Sienna heard the argument before the elevator doors fully opened.
A frightened woman stood trapped against the wall while a heavily tattooed man blocked her path. He was close enough to touch her face, warning her not to scream.
Sienna stepped between them and showed her badge.
The woman moved behind her, but the man did not appear surprised. Instead, he studied Sienna’s face and smiled.
“You always protect the witness,” he said.
Then he attacked.
His first punch barely missed her head and struck the wooden wall. Sienna drove an elbow into his ribs, but the narrow hallway gave her almost no room to move. He grabbed her jacket and threw her against a chair, splintering it beneath her.
The man was stronger, but Sienna was faster.
She blocked another strike, twisted his arm and drove him into the wall. When he charged again, she used his momentum to throw him over her hip. He hit the floor hard and tried to rise, but Sienna swept his legs and forced him down.
Only then did she turn toward the woman.
She was gone.
The elevator had not moved. Every apartment door remained closed, and there was no staircase at that end of the corridor. The woman could not have disappeared without passing directly beside Sienna.
Inside the attacker’s hoodie, Sienna found two objects: a black access key and an old surveillance photograph.
The photograph showed Sienna standing beside the same woman in the same hallway.
It had been taken five years earlier.
Sienna had no memory of being there.
The access key opened an abandoned apartment at the end of the corridor. Inside, Sienna discovered a table covered with photographs of herself—leaving her home, entering FBI headquarters and meeting confidential witnesses.
One image had been taken inside her bedroom.
Another showed the mysterious woman watching Sienna from across the street.
Sienna contacted her office and requested a facial search. The result made no sense. The woman had been registered as a protected federal witness named Naomi Reed.
According to government records, Naomi died three years earlier while being transported to a safe house.
Sienna was listed as the agent who identified her body.
But Sienna had been working overseas that entire month.
Behind her, the attacker suddenly began laughing.
“They didn’t send me to kill her,” he whispered. “They sent me to find out if you remembered.”
Before Sienna could question him, her phone received an encrypted message:
“Recognition test failed. Begin memory recovery.”
Attached was a short security recording from the previous night. It showed Sienna entering the same building and unlocking the abandoned apartment.
She was wearing the same clothes.
She had the same face.
But Sienna knew she had never been there.
Someone was not simply following her.
Someone who looked exactly like Sienna was living parts of her life—and erasing them before morning.
