Chapter 6
I read Patricia’s note three times.
If it is Elena Vance, do not let her leave Camp Vora with Ava.
My name.
Ava’s name.
Written together before I even knew she existed.
Patricia had known I was coming.
Or she had suspected.
Either way, she was ready to bury another Vance.
I handed the note to Agent Morrison from CID.
“Find who warned them.”
He nodded.
“We’re working on it.”
“No,” I said. “Work faster.”
Ava slept badly that night.
Every hour, she woke and checked the door.
Aunt June stayed in the chair beside her bed.
I stayed outside in the hall.
At dawn, Ava opened the door.
“You’re still here.”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t sleep.”
“Neither did you.”
She looked embarrassed.
“I keep thinking they’ll take me back.”
I softened.
“They won’t.”
“That’s what people say before doors lock.”
I had no answer that would erase six months in a chapel basement.
So I gave her truth.
“I cannot make your body believe me in one day. But I can keep showing up until it starts to.”
She looked at me for a long moment.
Then stepped into the hallway and sat beside me.
“My dad called you Elle?”
I smiled despite the ache.
“Yes.”
“Can I?”
My throat closed.
“If you want.”
“Elle,” she whispered, testing it.
My eyes burned.
“Yes?”
She leaned her head against the wall.
“I’m scared.”
“I know.”
“I’m mad too.”
“Good.”
She looked at me.
“Good?”
“Anger means some part of you knows you did not deserve this.”
Her mouth trembled.
“I didn’t.”
“No, Ava. You didn’t.”
The leak came from Harris’s office.
Not Harris.
His aide.
Captain Nolan Pierce.
Pierce had access to my cover transfer paperwork.
His wife worked for Patricia’s foundation.
The moment investigators questioned him, he folded.
He said Patricia paid medical bills for his newborn son.
He said Sterling told him I was dangerous.
He said he only confirmed my arrival date.
Only.
That word ruins lives.
Sterling used the warning to prepare planted evidence in my temporary quarters.
A packet of cash.
A false report claiming I threatened him.
A burner phone with messages supposedly from me to Ava.
But after the mess hall incident, MPs sealed my room before Sterling’s people could finish staging it.
Fear makes people sloppy.
That afternoon, prosecutors charged Sterling and Patricia with conspiracy, fraud, assault, unlawful confinement, obstruction, and crimes tied to Aaron’s death.
Harris was placed under review for failure of oversight.
He accepted it.
“I should have known,” he told me.
I was too tired to soften the truth.
“Yes.”
He nodded.
“I’ll testify.”
“Good.”
Private Miller’s mother arrived two days later for medical treatment arranged through emergency victim assistance.
When she saw Leo, she held his face in both hands and cried over every bruise.
He kept saying, “I’m okay, Mom.”
She kept saying, “You don’t have to be okay for me.”
Ava watched from the doorway.
I saw the hunger in her face.
Not jealousy.
Grief.
Her mother was gone.
Her father was gone.
Patricia had turned guardianship into captivity.
Aunt June noticed too.
She walked over and placed a hand near Ava’s shoulder, not touching.
“Want to help me make tea?”
Ava nodded.
They moved together slowly.
Family beginning without pressure.
That evening, Brenda gave me a flash drive.
“I copied cafeteria footage for months,” she said.
I stared at her.
“You had cameras?”
“Kitchen safety cameras. Sterling forgot civilians can be nosy.”
I almost smiled.
“Brenda.”
“He hit boys in my mess hall,” she said. “Girls too. I didn’t know how to stop him. So I saved what I could.”
The footage showed patterns.
Sterling cornering soldiers.
Sterling collecting envelopes.
Sterling shoving a recruit against a freezer.
Patricia entering after hours.
Ava being led through the kitchen once, hood up, head down.
Brenda paused that clip.
“I thought she was his niece visiting. She looked so scared.”
Ava watched from behind us.
“That was after I tried to mail a letter.”
Brenda turned, horrified.
“Oh, honey.”
Ava shrugged like it did not matter.
It mattered.
It all mattered.
The trial prep began before the base had time to breathe.
Soldiers came forward in groups now.
One statement became five.
Five became twenty.
Hayes gave names.
Brenda gave video.
Miller gave receipts.
Ava gave the basement.
I gave the mess hall assault and Aaron’s drive.
Sterling had built his kingdom on silence.
Once silence broke, it broke loudly.
But Patricia still had one weapon.
Public pity.
Her attorney leaked a story claiming Ava had been “sheltered due to self-harm risk” and that I had exploited a vulnerable teen to avenge my brother.
Ava saw the headline.
Her face went blank.
I found her outside the medical center, arms wrapped around herself.
“Do people believe it?” she asked.
“Some will.”
She nodded.
“Because it’s easier?”
“Yes.”
She looked at me.
“What do we do?”
I expected fear.
Instead, I saw my brother’s stubbornness.
“We tell the truth,” I said.
“All of it?”
“As much as you choose.”
May you like
She took a breath.
“I want them to see the door.”
