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T he apartment is too quiet now.

Not quiet like peace. Quiet like a vacuum seal. Like the air’s been siphoned out and I’m just walking through the preserved shell of someone else’s life.

Ellis doesn’t speak much these days. He just watches things. Windows. News scrolls. Me.

He doesn’t sleep in the bed. Not with me. Some nights I wake up and he’s in the kitchen, just standing there, glass in hand, staring at the wall.

I used to hate that kind of silence. Now, I’m getting used to it.

He’s healing. Physically, anyway. The doctors said he should’ve died, and part of me thinks he did. But they kept stitching him up anyway. Gave him a new name, new records, new lease on life.

Same eyes, though. Well, one of them.

Same mind, I suppose, just buried under all that numbness.

There’s a faint tick in his jaw when the news mentions Shergar. He closes the browser. Clicks off his phone. Always back to something boring. Static. Something that pretends the world isn’t on fire.

I let him pretend.

It’s not hard here. We’re in a luxury penthouse in Quito, Ecuador.

The view from the floor-to-ceiling windows stretches across the city, where the Andes rise like jagged teeth against the sky. It’s a high-end building—marble floors, modern art on every wall, and sleek, minimalist furniture that screams money without being loud. It’s furnished in that modern, sterile luxury that’s built to make you feel out of place, like it’s too perfect to ever truly settle into.

It’s fine. It’s discreet. The kind of place with a concierge downstairs who calls me “Miss Devon” even though that’s not the name on the lease.

Ellis didn’t ask for any of this. I chose it. I handled it. Same as always.

It wasn’t hard. There’s nothing here worth remembering. Nothing familiar enough to trigger guilt.

Quinn’s still alive. Barely. At home with her caretaker. There’s no joy in her. No presence. Just a shell of the woman she used to be. Ellis can’t see her the same anymore. I don’t think he even wants to. It’s easier for him to pretend she’s not there, tucked away in a bedroom somewhere, where someone attends to her most basic needs while we live like this. No reminders of the life he had before.

It’s been a week since the last message came through. Not from the world—from her. Not Quinn. His other problem. Gillian.

I haven’t blocked the number. What would be the point? She always finds a way through. Always has.

The coffee maker hisses behind me.

Ellis stirs. I hear the shift of sheets. The slow inhale. He’s awake, but not really. He won’t ask me anything today. Probably not tomorrow either.

We don’t talk about her. Not Quinn. Not Gillian. Not the latest one he wrecked, either.

We never did.

It’s not that I didn’t know she was digging into Gillian Martin’s employee file, or the other data. It’s not like I let it happen on purpose. No, of course not. I’m not stupid.

But there’s no denying I’ve gotten exactly what I wanted out of it.

I glance over at Ellis, who is staring at the ceiling. Well, mostly, anyway.

The rest will come in time.

I cross to the window, pull the curtain back a few inches, and scan the street below. Nothing suspicious. Just people walking. Living. Dying.

Still, I don’t go out alone. Not here. Not anymore.

My phone buzzes once.

No name.

No preview.

Just a notification.

I stare at it for a second before picking it up.

Do you have what it takes to be in my world? Check yes or no.

The screen pulses with it.

My palms go clammy. My stomach tightens—but not from fear.

Not really.

This isn’t a surprise. This is inevitability.

She’s back to her old self. As much as she can be, anyway.

She remembers. Not everything. But enough.

I sit on the edge of the bed, glancing over at Ellis. He’s watching me without expression.

“What is it?” he asks.

My thumb hovers over the screen. I think about lying. About saying it’s nothing. About tossing the phone in the drawer and pretending everything is fine.

But he already knows.

He knew the moment the air changed.

“It’s her,” I say.

He doesn’t react, just closes his eyes again, as though he’s already bracing for impact.

I think back to third grade, when I didn’t get Tommy Childress—the only boy I ever liked who liked someone else. Gillian Martin, with her quiet answers and her perfect handwriting. She always got things I didn’t.

And now here we are.

I didn’t get Tommy Childress.

But I got something far better.

A best friend who will never, ever forget me.

Not the parts that mattered.

And now she’s coming.

But what I didn’t expect was that she wouldn’t just come for me.

She’d come for both of us.

That’s fine. Let her come.

The world doesn’t end in fire.

It ends with a message that finds you in your sleep.

That says:

I remember you.

I remember everything.

And I’m not done.