Evan woke, steeling himself for another day of school. The clatter of plates and utensils drifted from the kitchen—familiar, domestic. He relaxed. Vicky was already making breakfast.
"Hey, Vicky, did you get my notebook?" He walked toward the kitchen, zipping his trousers, and looked up.
The word died in his throat.
His eight-year-old sister Emily stood on a rattling chair, her small feet wobbling as she stirred a pot of boiling oil. Koeksisters bubbled and hissed. The chair groaned beneath her.
Evan's blood turned to ice.
"Emily?" He crossed the room in three strides, lifted her from the precarious perch, and set her on the sofa. His heart hammered against his ribs. "Where is Vicky?"
"I don't know." Emily swung her legs, innocent as dawn.
"What do you mean, you don't know?"
The front door creaked open.
Evan turned. Through the small house, he watched Vicky step inside.
"I'm here," she said.
He stared.
Her hair stood in wild disarray—like she'd barely survived an electrical storm. Her eyes were hollow and heavy-lidded, the eyes of someone who hadn't slept in days. And her clothes… mismatched wasn't the word. He'd never seen Vicky in a skirt and boots. Never.
His gaze snagged on the boots. Lingered.
"I'm sorry." Her voice sounded distant and practiced. "I went to check on the eatery. Tonia called last night—she forgot to switch on the fridges. I went to switch them on."
Evan's eyes narrowed. "Where did you get those boots?"
She frowned, confusion flickering across her face. "What do you mean? These are my boots."
She walked toward her room. Evan followed, but not before reaching over and twisting the gas cooker off.
"No, they're not."
He'd burned everything connected to Vicky's life before the memory loss. Every assassin's uniform, every costume, every piece of the woman she used to be. Ash and smoke.
"I bought these from Ralph and Laren." Vicky stepped into her closet, already tugging at her clothes. "Remember? On my dad's birthday?"
Evan's world tilted.
She spoke of something she shouldn't know. Something that existed only in the memories he'd fought to suppress. His eyes drifted to the vanity table. A bottle of pills sat there.
Full.
The pills were supposed to compress her memories further. Keep the past buried. So why was she wearing those boots? Why did she remember exactly when she bought them?
"What's wrong?" Vicky emerged in comfortable clothes, her voice light, oblivious.
She found him standing at her vanity table, the bottle in his hand.
"Don't forget your pills." His voice came out hoarse.
"I will never forget my pills, Evan. You care too much." She smiled—that soft, trusting smile that gutted him every time—and took the bottle. Two tablets. A glass of water. She swallowed and walked toward the kitchen.
Behind her back, Evan pulled out his phone. Fingers trembling, he typed a message to Tonia.
We have a problem.
In Xavier's suite, the silence was suffocating.
Doctor Lambert stood in the doorway—a tall, gaunt man in a long grey coat, his glasses perched so loosely on his nose they seemed destined to fall. He surveyed the empty room with clinical detachment.
"Where is the girl?"
Xavier opened his mouth. No words came.
He'd put Blue to sleep early this morning. Watched over her for hours, as if looking away would make her vanish. He'd barely breathed. And now—
He crossed to the bed. The sheets were still warm from her body, but the indent of her form had already begun to fade.
"Where is Blue?" The question echoed in the hollow space of his own mind.
The morning had been ordinary. Traffic. School children. Commuters weaving through their mundane lives. But Vicky saw none of it.
She locked herself inside the house.
Her strides were measured and deliberate. She crossed her bedroom, stopped before the vanity table, and pressed a hidden button. Beneath the mat, a compartment hissed open.
No one would know it was there. Not even Evan.
She descended into the darkness and pulled the door shut behind her.
The room flickered to life under fluorescent light. Familiar. Too familiar.
A vanity mirror, an old, torn sofa bed, a large cupboard, and at the center, a desk with a desktop computer and a small square device.
She picked up the recorder and pressed play.
"Day thirty-two of waking up in unknown places."
Her voice trembled. She steadied it.
"At this point, I'm convinced there's something really wrong with me." She stared at her reflection in the mirror—dark brown eyes flooding with tears, her short curly hair combed to finesse. "I get these weird dreams. I'm killing people. Drinking. Making out… but it's not me physically. It's me in someone else's body."
She set the recorder down. Breathed.
"Everywhere I go, I sense people following me." Tears spilled down her cheeks. "Watching me. And I know… I know they want to kill me."
She looked at her reflection, narrowing her eyes. Studying herself like a stranger.
"Who are you?"
A bitter chuckle escaped her lips. "I can't even tell my friends what's going on. I can't freak them out. Tonia's pregnant—I can't burden her with me." She shook her head. "Let's face it. If I tell anyone I'm spiraling, they'll think I'm a freak."
Her voice cracked. "I can't talk to my mom because… well, she can't talk. She can't be stressed. If I tell her, I may as well kill her myself."
The rage came suddenly and violently.
She kicked the chair. Pain shot through her foot. She crumpled, cradling it, and then—
"AHHH!"
The scream tore from her throat—every pent-up nightmare, every shred of confusion, every ounce of terror she'd been swallowing for thirty-two days. It ripped through her until she was raw.
But beneath the release, another pain bloomed.
At the back of her head. Sharp. Wet.
She touched the spot. Her fingers came back slick with blood.
"What the fuck?"
She scrambled to the mirror, parting her hair with shaking hands. There—a raw, open wound. Fresh.
"Now… how did this happen?"
Her phone shattered the silence.
She glanced at the screen. Central Hospital.
Her blood ran cold.
"What happened to Mom?" she answered, voice already splintering.
The hospital never called. Not once in all the months since her mother slipped into the coma.
"Victoria, your mom is awake." The doctor paused. "And it's not good."