Book 1 - The Boy in the Yearbook: The Photograph - Chapter 18 - His Name

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The yearbook remained open on the table.

Nobody moved.

Nobody spoke.

The message stared back at them.

MIDNIGHT. EAST WING. COME ALONE, CLARA.

Then the final sentence beneath it appeared.

OR ELLIOT DIES AGAIN.

Clara felt the blood drain from her face.

Noah: "You're not going."

Clara: "I have to."

Noah: "No, you don't."

Clara: "If Elliot is alive—"

Adrian: "That's exactly why it's a trap."

Clara looked at him.

Clara: "What if it isn't?"

Adrian didn't answer.

Maya closed the yearbook.

Maya: "Then we find another way."

Professor Ashcroft stood silently near the window.

Clara turned toward her.

Clara: "You know where the east wing door is."

Evelyn nodded.

Clara: "And you know what happened to Elliot."

Evelyn's eyes filled with regret.

Evelyn: "I know what happened the night he disappeared."

Clara stepped closer.

Clara: "Then tell me."

Evelyn looked at the other five.

Evelyn: "All of you need to hear this."

She took a breath.

Evelyn: "Thirty-nine years ago, Elliot Ashford discovered the Blackwood Archive."

Maya nodded.

Maya: "We know."

Evelyn: "No. You know the archive existed."

She looked at Clara.

Evelyn: "You don't know what Elliot found inside it."

Clara waited.

Evelyn: "A list."

Noah: "A list of students?"

Evelyn: "No."

She shook her head.

Evelyn: "A list of identities."

Adrian frowned.

Adrian: "What does that mean?"

Evelyn walked to the table.

Evelyn: "The school had been collecting information on certain families for generations."

She pointed to the names they had already seen.

Evelyn: "Blackwood. Bennett. Vale. Torres. Ashcroft."

Then she paused.

Evelyn: "And Ashford."

Clara stared at her.

Clara: "Elliot's family."

Evelyn: "Yes."

Maya's eyes narrowed.

Maya: "Why?"

Evelyn didn't answer immediately.

Instead, she opened the yearbook again.

She turned to Elliot's photograph.

Then she removed it.

Behind the photograph was another page.

A hidden page.

Clara leaned closer.

Six names were written across it.

EVELYN ASHCROFT.

VIVIAN VALE.

CHARLES BLACKWOOD.

JAMES BLACKWOOD.

WILLIAM HAWTHORNE.

And—

The sixth name had been scratched away.

Clara touched the empty space.

Clara: "Elliot."

Evelyn shook her head.

Evelyn: "No."

Clara looked up.

Clara: "Then who?"

Evelyn's voice trembled.

Evelyn: "That's what Elliot spent his entire life trying to discover."

Adrian stared at the page.

Adrian: "What was the sixth person?"

Evelyn whispered:

Evelyn: "The original Subject 006."

Clara's heart pounded.

Clara: "Me."

Evelyn: "No."

Clara froze.

Evelyn: "You inherited the designation."

Silence.

Maya: "Inherited?"

Evelyn nodded.

Evelyn: "Subject 006 was never a person."

Noah frowned.

Noah: "Then what was it?"

Evelyn looked at Clara.

Evelyn: "A bloodline."

Clara felt dizzy.

Clara: "My bloodline?"

Evelyn: "Your mother's."

Clara shook her head.

Clara: "Why?"

Evelyn reached into her coat.

She removed an old envelope.

The paper was yellow with age.

Evelyn: "Because Elizabeth wasn't born a Blackwood."

Clara stared.

Clara: "What?"

Adrian stepped forward.

Adrian: "Then who was she?"

Evelyn handed Clara the envelope.

Inside was an old birth record.

Clara read the name.

Her eyes widened.

Clara: "Elizabeth Ashford."

Nobody moved.

Maya whispered:

Maya: "She was Elliot's sister."

Clara looked at Evelyn.

Clara: "Elliot was my uncle?"

Evelyn nodded.

Evelyn: "Your mother's older brother."

Clara's hands began shaking.

Everything changed.

The photographs.

The protection.

The memories.

The way Elliot had looked at her.

The way he'd written her name.

The way he'd disappeared.

He hadn't been a stranger.

He had been family.

Clara: "My mother never told me."

Evelyn: "She was afraid."

Clara: "Of what?"

Evelyn looked toward the east wing.

Evelyn: "Of what your family carried."

Clara stared at the birth certificate.

Clara: "What did my family carry?"

Evelyn's expression became grim.

Evelyn: "The key."

Midnight was approaching.

The six of them stood outside the east wing.

The old corridor was colder than the rest of the school.

The walls were covered in faded portraits.

Clara recognized several faces.

People connected to the five families.

Generations of them.

At the end of the hallway stood a black wooden door.

There was no handle.

Only a small silver symbol.

The same symbol from Evelyn's pendant.

Noah: "How do we open it?"

Evelyn looked at Clara.

Evelyn: "You do."

Clara stepped forward.

She placed her hand against the symbol.

Nothing happened.

Then—

A click.

The door opened.

Everyone stared.

Beyond it was a small room.

At the center stood a desk.

On the desk was a tape recorder.

And beside it—

the missing yearbook.

Clara walked toward it.

A cassette was already inside the recorder.

A handwritten label read:

FOR CLARA.

She pressed play.

Static filled the room.

Then a man's voice.

Older.

Tired.

But unmistakable.

Clara stopped breathing.

Elliot: "If you're hearing this, Clara, then you found the door."

Her eyes filled with tears.

Elliot: "I'm sorry."

Clara covered her mouth.

Elliot: "I'm sorry for leaving you."

Adrian looked at her.

Elliot continued.

Elliot: "And I'm sorry they made you forget me."

Clara closed her eyes.

Elliot: "But there's something you need to understand."

The tape crackled.

Elliot: "I didn't disappear."

A pause.

Elliot: "I was erased."

Maya looked at Evelyn.

Elliot: "The people who controlled the school didn't want anyone knowing I existed."

The tape continued.

Elliot: "Because I found out who started everything."

Clara opened her eyes.

Clara: "Who?"

Elliot answered.

Elliot: "Your grandfather."

Clara froze.

Her grandfather.

The founder of the Blackwood family empire.

The man everyone believed had died before she was born.

Elliot: "He created the archive."

Clara stared at the yearbook.

Elliot: "He created Subject 006."

The tape clicked.

Then Elliot's voice became quieter.

Elliot: "And he knew one day the sixth would return."

The recording suddenly stopped.

Everyone stared at the machine.

Noah: "That's it?"

Maya examined it.

Maya: "The tape was cut."

Adrian looked around the room.

Adrian: "There's got to be more."

Clara opened the yearbook.

A final photograph fell out.

It was a photograph of Elliot.

Not as a teenager.

Not as a young man.

As he looked now.

Older.

Alive.

Standing outside a train station.

On the back was an address.

Clara read it aloud.

Clara: "Hawthorne Station."

Elena frowned.

Elena: "That's twenty miles from here."

Clara looked at the photograph.

Clara: "He's waiting for me."

Evelyn grabbed her arm.

Evelyn: "No."

Clara looked at her.

Evelyn: "That's what he wants you to believe."

Clara pulled away.

Clara: "You said he was protecting me."

Evelyn's eyes filled with tears.

Evelyn: "I thought he was."

Clara: "You don't anymore?"

Evelyn shook her head.

Evelyn: "I don't know who Elliot is anymore."

The lights suddenly went out.

A phone rang somewhere in the room.

Everyone froze.

It was Clara's phone.

She answered.

Clara: "Hello?"

Silence.

Then a man's voice.

Elliot: "Clara."

She stopped breathing.

Clara: "Elliot?"

A pause.

Elliot: "You finally remembered me."

Clara's eyes filled with tears.

Clara: "Where are you?"

Another pause.

Then:

Elliot: "I'm standing outside the school."

Everyone looked toward the door.

Noah: "That's impossible."

The voice continued.

Elliot: "But there's something I need you to know."

Clara's heart pounded.

Clara: "What?"

His voice became almost a whisper.

Elliot: "I'm not the one who brought you back."

Clara froze.

Clara: "What do you mean?"

Elliot: "Someone else did."

The call ended.

At that exact moment, the lights came back on.

Everyone turned toward the doorway.

A figure stood there.

A man.

Older.

Gray beginning to show in his hair.

The same face from the photograph.

Elliot Ashford.

Alive.

Clara stared at him.

He looked at her for several seconds.

Then his eyes moved to Adrian.

His expression changed.

Elliot: "Oh."

Adrian stepped forward.

Adrian: "What?"

Elliot looked at Clara.

Elliot: "He didn't tell you."

Clara frowned.

Clara: "Tell me what?"

Elliot looked at Adrian again.

Elliot: "Your father wasn't one of the people who erased your memory."

Adrian's face went pale.

Elliot: "He was the person who ordered it."

Adrian froze.

Clara turned toward him.

Clara: "Adrian?"

He couldn't speak.

Elliot stepped backward.

Elliot: "Now you know."

Clara's voice trembled.

Clara: "Know what?"

Elliot looked directly at her.

Elliot: "Why Adrian was assigned to you."

Clara's heart stopped.

Clara: "Assigned?"

Elliot nodded.

Elliot: "He wasn't sent to protect you."

He looked at Adrian.

Elliot: "He was sent to watch you."

The room went silent.

And for the first time since the photograph appeared in the yearbook, Clara understood the most terrifying truth of all.

The mystery hadn't begun when she found the photograph.

It had begun long before she was born.

And the boy in the yearbook had never been the real secret.

Clara was.

END OF BOOK 1 — THE PHOTOGRAPH

BOOK 2 — THE BOY WHO REMEMBERED

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