had been monitoring Halcyon's splinter data for years together with Lazaro. And Alexie's parents were working undercover at Halcyon Pact that time. They helped with their escape. Signal loop diversion. Surveillance invisibility field. Cloaked corridor constructions."

And then he added. "They called. Not because of guilt. But because they were desperate. And I... I'd seen what the Pact did to kids."

He paused. Then added, softer:

"And I saw something in that boy worth saving."

New identities. Legal cloaks.

Amara Lucille Villarico-Dela Vega.

Caleum Dominic Dela Vega.

Khaizer Dylan Dela Vega.

"All of it," Dad finished, "was built to erase the past. To give him a future."

But some things... can't be erased. The projector dimmed. Stillness returned like a scream in the chest.

And in that breathless quiet, Mom whispered:

"No child should've been born a weapon, but he was."

I stood there, unmoving.

KD wasn't here. But his ghost was. His data. His silence. His eyes that always understood too much for someone who never got to ask why.

Dad stepped back, letting the silence fall like an unfinished sentence. We all just stood there—so many pieces, and none of us were ready to pick them up yet.

Then Lyle spoke. His voice was low. Careful. "Does he know?"

We all turned to him.

Dad shook his head. "Nope. Khaizer doesn't remember any of it."

My stomach twisted. "What do you mean?"

Mom answered this time, her voice steady, but heavy.

"The mind protects itself, Riyee. Especially in children. When the trauma is relentless—manufactured like it was for him—the brain doesn't store events as memory. It stores them as danger. Fragmented, sealed off. Sometimes forever."

Dad added, "In his case, it's dissociative trauma shielding. The Halcyon program forced his brain to adapt. So it did. It disconnected. Buried everything too painful to carry."

I felt something cold crawl up my spine.

"Then everything he knows... his past, his family—?"

Dad looked straight at me. "The Dela Vega name, the memories after the escape—those are real. But the rest? The labs, the conditioning, the life he never got to choose, their escape?"

He shook his head again.

"Gone. Or locked so deep he doesn't even feel the absence."

The room was still. Too still.

"Cassiel and Celia, helped with cloaking them. Their whereabouts. Their identities. The Dela Vega Medical Center. Khaizer Dylan's status in Supreme Allievo." Mom paused. "But if the Pact found him, it means the cloaked they set is fracturing."

Then Dad said something that cracked it open.

"You've all met him before."

We turned.

He was staring not at the Court—but at me.

"You met him, Arielle. Long before he was ever called Khaizer Dylan."

I couldn't breathe.

"What?"

Dad's voice was low now. Gentle.

"You wouldn't have known. None of you could. He was just a quiet boy then. Sharp. Polite. Always watching—but never speaking unless prompted."

He stepped closer, eyes never leaving mine.

"You knew him as Vincel. You called him Kian. You were both too young to remember clearly. It was before the records were sealed. A rare moment between transfers. I didn't think it would matter—until now."

The name hit like a bell struck underwater.

I saw it.

A boy with light hazel eyes. Standing beside his mother. Always quiet. Always alone. Too quiet for his age. Too composed for his smile. He smelled like soap and clean linen. Said please every time. And always blinked too slowly, like he was still calibrating what people meant

A boy I had played with once. Just once.

And never saw again.

And in that second, everything inside me—the grief, the anger, the love I didn't know how to name—collapsed into a single breath I couldn't take