Page 68 of Lost Echoes

All of this will be in the rearview mirror.

34

Billa

The room in the safe house feels too quiet. Every creak of the old floors sounds like breath, like the building itself is waiting.

I go through my bag for the third time. I have a change of clothes, a flashlight, my notebook, and the white spool. The spool sits at the top of the bag, thread wound too tightly, initials catching the lamplight. NR. WG. RH. Every time I look at it, it feels heavier, like it’s holding the weight of everyone who didn’t get out.

Florencia stands by the window, her silhouette outlined by the faint shimmer of the security lights outside. She’s wearing the same coat she’s worn to every meeting, the pockets stuffed with pens and small, folded papers. Always prepared and steady.

“Can’t sleep?” she asks without turning around.

I shake my head. “Too loud in here. I’m used to my cottage in the middle of the woods.”

“It doesn’t seem so loud to me.”

“In my head it is.”

“Ah, I know the sound all too well.”

“I imagine all of us survivors do.”

For a while we just stand there, listening to the wind rattle against the glass. I think about the others here at the safe house in other rooms. Tomorrow, we walk into the belly of the thing that made us.

I clear my throat. “I wonder if it will stop hurting if I remember everything. But I doubt that. I still have the matter of my mom to deal with.” I shudder thinking about her. She hasn’t even reached out since I ran from her in Radley’s basement.

Not that I should be surprised.

Florencia turns to face me, her expression unreadable. “What do you remember? Has anything new come back to you?”

“I think I remember almost all of it. I’m not sure, though. And it hurts worse.” I meet her gaze. “At the same time, I think it might be useful.”

She nods. “That’s how you know you’re ready.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“Trust me.”

We move to the table where our notes are spread out. They’re full of lists of names and fragments of recollections. The kind of evidence you can’t scan or verify but feel in your bones. Florencia traces one name with her finger. “When Sofia and I compared timelines earlier, I realized something.”

“What?” My entire body tenses as I wait for her to continue.

“We’ve both been trying to expose the same people for years. Every time I got close, I pulled back. From fear, exhaustion, self-doubt or a combination of two or all of those things.”

“What’s different now?” I ask.

“You,” she says simply. “You remind me what it looks like to stop running. I finally found someone both with lucid memories and the drive to move forward.”

I don’t know what to say about that. The compliment sits in my chest like warmth and guilt tangled together.

She glances at the spool. “You’re still carrying that thing?”

I look down at it. “It’s proof.”

“It’s also a wound,” she whispers.

“Maybe,” I admit. “But sometimes you have to show the wound so people believe it happened. And it’s a symbol for me to keep going. It reminds me there are others who need saving.”