Page 168 of Dance With A Devil

“You’ll visit twice a week,” she said. “But listen closely: when we start pulling the memories away, they don’t die. They go dormant. Buried. New ones will fill the cracks. And when you're ready… they’ll return. Slowly. Painfully. Your mother suggested you keep journals. They’ll be your breadcrumbs.”

Gaia stepped closer, her hand brushing mine. “I’ll help you find your way back. When the shadows stop scaring you.”

I wanted to ask what that meant.

But Kaia’s fingers were already at my temples, her voice a low hum in my ear.

“Close your eyes, baby girl,” she whispered. “Let me burn it all away.”

And I did.

And the forgetting began.

The memory hits like a scream beneath my skin.

It drags me back, no mercy, no filter.

My father’s hands. Groping. Forcing. Violating. His breath, sour with whiskey and rot, fills my ears as he shoves his fingers inside me. Too rough. Too deep. My body remembers before my mind does.

“Stop! Daddy, please!” I sob, but the plea only excites him. It always did.

I can feel it. Every inch of it. As if he never died. As if I’m still that little girl trapped in her own bed, begging shadows for mercy they never had.

It burns. It claws. It fucking hurts.

I thrash.

The phantom weight of his body crushes me. His voice slithers down my spine like oil. And when his hand wraps around my throat, cutting off my air, I start choking, desperately clawing at nothing.

“God, please! He’s choking me!” I rasp through clenched teeth. “I told him I’d tell you what he did, what he always did when you weren’t home, and now he’s trying to kill me for it.”

“Athens,” my mother’s voice slices through the darkness like a blade. “It’s just a memory. Baby, listen to me. You’re not there. You’re here. Surrounded by people who love you.”

But it’s hard to believe her when my body’s being torn apart by ghosts. Hard to breathe when my lungs are still begging for air they lost years ago.

“You’re safe,” Fred whispers, her voice trembling but steady. “He can’t touch you now. You’re not alone.”

And then, Ryan.

Loud. Feral. Unapologetically cruel in her truth. “That sick fuck is dead, Athens. He can’t keep killing you unless you let him. So don’t. Fucking. Let him.”

Her voice breaks the spell.

The grip around my throat loosens, just enough to take a breath.

One breath. Then another.

I shudder. My body convulses as the memory starts to dissolve, but the scars remain, stitched into bone.

He’s still dead.

And I’m still here.

And maybe that’s the beginning of winning.

“Mommy!” I called out as I stepped through the front door, dropping my backpack like it owed me money. The air smelled like bleach and something burning on the stove.

She stood at the sink, hands wet, sleeves rolled up, scrubbing something invisible off a plate. “Hi, baby! How was school?”