Page 25 of Lost Echoes

Perhaps even Kenzi’s.

I press the drawing flat against my knee, trying to steady my breathing. “So what you’re saying is, they know more than what’s in the files. More than Laurel ever admitted.”

Florencia waits a beat before answering. “Yes, and they’re meeting soon. I could get us in.”

“You can?”

“I’m good at what I do. This is my job—finding answers any way I can.”

Her words send a chill down my spine. That means she could work me too. “You want me to go with you?”

The words hang heavy between us. A secret door swinging open.

“I think we should both be there,” she answers softly. “If anyone understands what you’re piecing together, it’ll be them. And if what they’re saying about Laurel is true…” She trails off, leaving the unspoken obvious. Someone else is still out there, unpunished. Maybe many someones.

I close my eyes, but the bear is still there, seared into my vision. Half-blind, half-whole. Waiting for me to find it—and the truth.

“What if it’s not safe?” I whisper. “What if this group is just another trap? A way of keeping tabs on anyone who remembers too much? I’ve already had my life put on the line for this. She even went after my innocent baby niece.”

Florencia exhales as if she’s been holding the same fear. “Believe me, they’ve come after me too. I’ve thought about it all. But what if the group’s real? What if this is the only chance we have to hear the truth from others who lived it?”

I bite my lip. My instinct is to run the other way, to hide my drawing back in the box and shove it under my bed. Pretend I never saw it. But another part of me knows I can’t. Not anymore.

Finally, I speak. “We’d have to be careful. Careful about what we share with them. And about how much of ourselves we put in their hands. I can’t risk my family getting hurt.”

“So… you’ll go?” Florencia asks, not seeming to care about the possible consequences. Maybe she doesn’t have other people to worry about.

I glance down at the bear, its crooked smile daring me to look away. Then I make my decision. “I’ll go, but if this turns out to be another layer of their game?—”

“Then you can walk away,” Florencia promises.

But we both know it won’t be that simple.

My heart won’t stop racing. I’m about to step into a room full of people who might remember what I can’t.

And that terrifies me more than doing this alone.

13

Kenzi

The velvet curtain brushes my cheek. The stage lights burn white, too hot and too close. Laurel’s voice slices through the wings. “Places, everyone! It’s showtime.”

I clutch the script in my hands, but when I look down, I don’t find pages of words. I’m holding a syringe. The needle gleams under the spotlight.

My pulse races. No, not again.

“Claire?” My voice cracks as I turn toward the woman standing beside me. She’s wearing a crisp blouse, her hair pulled into a knot. Claire. No, Dr. Sofia Hanson.

She smiles gently, as she always does when I call her by the wrong name. “You’ll do beautifully tonight, Kenzi. Just like you always do.”

Her reassurance should calm me, but something inside me resists. A tremor in the back of my skull. I squeeze my eyes shut. When I open them, the curtain’s gone. No stage. Just four white walls. A hospital bed in the corner. My trembling hands.

The world flickers between both realities—stage, hospital, stage again.

Then everything freezes.

I’m not under. I’m here, awake. And the memory crashes down without warning.