Chapter 115 Chapter 115
The moment Cass stepped out of the administrative wing, the air outside felt wrong.
Not colder.
Not warmer.
Just… watched.
Like the building itself had changed its mind about her.
Lena caught up first, grabbing Cass lightly by the elbow.
“Okay,” she said under her breath, “you’re officially in ‘main character in a conspiracy movie’ territory now.”
Cass didn’t laugh.
Not even a little.
Jace came out last, shutting the door carefully behind them like it might hear too much if he slammed it.
His eyes were still different. Focused in a way that wasn’t comforting anymore.
It was alert.
Cass held the file tighter against her chest.
“I need to find him,” she said again.
Jace shook his head slightly. “You don’t even know where ‘him’ is.”
Cass looked at him.
“I know where he was kept hidden,” she said. “That’s enough to start.”
Lena exhaled. “That sounded terrifyingly confident.”
Cass finally looked at her.
“I don’t feel confident,” she said quietly. “I feel like I’ve been lied to my entire life and I just found the edge of the lie.”
That shut Lena up.
Even she didn’t have a joke for that.
They didn’t go back to class.
There was no point anymore.
The school felt less like a place to learn and more like a place pretending it didn’t know anything.
Cass walked through it like she didn’t belong to it anymore.
Because she didn’t.
People were still watching.
Still whispering.
But now it wasn’t just about her name.
It was about the shift.
Something had changed in how they looked at her.
That was worse.
Because it meant the story was no longer stable.
Outside the gates, Lena finally stopped walking.
“Okay,” she said, turning to Cass. “We need a plan before you spiral into investigative chaos again.”
Cass frowned slightly.
“I’m not spiraling.”
Lena raised an eyebrow.
“You broke into an admin wing.”
Cass paused.
“…Fair.”
Jace leaned slightly against the fence, watching the street like he was thinking three steps ahead of everything.
“We need access to older records,” he said quietly.
Lena blinked. “We just did that.”
“Not school records,” Jace corrected. “Private ones.”
Cass looked up at him.
“You mean the people who erased him.”
Jace nodded once.
“Yes.”
Silence.
That was the real problem now.
Because they weren’t dealing with gossip or memory gaps anymore.
They were dealing with intent.
Cass shifted the file in her hands again.
The name sat in her mind now like it belonged there.
Adrian.
Not just a stranger.
Not just a missing piece.
A locked door inside her own past.
“I think I know where to start,” she said suddenly.
Lena frowned. “No, you don’t—”
Cass turned slightly.
“My mom.”
That stopped both of them.
Jace straightened.
Cass continued before either of them could interrupt.
“She was there,” Cass said quietly. “The man said it. She came after. She helped decide what got buried.”
Lena looked uneasy now.
“Cass… going to your mom with this is like walking into a fire with questions.”
“I know,” Cass said.
But she didn’t stop.
“That’s why she’s the only one who might still know where he is.”
Jace didn’t argue immediately.
That silence again.
The one that meant he was calculating consequences.
Then—
“I’m coming with you,” he said.
Lena immediately pointed at herself. “Obviously I’m coming too. I don’t trust either of you alone in emotional explosion situations.”
Cass almost smiled again.
Almost.
“Then we go now,” she said.
The house felt different when Cass stepped inside.
Just familiar in a way that suddenly felt suspicious.
Her mother was in the kitchen.
Cooking something she didn’t look up from right away.
“Cass?” she called. “You’re home early.”
Cass didn’t answer immediately.
Jace stayed near the doorway.
Lena stayed slightly behind Cass.
Cass walked in slowly.
“I need to talk to you,” she said.
Her mother finally looked up.
And something shifted in her expression the second she saw Cass’s face.
Not confusion.
Recognition.
Like she already knew.
Cass noticed that.
Her chest tightened slightly.
“About what?” her mother asked carefully.
Cass placed the file on the table.
Just like that.
No buildup.
No easing into it.
Straight down.
“I found Adrian,” Cass said.
Her mother froze.
Just for a second.
But Cass saw it.
Lena saw it too.
Jace did as well.
That flicker.
That reaction before control came back.
Cass stepped closer.
“You knew,” she said quietly.
Her mother didn’t answer right away.
Then—
“Cass…”
That tone.
Careful.
Measured.
Dangerous.
Cass shook her head slightly.
“No,” she said. “Don’t do that. Don’t start managing the conversation. I’m not a child anymore.”
That landed hard.
Her mother set the spoon down slowly.
And for the first time—
her calm cracked.
Not fully.
But enough.
“You shouldn’t be looking into this,” she said.
Cass let out a breath.
“So it’s real.”
Silence again.
Jace stepped forward slightly now.
“Where is he?” he asked.
Her mother looked at him.
Then back at Cass.
And something in her expression softened in a way that didn’t feel comforting.
It felt heavy.
“I don’t know where he is now,” she admitted quietly.
Cass frowned. “Now?”
Her mother hesitated.
Then—
“He left after everything was contained.”
Lena frowned. “Contained?”
Cass’s voice dropped.
“You mean erased.”
Her mother didn’t correct her.
That was answer enough.
Cass stepped back slowly.
“So you protected me from him,” she said quietly. “Or from knowing about him.”
Her mother nodded once.
“Yes.”
Cass’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“Why?”
Silence.
Longer this time.
Then her mother finally said it.
“Because he asked me to.”
That stopped everything.
Even Jace.
Cass blinked slowly.
“What?”
Her mother looked at her fully now.
“And because I agreed.”
The room felt like it shifted.
Cass’s voice came out barely above a whisper.
“So I wasn’t just hidden from him…”
Her mother nodded.
“You were protected from him knowing you existed in a way that would put you back in the system.”
Lena frowned. “That doesn’t make sense.”
Her mother looked at her briefly.
“It does if you understand what Adrian actually was.”
Cass felt her stomach tighten.
“What was he?” she asked.
Her mother’s eyes stayed on her.
And then she said it.
Just final.
“A keeper of the original structure.”
Silence.
Cass’s breath caught.
“Structure of what?” Jace asked.
Her mother looked at all of them.
“Of everything you’ve been trying to uncover.”
A pause.
Then—
“And if he’s being found again…”
She exhaled slowly.
“Then the structure is breaking.”
Cass stood very still.
Because suddenly everything made sense in a way that felt worse than confusion.
They weren’t just uncovering a secret.
They were destabilizing something that had been holding for years.
And Adrian wasn’t just missing.
He was the part that kept it from collapsing completely.
Cass whispered—
“So finding him…”
Her mother nodded slowly.
“…doesn’t end this,” she finished.
“It starts it”