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Chapter 13: The Place That Doesn't Exist
They drove in silence, the city falling away behind them like a memory neither wanted to keep.
Eliot didn't speak.
Rina didn't ask.
After an hour on a deserted road outside the city, he pulled off near a wooded stretch and keyed in a code on an unmarked gate. It creaked open slowly, revealing a hidden path flanked by trees and gravel.
At the end: a glass-and-steel cabin tucked into the hillside. Minimal. Isolated. Cold.
"Welcome to the place that doesn't exist," he said.
Rina stepped inside, absorbing the contrast—sparse, clean, quiet. A sanctuary… or a prison.
She turned to him. "How many people know about this place?"
"Just me. And now you."
She wandered past a shelf lined with old chess pieces, medical textbooks, and a single framed photo: Eliot as a teenager—smiling. Innocent. Before the mask.
"Is that your brother?" she asked.
Eliot's eyes darkened. "Was."
The air shifted.
"I need to know who I'm trusting," she said finally. "You saved me. But you're still lying."
He didn't answer right away.
Then: "The truth isn't a single thing, Rina. It's a house with locked rooms. Some doors protect you. Some keep the monsters in."
She stared at him. "Which one are you?"
He looked away.
"I haven't decided yet."
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