Page 50 of Lost Echoes

Billa stiffens at the name. “No. We can’t bring him in.”

“He’s already involved whether we want him to be,” Luke argues. “He’s in the orbit. And if your mom’s deeper in than you realized, we need someone with experience navigating those circles. Who better than a seasoned detective?”

Billa shakes her head sharply. “Graham will bulldoze in without thinking. He’ll treat it like a fight he can win by force. That’s not how this works. Kenzi’s involved, and he’s already on edge. He might hide it well, but he is. I promise you that much.”

“He has resources we don’t have access to,” Luke insists.

I raise a hand, trying to cut the tension. “Let’s not decide yet. We weigh the risks. If we bring in my dad, what do we gain? What do we lose?”

Luke ticks points off on his fingers. “Gains? Backup, muscle, someone who won’t hesitate if things turn physical. Lose? Subtlety, secrecy, maybe even safety if he decides he knows better or brings in bigger guns.”

I study him. “Wouldn’t that make it more safe?”

“Not with what we’re dealing with.” Luke shakes his head. “You saw what happened with Phoenix.”

“We have no idea what that was.”

Billa breaks in, her voice low and fierce. “If Graham learns about my mom, he won’t see her as leverage. He’ll see her as a target.”

The silence weighs heavily between us.

I glance down at Phoenix’s last message, still an open loop in my mind. The performance isn’t over. Watch the wings.

“What if that was the point?” I ask. “What if Phoenix was warning us about infiltration? Sleeper agents, plants, people waiting in the wings until they’re triggered? If that’s true, then bringing in anyone new—even my dad, but especially Florencia’s people or the support group—could tear us apart from the inside.”

Luke exhales slowly, frustration in his eyes. “So what then? Just the three of us against everyone else?”

Billa looks at him, her face pale but set. “Maybe that’s the only way to know who we can trust.”

Then there’s the angle we’ve barely mentioned—Kenzi’s role in all of this. Right now, she’s in a psychiatric hospital. Only my dad has seen her, and rarely at that. He says we need to give her the space to let her mind heal.

The stakes are too high, but we have to decide. Three of us in a mansion that suddenly feels too big, too exposed. With enemies we can’t see and allies who may already be compromised.

Even so, we sketch a plan. Billa will get close to her mother. Luke and I will keep in contact with the survivors, trying to decode Phoenix’s warning. Florencia and the others stay at arm’s length for now. Dad remains an option, not a certainty.

It’s a fragile plan. It might not hold.

But it’s all we have.

26

Kenzi

The hours and days blur together until the session lands on me like a heavy weight. Dr. Hanson made me wait longer than I wanted because this is no ordinary session. She needed paperwork, approvals, and clearance for a site visit to the condemned Radley theater. The admins at Radley had a lot of questions, not surprisingly.

I wanted to scream every time I saw her, and we couldn’t charge in, but now it’s time, and I can barely breathe. The theater looms in my mind long before we even set foot inside. I dream of the stage, the heavy curtains, the smell of dust and paint. I dream of the lights heating my skin until I can’t tell where my body ends and the performance begins.

This morning, Dr. Hanson lays out the rules once more, her voice calm and steady as always. “We’ll go in together, but you won’t go anywhere unless you feel ready. If at any point it’s too much, you say to stop. I’ll ground you, and we leave. If this doesn’t work, we can still move forward with your process as we’ve been doing.”

I nod, but inside I’m screaming. Yes, I’ll sit, I’ll stand, and I’ll even perform if I have to because it’s the only way to take back the stage.

She studies me a moment longer. “Kenzi, you know this carries risk. I’m not just talking about panic. Immersion therapy, especially in an environment like this, can reinforce the trauma if we push too far. If you slip into programming, you might not come out easily.”

Her words are steady, but I hear the fear underneath them. Fear for me.

“I don’t want easy.” I surprise myself with how firm my voice is. “All I want is out of this mess, and the only way out is through. We do this, and I’m not backing away.”

“But you can if you change your mind.” Her eyes soften, and she gathers her notes, her recorder, her grounding tools—the props of therapy that look so small compared to the theater waiting for me.