The storm outside raged into a blizzard.
Winds howled against the windows like something alive, clawing at the old mountain estate, demanding entry. Snow covered the world beyond, erasing roads and signals, blanketing the sky until the house felt suspended in a pocket of time.
Adelina sat on the edge of the hearth, watching the fire struggle to hold its shape. Flames licked the logs, flickering and uncertain, much like everything she felt.
Nathan sat on the floor across from her, arms resting on his knees, quiet. The candlelight cast long shadows over his face, softening the guilt that had become a permanent part of his expression.
The silence between them was not tense—just tired. Tired of lies. Tired of not knowing who she was. Tired of pretending that any of this still made sense.
She exhaled slowly. Her voice cracked the quiet.
"When did you first know?"
Nathan glanced up. "That you weren't her?"
She nodded.
He hesitated. Then: "After the accident. You were gone for days. When you woke up, your speech was different. You moved like you were trying on someone else's body. You looked at me like I was a stranger."
"I was a stranger," she said.
He tilted his head. "So you remember?"
She didn't answer immediately. Instead, she pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders. Then, finally:
"I'm not from here."
Nathan stilled.
"I'm not just an echo of Adeline. I'm not some programmed consciousness or fragment of a dead woman's grief." She looked him in the eye. "I came from somewhere else. Somewhere real. I had another life. Another body."
The fire cracked. The wind screamed outside.
"I don't know how it happened. One minute I was—there—and the next, I was here. In her skin. In this house. In a life that wasn't mine but somehow... was."
She expected disbelief. Denial. Laughter, maybe.
But Nathan just stared at her. Then, softly:
"I believe you."
Adelina blinked. "What?"
"I believe you," he repeated. "Because nothing else makes sense. You were her. And then you weren't. You looked like her, but something was missing. Or maybe... something new took root."
She swallowed the lump in her throat.
"I was terrified to tell you," she admitted. "I thought you'd hate me. Think I'd stolen her life."
He shook his head slowly. "You didn't steal anything. If anything, you saved her. Or what was left of her."
Tears welled in her eyes. She didn't let them fall.
"You're not a weapon, Adelina," Nathan said. "You're not a prototype. You're real. More real than any of us."
The words hit her deeper than she expected. Maybe because they were the ones she'd wanted someone—anyone—to say for so long.
She stood up suddenly. Began to pace, the storm echoing her restlessness.
"There are still things I don't remember. Sometimes I see flashes. A hospital. A car. I think I died. Or almost died. And that's when it happened."
Nathan rose, slowly, approaching her as if she were still fragile.
"But here you are," he said. "Breathing. Choosing."
She laughed once, hollow. "It doesn't feel like much of a choice."
"You could've given up," he said. "But you didn't. That's what makes you real to me. Not who you used to be. Who you are."
They were close now. Inches apart. The fire behind her, his warmth in front of her.
"I don't know what this is," she whispered. "Us. This moment. I don't know what's real anymore."
He reached out and brushed his fingers against her cheek, tentative. Like he was waiting for her to disappear.
"This is," he said. "Right now. This is real."
Her breath caught.
He didn't move until she did.
She leaned into him, her forehead resting against his chest. His arms came around her slowly, carefully, like he wasn't sure she'd let him stay.
But she did.
Because for once, she needed something solid. Something human.
His heartbeat was steady beneath her ear.
"Nathan," she said softly.
"Yes?"
"Do you ever wonder if we're already too far gone?"
He didn't answer right away. His chin rested lightly on her hair.
"I think we've already lost everything we thought we needed," he said. "But maybe that's the only way we find what we really want."
She pulled back just enough to look up at him. The storm howled louder now, shaking the windowpanes, but inside, everything was still.
He cupped her face.
She didn't stop him.
Their kiss was not soft. It wasn't hesitant or slow.
It was desperate.
It was human.
All the silence, all the fear, all the confusion burned away in the heat between them. It wasn't about clarity. It wasn't about fixing what had been broken. It was about needing something to hold onto before the world turned again.
They moved together like instinct, the way only two people who had shared a hundred kinds of pain could.
The firelight cast shadows as they stumbled toward the bedroom, still tangled, still burning.
Snow piled higher outside, and the wind drowned the rest of the world.
In the silence between breaths, she whispered, "If this is a lie, let it be the last one."
Nathan didn't answer.
But his touch said yes.
Hours later, the storm still hadn't stopped.
Adelina lay beside him, the blanket tangled around their legs, her heart slower now, but full of a thousand unspoken things.
Nathan's fingers traced lazy patterns along her arm.
She wanted to freeze this moment. Not because it was perfect. But because it was real.
She turned to him.
"You said you don't think I was ever your sister," she said. "Then what do you think I am?"
He looked at her. And for the first time, there was no filter.
"I think you're the only person who ever looked at me like I wasn't broken," he said. "Even when you were falling apart yourself."
Her throat tightened.
"And what are we now?" she asked.
Before he could answer, the emergency radio across the room crackled to life.
A voice. Garbled, but urgent.
"...Blackstone unit compromised... target located... repeat: reactivation protocol has begun..."
Adelina sat up.
"What does that mean?"
Nathan was already moving.
"Someone's coming," he said.
"For me?"
"No." He looked back at her, eyes dark. "For what's inside you."