Epilogue
Hannah
Six Months Later
Colorado
Snow falls softly outside the lodge windows while children laugh downstairs.
Real laughter.
Loud.
Messy.
Wild.
The kind Ascension tried to erase.
I stand quietly on the second-floor balcony overlooking the recreation room below while morning sunlight spills across the mountains outside.
And sometimes—
sometimes it still doesn’t feel real.
The lodge used to be an abandoned retreat tucked deep in the Colorado mountains.
Now it’s home.
Not a facility.
Not a program.
Not a containment center.
A home.
The younger children are decorating an enormous Christmas tree near the fireplace while social workers, trauma specialists, and volunteers move throughout the lodge helping wherever needed.
Healing isn’t quick.
Some nights the children still wake up screaming.
Some still hide food.
Some panic when doors lock automatically.
But they’re learning.
Slowly.
Painfully.
They’re learning they’re allowed to exist without permission.
The little girl from the bunker—
the one who asked if she would be corrected—
now insists glitter is an acceptable decorating strategy for literally everything.
Every.
Thing.
There’s glitter on the tree.
Glitter on the fireplace.
Glitter somehow on the dog.
I honestly stopped asking questions.
Downstairs, the teenage girl from Ascension—
Eva.
Her name is Eva now.
Not Subject Eight-Seven.
Eva laughs quietly while helping another child hang ornaments across the staircase railing.
The sound still catches me off guard sometimes.
Because for weeks after the rescue she barely spoke above a whisper.
Now?
Now she argues with Clay about music choices and secretly sneaks extra cookies to the younger kids after bedtime.
Progress.
Beautiful, stubborn progress.
The teenage boy—
Eli.
Because yes.
He chose that name himself.
He helps Gabriel repair old motorcycles in the detached garage behind the lodge and pretends he isn’t emotionally attached to the giant German Shepherd puppy they rescued last month.
Nobody believes him.
Least of all the puppy.
The world changed after Ascension.
The files Gabriel recovered detonated across international intelligence agencies like a bomb.
Secret facilities.
Government funding.
Missing children.
Behavioral conditioning programs.
People were arrested.
Others disappeared before they could be questioned.
Entire agencies publicly denied involvement while quietly burning records behind closed doors.
But the truth survived.
That’s what matters.
Ascension doesn’t get to hide anymore.
More facilities are still being uncovered.
More children rescued.
The work isn’t over.
Not even close.
But now?
Now they have people fighting for them.
A warm hand slides around my waist from behind.
I smile before he even speaks.
Clay presses a soft kiss against my temple.
“You disappeared.”
“I was watching.”
His eyes drift downstairs toward the children.
Toward Eva laughing.
Toward Eli pretending he doesn’t love the puppy.
Toward little Mia throwing glitter at literally everyone.
His chest rises slowly against my back.
“You ever think we’d get here?”
No.
Never.
Not in a million years.
There was a time I thought survival was the best I could hope for.
Now?
Now I have peace.
Love.
Family.
Freedom.
I turn slowly in his arms.
And there it is again—
that look in his eyes.
The one that still undoes me completely.
Like he sees every broken piece of me…
…and loves me anyway.
No.
Not anyway.
Because of it.
Clay brushes his thumb softly across my hand.
Right over the faded barcode scar on my wrist.
Ascension’s mark.
The thing I once hated looking at.
Now?
Now it reminds me I survived.
“We’ve been talking,” he says carefully.
Uh oh.
That tone.
“What kind of talking?”
A dangerous smile appears.
“The team thinks it’s rude you still haven’t officially set a date for our wedding.”
I laugh softly.
“Two weeks. I want to get married on January first. A New Year and a new life with the man I love.”
“That date is perfect. Two weeks. I can wait that long, but no longer. Now kiss me,” he said, leaning down and kissing me.
Oh.
Oh that man fights dirty.
Downstairs, Mia suddenly points toward us dramatically from beside the tree.
“KISS!”
Every child in the room immediately joins in.
“KISS!”
“KISS!”
“KISS!”
I bury my face into Clay’s chest laughing while he looks entirely too pleased with himself.
Traitors.
All of them.
Clay tilts my chin upward gently.
“I love you,” he murmurs, kissing me again.
The warmth in his eyes nearly melts me right there.
Outside the snow continues falling softly across the mountains.
Inside the lodge the children keep laughing.
Alive.
Safe.
Free.
And for the first time in my life—
the future no longer feels frightening.
It feels beautiful.
So I kiss him, again.
And downstairs—
forty-three children who survived hell erupt into cheers.