HE FOUND A SAFE... Inside Was A PHOTO That BROKE ME

 HE FOUND A SAFE... Inside Was A PHOTO That BROKE ME VIDEO

Jack Coleman 4

The Safe

The car engine starts with a soft roar that vibrates through the seat. Valeria drives with one hand on the wheel, the other resting on the gear shift, moving through the wet streets as if she knows them by heart.

Chicago's lights blur past the window. Exposed brick buildings, dimmed neon signs, streetlamps casting long shadows on the shiny asphalt.

"How much longer?" I ask.

"Twenty minutes, if traffic cooperates."

Valeria takes a sharp curve and the car tilts slightly. I press a hand against the dashboard to steady myself.

"And Marcus?"

"He's doing his thing. Don't worry about him."

"I'm not worried. I just want to know if I can count on someone else besides you."

She smiles without taking her eyes off the road.

"You're more suspicious than I remembered."

"I don't remember anything. So I guess I was always like that."

"Yes," she says. "You always were."

The car enters an industrial zone. Abandoned warehouses, storage units with metal doors shut, forklifts rusted against concrete walls. The rain intensifies, hitting the car roof like impatient fingers.

Valeria slows down and stops in front of a three-story building. The windows are boarded up with wooden planks, and a rusty fence surrounds the perimeter. On the facade, a faded sign announces something about heavy machinery repair.

"This is it," she says, turning off the engine.

We get out of the car. The rain hits my face, cold and persistent. Valeria approaches the fence and pulls a chain hanging from a post. The gate opens with a metallic screech.

"You sure this is safe?" I ask as I follow her.

"Nothing's safe right now. But this is the best we've got."

We cross the courtyard. The ground is covered with puddles and loose gravel that crunches under our boots. Valeria pulls a flashlight from her pocket and switches on a white beam that cuts through the darkness.

We reach a side door. She inserts a key into the lock and turns it. The mechanism protests, but gives way.

The interior smells of dust, rusted metal, and frozen time. Valeria's flashlight sweeps the space, revealing machinery covered with gray tarps, metal shelves filled with boxes, tools hanging on wall panels.

"I didn't know this place existed," I say.

"Because you bought it years ago, when you still trusted the organization. It was your safehouse, your emergency plan. Nobody else knows it exists."

We walk between the machines, dodging electrical cables hanging from the ceiling like dead vines. Valeria stops in front of what appears to be a solid brick wall.

"Right here."

She runs her hand over the surface, searching for something. Her fingers find a small slit, almost invisible. She presses, and a brick panel slides inward, revealing a dark cavity.

Valeria lights the interior with the flashlight.

Inside is a safe embedded in the wall, small, the size of a shoebox. It has a numerical combination lock and a worn logo on the front.

"Yours," she says, stepping aside.

I approach. The safe is cold to the touch. I run my fingers over the numbers, feeling the marks of use, the small indentations left by whoever opened it before me.

"I don't remember the combination."

"Try something that makes sense to you. Something only you would know."

I close my eyes. The darkness behind my eyelids is total. I search my mind, in that empty space where memories should be, but I only find shadows.

Emma.

The name appears effortlessly. Not as a memory, but as a certainty.

I enter the numbers: 1-4-0-8.

The safe emits a dry click.

I open the door.

Inside is a thick manila envelope, with the edge folded from the weight of what it contains. I take it out carefully. There's also a small key, the kind that opens security locks, and an old mobile phone, the kind that only makes and receives calls and messages.

I set the phone and key aside and open the envelope.

Valeria lights the contents.

Papers. Documents. Copies of birth certificates, passports, driver's licenses, all with different names, all with my photo. But there's something else.

A photograph.

I take it out carefully. It's a Polaroid image, with yellowed edges. In it, a young woman holds a baby wrapped in a blue blanket. The woman smiles, but her eyes have a deep sadness, as if she knows something the photograph can't capture.

I turn the photo over. On the back, a handwritten inscription in small letters:

*Emma and our son. March 12, 2018. Milwaukee.*

The world crumbles beneath my feet.

I press a hand against the wall to avoid falling. My breath catches in my throat, and I feel my chest compress as if someone is tightening a strap around my ribs.

"Did you know this?" I ask, my voice broken.

Valeria stays silent for a few seconds. Then she speaks, softly.

"I knew you had a son. I didn't know you left proof here."

"Where is he? Where's my son?"

"I don't know. Only Emma knows that. It was part of the deal when you decided to erase yourself: protect both of them, even from yourself."

I look at the photograph again. The baby has his eyes closed, fists clenched, that expression of absolute peace that only very young children have.

I have a son.

And I don't remember holding him in my arms.

"We have to find Emma," I say, tucking the photo into my inner jacket pocket. "Now."

Valeria nods, but there's something in her expression I don't like. A shadow crosses her face before she can hide it.

"What is it?" I ask.

She hesitates. The flashlight trembles slightly in her hand.

"There's something else you need to know. Something Marcus didn't tell me until this morning."

"Tell me."

"The organization isn't just looking for Emma. They're also looking for the child. For months now. They don't know he exists, but they've started suspecting you had something more to protect, something worth erasing everything for."

I press my back against the wall and close my eyes.

The silence of the warehouse weighs like a slab.

"How much time do we have?"

"Less than you think. Much less." Less than you think. Much less.