Page 32 of Lost Echoes

I feel the tears and wipe them off my cheeks with the heel of my hand, though they keep coming anyway. “I can’t hide from it anymore. Not if I want to keep Fenna safe. If I don’t know what they put inside me, I can’t stop it from spilling out onto her.”

Dr. Hanson folds her hands on the table, voice low and deliberate. “Then we’ll move forward. But we do it carefully. Controlled sessions, grounding techniques at the ready. We pace it. If we tear the walls down too fast, it could overwhelm you. I don’t want to fracture you further.”

I hug myself, my nails digging into my arms. “What if I remember something so terrible I can’t come back from it?”

She meets my gaze, unwavering. “Then we’ll face it together. But hiding from the truth won’t make it disappear. It will only keep you trapped. And we’re going to pull you from this. You’re going to walk away, able to put all of this behind you.”

The words settle heavy in my chest. They make sense but also terrify me. Still… she’s right. Every memory I shove away claws back through cracks in the walls. Better to open the door than wait for it to explode.

I turn toward the window. The glass reflects my face in the dim light, pale and hollow-eyed. But behind me, and within me, I see her. Me as a child, the one who clutched a bear with one eye, who stood trembling under stage lights, waiting for her cue.

My body trembles. “The performance isn’t over,” I whisper to my reflection. “It never ended. And I’m still following someone else’s script.”

However, I will break free. I’ll write my own ending.

17

Ember

The screen flickers, text lines crawling across like a machine translating a heartbeat. Then Lost Echoes resolves into place—darker than The Ward, sharper. No threads here. No idle chatter. Just encrypted chat rooms tucked behind walls of code.

Luke’s already guiding us in, fingers flying. “Referral phrase: white spool. Hold on.”

The text box opens. He types:

Looking for Phoenix.

The reply comes instantly, stark white against black:

You found him.

My chest tightens.

Phoenix’s words spill out in clipped bursts, no wasted syllables:

I’m twenty-eight now. Radley took me at eleven. I got out at sixteen. Performance went bad, wiring cracked, and I slipped through the hole they made. Been running ever since.

I glance at Luke. His face is stone, eyes scanning fast.

Phoenix keeps going:

I’ve been tracking the network for a decade. Laurel’s arrest rattled their machine. Security protocols kicked in. They’re scrubbing evidence. Silencing survivors. If you’re here, you’re already marked.

Luke mutters under his breath.

Phoenix again:

I’m in touch with fifteen others. Confirmed survivors. But I know there are dozens more. Maybe hundreds. Most don’t even know who they are yet. You’ve seen it, haven’t you? Friends who act wrong sometimes. Memories that don’t line up. Voices that don’t belong to them. Sleeper agents. Someone programmed them like they did us.

My throat goes dry. Kenzi’s face flashes in my mind.

I type:

Why now? Why open up to us?

A long pause. Then:

Because you came asking the right way. Because you remembered the script. That means you’re close enough to tear the whole thing down. I’ve been waiting for that. Waiting for someone willing to risk more than theories and gossip.