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But the chill that crawled over me told me one thing.... I wasn’t imagining all this.

Nolan was moving pieces I couldn’t see yet and Damien.....whether drugged, blind or both is slipping further from me each day.

The soil clung to my hands like blood I couldn’t scrub away. I sat there in front of the open wound of my sister’s grave, the breath rasping out of me in ragged bursts, waiting for the world to shift back into something I could survive but it didn’t.

I heard something, a footstep and I froze.... then nothing.

It came again but softer this time, like someone circling just beyond the reach of my vision.

I forced myself to rise, knees buckling as I pushed off the headstone. My eyes swept the shadows beneath the trees, the path that wound back to the churchyard.... nothing.

And yet, the air carried it....him, a presence so heavy I could feel it press between my ribs.

I tightened my arms around myself, dirt flaking from my skin. “Come out,” I whispered. My voice was hoarse. “If you’re here, stop hiding.”

Silence and then…

A whisper so soft I thought it might’ve been my own breath betraying me... "You should’ve drowned too.”

The words slid across the wind, slithering down my spine.

I spun, searching but the shadows only thickened, the trees swaying like silent witnesses.

“Coward,” I hissed into the dark, though my voice trembled. “You dig up the dead but you can’t even show me your face?”

The air seemed to shift with a low exhale, a reminder that he could breath down my neck without ever stepping into the light.

My pulse thundered. I wanted to run but my feet wouldn’t move. The cemetery was too still and watchful.

“Why Ivy?!” I demanded, louder this time, the sound tearing out of my throat. “Why can’t you leave her alone?!”

Leaves stirred. A faint scrape of shoe against gravel carried through the dusk.

I held my breath.

“Because she still dances,” came the whisper, so faint it could’ve been imagined. “And you don’t.”

The words hollowed me, I felt my knees wobble while my hand grip the headstone again as if it could anchor me.

When I blinked, the shadows were only shadows again. The whisper was gone.

I don’t remember leaving the cemetery, only that I stumbled onto the road with dirt staining my jeans and blood drying along the cuts on my hands where my nails had broken the soil. The town seemed miles away, though I knew it was only a short drive.

By the time I reached my car, I wasn’t sure if I was still awake. The key shook in my hand while the engine sputtered to life and I drove blind, not daring to look into the rearview mirror.

~

Damien was waiting when I pulled into the driveway. He stood on the porch with his arms crossed, his silhouette caught in the glow of the porch light. For a fleeting second, relief struck me but when I climbed out of the car, the way his eyes narrowed made me stop short.

“You’re covered in dirt,” he said flatly.

“I was at Ivy’s grave.” I said.

Something in his jaw ticked. “Camille....”

“Her coffin is gone.” The words tumbled out too fast. “Someone dug it up. The ground was ripped open. I saw it with my two eyes.”

He descended the steps slowly like he was approaching someone unstable. “Camille, listen to yourself.”

“I am listening.” My voice cracked. “You think I’d dig up my own sister just to prove a point? You think I’m that far gone?”

“I think grief does things.” His hand came toward my arm but I pulled back before he touched me.

“I heard him,” I whispered.

His gaze flickered, troubled.

“In the shadows. He was there, he told me....” My throat closed. I couldn’t repeat it, the venom of those words still burned too fresh.

Damien’s expression softened but wasn’t the relief I wanted but pity.

“You need sleep,” he said quietly. “Not another story about Nolan.”

“Stop calling it a story!” My voice tore out of me like a scream. “He’s real Damien. He’s right here in this town playing us both but you’re too blind or too drugged to see it.”

That struck him. His mouth tightened but he didn’t deny it this time. He only shook his head, the lines of exhaustion etched deep across his face.

“Maybe you should stay with Lena tonight,” he murmured. “Clear your head. Because right now, you’re not making sense.”

The distance between us felt like an abyss. I wanted to close it, to make him see but the shadow of Nolan’s whisper lingered in my ears, a reminder that even if Damien stood beside me, I am alone in this.

“I don’t need a babysitter,” I said and brushed past him into the house.

Later after midnight, I sat in the living room with the lamp casting weak light across the walls. My shoes still sat by the door, caked in cemetery dirt. I haven’t cleaned them. I wanted Damien to see and believe but he didn't even looked.

The house creaked around me, each sound made my heart jolt.

When the wind rose, the branches outside scraped against the window. 'It's nothing.' I told myself that over and over again but in the reflection of the glass, for a single fractured second, I thought I saw him.

A shadow standing just behind me taller than Damien, faceless but when I whipped around, the room was empty.

The lamp flickered once.

I pressed both hands to my face with dirt that still ground beneath my fingernails. The smell of earth lingered on me like the kind that seeps into skin and stays.

Ivy is long gone and now her coffin is gone. Nolan is here but I can't get Damien to believe me and I am running out of time.

I didn’t sleep. I couldn’t.

Damien had gone to bed hours ago leaving me curled on the couch with the lamp burning low and the untouched cup of coffee cooling in my hands. He didn't insisted I rest before he slept off, maybe he’d finally decided I was too far gone to argue with.

By the time the sun rose, my body was buzzing with exhaustion, my nails were cracked with cemetery dirt and my eyes burning from lack of sleep.

Then I thought to myself. 'I will endure this for now till Boone gets better.