Chapter 20 The Memory Break II
The argument that follows is quiet.
Controlled.
Voices stay low, carefully restrained, but something sharp and dangerous coils beneath every word. I cannot hear all of it clearly. The dream blurs the edges, muffles the sound, but I feel the tension vibrating through the air, humming like a live wire.
The flashlight beam skids across the ground.
Leaves scatter.
Kahlia’s foot slips.
Time stretches, slows, fractures into jagged pieces.
I watch her fall backward. Her arms flail, fingers clawing at nothing. Her head strikes a stone with a sound that is sharp and wrong, a crack that slices through the quiet like glass shattering. My breath tears from my lungs in a single, helpless rush.
She disappears beneath the surface.
I scream her name.
The water churns violently. She resurfaces, gasping, her movements disoriented and frantic. Blood blooms darkly in the water around her head, spreading in slow, blooming clouds. She tries to swim, but her strokes are uneven, uncoordinated, pulling her in the wrong direction.
She reaches for me.
I reach back for her.
Then pain explodes in my wrist.
Someone grabs me, hard enough that my vision blurs at the edges. Fingers bite into my skin, crushing, burning, leaving no room to breathe. I cannot see his face. It is smeared in the dream, blurred like someone dragged a hand across wet ink, refusing to settle into focus.
He pulls me backward.
My feet slide in the mud. I lose my balance, nearly falling. The flashlight beam jerks wildly, skimming across black water, tree trunks, and empty air before snapping back.
The voice is close now, pressed near my ear.
The words sound wrong. Distorted. Fragmented. As if the dream itself refuses to let me hear them clearly.
I understand them anyway.
"You did not see anything."
"Go home."
"Stop looking at her."
The command settles deep in my bones, heavy and absolute, like it has been there all along.
Kahlia surfaces again.
She is closer this time. Close enough that I can see the terror etched into her face. Her eyes are wide and unfocused. Her mouth opens as if to speak, as if to say my name again.
I try to pull free.
I try to reach her.
But the grip tightens.
He turns me away.
His body blocks my view, solid and immovable. His breath brushes my ear, cold and steady, as if nothing about this moment disturbs him at all.
I feel myself being held still as Kahlia sinks beneath the surface.
The water closes over her head.
The creek goes quiet again, and everything collapses inward.
I gasp and jerk awake.
My body lurches forward as if yanked from deep water, muscles locking, spine bowing with the force of it. My heart slams violently against my ribs, wild and unrestrained, each beat echoing in my ears. My lungs burn as I drag in air, sharp and panicked, like I have forgotten how to breathe while I was gone.
Eli is there instantly. His hands grip my shoulders, firm and steady, grounding me before I can spiral. His touch is warm, solid, real in a way the dream was not.
“Sera,” he says urgently. “You are okay, you were dreaming.”
The words anchor me, but only barely. I cling to him without thinking, my fingers fisting in his shirt as if he is the only thing keeping me upright. My entire body shakes, fine tremors running through me as the aftermath of the dream ripples outward, refusing to fade.
“I saw it,” I whisper hoarsely.
Eli’s jaw tightens, the muscle jumping once beneath his skin. He does not interrupt. He does not rush me. He simply waits.
“I dreamed,” I continue, swallowing hard, fighting to keep my voice steady. “But it was not like before. It was clear. Too clear. I was there.
I pull back just enough to look at him, my vision still swimming. “She hit her head,” I say, the words scraping out of my throat. “She could not swim right. I tried to help her.”
My voice breaks despite my effort to hold it together. “He grabbed me. He held me while she drowned.”
Eli closes his eyes briefly, as if the words physically strike him. Pain flickers across his face, raw and unfiltered. When he opens them again, they are wet, his control fraying at the edges.
“You saw everything,” he says quietly.
“Yes,” I whisper. “And he made me forget."
Maya stirs against me, her small body shifting. She lifts her head, eyes opening slowly, far too aware for a child just waking from sleep. She looks at me first, then at Eli, as if measuring the space between us.
“The lady said the voice you hear is not the real one,” she murmurs drowsily.
My blood runs cold. “What do you mean, baby?”
“She said your brain made it sound different,” Maya says softly, her voice calm in a way that makes my skin prickle. “Because the real voice scares you too much.”
Eli goes completely still. Even his breathing seems to pause.
“She said the real voice is someone Mommy loved,” Maya adds.
The room tilts.
Cold spreads through my chest as the final fragment of the dream slams back into place. A hand gripping my wrist. Fingers crushing. Breath at my ear. A distorted echo shaping words my mind refuses to let sound right.
"You were not supposed to see this."
I look at Eli, then down at Maya, her small face earnest and unaware of the weight of what she has said.
“He was not a stranger,” I whisper. “He was someone close to me.”
Eli does not deny it. He does not confirm it.
He only watches me with an expression that holds both terror and devotion, as if he knows the truth is coming and understands that it will change everything we are standing on.
The room feels heavier, the air thickening around us.
The silence presses closer, coiling tight.
And somewhere deep inside my mind, the distorted voice waits patiently for the moment I am strong enough to hear it clearly.