Three months after Dr. Volkov’s visit, we moved.

  The decision wasn’t easy, but it had become inevitable. Reporters still waited outside our building. Strangers still knocked on the door asking questions. Every week someone new offered money to “test” Angel’s abilities. Some were journalists. Some were scientists. Some were simply desperate people with secrets they wanted revealed.

  Dr. Volkov’s institute offered something different—privacy, security, and answers.

  The research facility stood outside the city, hidden behind tall pine forests and steel security gates. From the outside it looked more like a university campus than a laboratory: glass buildings, quiet gardens, long walking paths.

  Inside, however, the atmosphere was different. Security cameras watched every corridor. Electronic doors opened only with key cards. Researchers moved quietly through white hallways carrying tablets and data files.

  Angel walked beside me calmly, observing everything.

  “Do you feel scared?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “No.”

  Dr. Volkov met us at the entrance.

  “Welcome,” she said warmly.

  Angel looked up at her. “You brought the others.”

  Dr. Volkov paused.

  “Yes,” she said slowly. “We did.”

  She led us through a long corridor, past laboratories and observation rooms filled with equipment. Finally we reached a large open space—something like a shared classroom.

  Two children were already there.

  The first was a boy about twelve years old, thin and tall with dark hair falling into his eyes. He sat at a desk covered in notebooks, pages filled with complex equations. Numbers flowed across the paper like a foreign language.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “Daniel,” Dr. Volkov said gently. “Meet Angel.”

  The boy barely looked up. He scribbled something quickly, then finally spoke.

  “You’re the one who sees secrets.”

  Angel studied him carefully.

  “You see numbers.”

  Daniel nodded.

  “They move,” he said simply.

  He turned his notebook toward us. The page was filled with equations far beyond my understanding—symbols, patterns, sequences stretching across the paper.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  Daniel shrugged. “A proof.”

  Dr. Volkov smiled slightly.

  “Daniel solved a theorem mathematicians have struggled with for decades.”

  I blinked. “How old are you?”

  “Twelve.”

  Daniel returned to writing, already lost again in his numbers.

  The second child sat near the window. A girl, maybe ten years old. She looked fragile—almost pale.

  Her name was Maya.

  When Angel approached, Maya flinched slightly.

  “Does it hurt?” Angel asked quietly.

  Maya nodded.

  “What hurts?” I asked.

  Maya looked toward the hallway.

  “Someone down the corridor broke their arm.”

  My stomach tightened.

  “You can feel it?”

  She nodded again.

  “Every injury,” she said softly. “Every pain.”

  Dr. Volkov stepped beside us.

  “Maya has an extreme empathic response,” she explained.

  Angel crouched beside her.

  “You feel everything?”

  Maya nodded.

  Angel looked thoughtful.

  “That must be exhausting.”

  Maya gave a small, tired smile. “It is.”

  Angel sat down beside the two children, quietly observing them both—Daniel with his endless numbers, Maya with her invisible pain.

  Then Angel said something unexpected.

  “You’re different from me.”

  Daniel nodded without looking up.

  “You’re more dangerous.”

  The room fell silent.

  I looked at Dr. Volkov.

  “Dangerous?” I repeated.

  Angel answered calmly.

  “They see pieces.”

  She pointed at Daniel.

  “Patterns.”

  Then at Maya.

  “Pain.”

  Finally she pointed at herself.

  “I see everything.”

  A quiet chill passed through the room.

  Dr. Volkov watched Angel carefully, her eyes bright with fascination.

  “And what exactly do you see?” she asked.

  Angel looked down at her drawing pad. She had begun sketching again—lines connecting circles, nodes linking together.

  “People,” Angel said softly.

  She drew another line.

  “Secrets.”

  Another line.

  “Choices.”

  Then she drew a final circle in the center, larger than the rest.

  “Outcomes.”

  Dr. Volkov leaned closer.

  “You’re describing probability networks,” she whispered.

  Angel shook her head.

  “No.”

  She tapped the center of the drawing.

  “I’m describing the world.”

  For the first time since arriving at the institute, Dr. Volkov looked genuinely unsettled.

  Because if Angel was right, then her ability wasn’t simply reading secrets.

  It was something far more complex.

  She was seeing the invisible structure connecting human lives.

  And that meant the real mystery had only just begun.