THE NIGHT WE BURIED THE PAST BENEATH THE FLOORBOARDS OF OAK STREET

The cold plastic zip-ties clicked tightly around Clara’s wrists, biting into her skin as the two police officers hauled her roughly to her feet. She didn't resist. Her body felt entirely hollow, drained of every ounce of fight she had possessed throughout the chaotic afternoon.

Across the lawn, she watched through a haze of smoke as Elena walked down the sidewalk, her dark leggings and light blue t-shirt caked in gray soot. Elena didn't look back once. She merged into the crowd of onlookers and emergency workers, disappearing down Oak Street just as the first heavy raindrops began to fall from the darkening sky.

Agent Vance walked over, sliding his radio back onto his belt as he observed Clara in custody. "Transport vehicle is on the way. You held out longer than most, Clara. I'll give you that."

"Is Arthur in custody?" Clara asked, her voice flat and lifeless.

"Arthur tried to slip out through the back alley while the gas line blew," Vance replied with a faint, grim smirk. "He didn't make it past the second tree. A falling beam caught him right across the shoulder. He's heading to the county hospital under armed guard, and his lawyers won't be able to save him this time."

Clara nodded slowly, letting out a long, shuddering breath. The rain picked up intensity, washing the streaks of soot and dirt from her face, soaking the thick wool of her green cardigan until it weighed her down like lead. She looked around at the burning ruins of the house—the house where her grandfather had buried secrets that should have stayed dead, the house where she had tried and failed to rewrite her family's legacy.

She had survived the fire. She had destroyed the server. But in doing so, she had lost everything that actually mattered.

"Let's go," Clara whispered to the officers, turning away from the wreckage without a single backward glance.

As they led her toward the unmarked federal van waiting at the curb, a small, crushed piece of paper fluttered out of her front pocket, carried away by the wind and the falling rain. It was a torn photograph of her and Elena smiling on that very same front lawn, taken just three years prior, before any of the darkness had surfaced.