Her name, for the record that day, was Mara Vance.
It wasn’t the name she had been born with, and it wasn’t the name that had once echoed through encrypted radios in places most of the people in that room would never dare to go. But it was the only name she had used in the past four years, the only identity she had allowed herself to keep.
For four years, she had been invisible.
She had lived in a small coastal town in Oregon, working early shifts at a bait and tackle shop where fishermen came in before sunrise, their voices low and practical, their concerns limited to tides and weather patterns. No one asked about her past. People in places like that rarely did. They accepted what they saw and left the rest alone.
It had been enough. Not perfect, not peaceful in the way people liked to romanticize, but quiet. Manageable. The kind of life you build when you’re trying not to remember who you used to be.
And then the summons had arrived.
