*Trigger Warnings* family angst, end of the world, mind control, Dewey's dark sense of humor, flashbacks, amneisa, comatose dad.
The wind howled outside, rattling the reinforced glass of the tower's upper floors. Nayley stood at the window, arms folded, watching the city below. It was quiet in a way that wasn't natural—streets that should have been packed with honking cars and hurried pedestrians now lay eerily still, broken only by the occasional flicker of movement in the distance.
"Still watching?" Dewey's voice was hushed as he approached, cradling a steaming mug in both hands. He offered it to her. "It's chamomile. Helps with nerves."
Nayley accepted it but didn't drink, her grip tightening around the warmth. "You ever seen things this bad before?"
Dewey exhaled through his nose. "No. And that's saying something."
The power grid was still up—for now—but the outside world was unraveling fast. Too many people had seen what happened in Washington. Too many factions were drawing their own conclusions. The government was cracking down, enforcing curfews, making arrests. Civilians were either hunkering down or taking to the streets. Chaos in slow motion.
"Cherish should be here," Nayley murmured. "It's not safe where she is."
Dewey's jaw tensed. "You think she doesn't know that?"
She finally turned to him, her eyes hard. "That thing in her head—whoever put it there, they're going to use it. And when they do, we have no idea what she'll become."
Dewey said nothing. There wasn't anything to say.
A distant explosion rumbled through the night. Both of them turned, watching as a column of smoke rose from somewhere near the city's edge.
"Guess we're out of time," Dewey muttered.
Nayley took a slow sip of her tea, even as her stomach twisted.
"Guess so."
The world narrowed to the press of Seraphine's fingers against my temples. Her touch was cool, clinical, but not unkind.
"Close your eyes," she murmured. "And don't fight me."
I hesitated. Everything in me screamed against that order. Against the idea of lowering my defenses while someone crawled inside my mind.
Miras shifted in the corner of the room, restless. I could feel his stare burning into me, but I couldn't look at him. If I did, I might lose whatever resolve I had left.
"Cherish," Imani's voice was firm. Steady. "Do it."
A lump lodged in my throat. I took a breath, slow and shaky, and closed my eyes.
Seraphine exhaled. "Good."
Then she pressed forward.
A bolt of ice shot through my skull. I jerked instinctively, but her hands didn't move. The cold burrowed deeper, carving paths through my thoughts, prying at something that had been coiled tight for so long I barely recognized it as foreign.
My breath stuttered. The pressure grew, a weight settling behind my eyes, behind my ribs, behind my very sense of self.
Something pulsed.
Not mine. Not me.
I gasped. It was there—it was there—
A hand clenched around my mind, dragging me under.
I was somewhere else. A room without walls, without a ceiling, without anything except endless dark and the sound of my own ragged breathing.
And then—
"Cherish."
The voice cracked through the silence like a whip. I flinched. It wasn't Seraphine's. It wasn't Imani's. It wasn't anyone I knew.
It was them.
I couldn't move. I couldn't run. I could only stand there, trapped in the center of nothing, as a shadow rippled through the darkness.
"You're not supposed to be here."
The presence wrapped around me, a familiar suffocating force pressing at the edges of my mind. But this time, I wasn't dreaming. This time, I wasn't helpless.
Seraphine's voice cut through the void, distant but firm. "Hold on to yourself. Don't let it pull you under."
Easier said than done. The presence flexed, dragging at me, sinking hooks into my thoughts. My knees buckled. White-hot pain bloomed behind my eyes. I was falling, spiraling into something too vast and ancient and wrong to comprehend—
And then, far away, someone shouted my name.
Miras.
I latched onto the sound, onto the raw desperation in it, and yanked myself back.
My body slammed into itself with brutal force. My eyes flew open, and I lurched forward, gagging, my head splitting open with a pain I had no words for.
Strong hands caught me before I could collapse.
Miras.
He was shaking. "She's done," he snarled, his voice hoarse with anger. "This stops. Now."
Seraphine's expression was unreadable. "We're just getting started."
Miras' grip tightened around me. "She can't take any more."
"She doesn't have a choice."
Imani's voice cut through the tension, sharp and unyielding. "Let her breathe. Then we go again."
I pressed my forehead against Miras' shoulder, my entire body trembling. My thoughts still weren't entirely my own. The presence was still there, lingering, waiting.
I knew, deep down, that Seraphine was right. This wasn't over. Not even close.
But God, I wished it was.
I could feel the cold steel against my skin before I even opened my eyes. The hum of the machine, faint at first, grew louder, vibrating through my skull like an impending storm. The room was darker now, quieter—an oppressive weight that pressed down on me. I felt Miras' hand on mine, warm and familiar, but the sensation was quickly overtaken by the chill of fear creeping through me.
"Just breathe," Seraphine's voice cut through the fog, and I could feel her standing over me, her touch light but insistent as she attached more electrodes to my skin, their cold tips sending small jolts through my nervous system. "This will allow me to go deeper. We need to break through the layers, Cherish. You've only shown us the surface."
I shuddered, my heart pounding in my chest, but I didn't protest. I didn't have the strength to. Seraphine was already too far into my mind, too deeply embedded, and if I fought her now, I knew it would only make everything worse.
Miras' hand tightened around mine, and I felt him lean closer, his breath warm against my ear. "Cherish... Don't let her do this."
I wanted to reassure him, to say that I would be okay, but the words got caught in my throat, and all that came out was a shallow, panicked breath. I couldn't speak, couldn't move.
Seraphine's gaze flicked over me once more, calculating, cold, and then she activated the machine. The moment the switch flipped, something inside me snapped—like a thin thread that had been stretched too far, too taut.
The hum of the machine pulsed through my mind like a living thing, deeper, searching, probing. It felt invasive, like hands curling around my thoughts, squeezing them into shapes they were never meant to take. It was as though she was digging into the most painful corners of my mind, places I had locked away, places I didn't want to remember.
Pain.
Terror.
The fear of them, the underground, their control. The Cube—the place where everything had started, where everything had changed.
I gasped, my hands shaking violently, as the machine's pulses grew stronger. Something inside me started to break—crack open like a fragile glass, shards of memories falling away into the void. My vision blurred, and the world tilted dangerously, a whirl of light and sound that I couldn't place.
"Focus, Cherish," Seraphine urged, but her voice was distant now, a mere echo in the whirlwind of my mind. "Remember. Stay with me."
But I couldn't hold on.
The memories slipped away from me, fragments, pieces of a life I couldn't grasp, faces and voices fading like mist, as though they'd never been real. I reached for them, but they were gone—scattered, fragmented, lost to the pull of the machine.
And then, as the connection deepened, I felt it—the disorientation, the cold emptiness inside my chest. The part of me that used to know who I was—what I was—was slipping away.
It was happening. I was forgetting.
I blinked rapidly, trying to clear my vision, trying to hold on to the moment, the present, but it wasn't enough. The more the machine hummed, the more pieces of myself I lost.
I could feel Miras beside me, but the connection between us was becoming more and more distant, like I was floating, weightless, slipping further away from him.
His voice—so familiar, so full of desperation—finally broke through the fog. "Cherish, no—don't let go."
I couldn't remember what I was supposed to hold on to.
"Miras?" I whispered, but it felt wrong, unfamiliar. A name I couldn't place. Had I known him?
The panic surged through him, and I heard his breath catch in his throat. "Cherish, it's me. It's Miras. Don't—don't forget me. Please."
I stared at him through the haze of my mind, trying to connect the face in front of me to the name on my lips, but everything felt so far away. His features were familiar, but his presence—his voice—was slipping out of reach. I felt a cold emptiness spread through me, like there was a gaping hole inside, and I was vanishing into it.
"Please," Miras pleaded, his voice cracking with a rawness that ripped at my heart, even though I couldn't fully understand why. "Cherish, look at me. Don't forget me."
I tried. God, I tried. I reached for him, but it felt like my fingers were no longer mine, like I couldn't even make my own body obey me anymore. The connection between us was fraying, unraveling, until I couldn't remember how I felt when I was with him, when he held me, when he protected me.
Seraphine's voice cut through the spiral of confusion. "It's temporary, Cherish. Just hold on. It's part of the process."
But it wasn't temporary. It felt permanent. I was losing him. I was losing me.
I looked at Miras again, his eyes wide with fear, and for a moment, I wondered if he could see what I was feeling—the despair, the endless, drowning fear that I wouldn't remember him. Wouldn't remember us.
Would I forget everything that had brought me here? The choices I'd made? The fight we'd waged? My purpose?
"Don't... leave me..." he whispered, his voice a raw plea, and my heart lurched—I had felt that connection. I knew it, once.
But I was slipping. The machine kept pulling me under, and I couldn't stop it. My thoughts scattered, frayed, lost in the static, as Miras' face blurred, fading from the edges of my memory.
I couldn't breathe.
And I couldn't hold on to him.
My heart shattered into pieces that I couldn't piece back together.
The world was muted when I came to—fuzzy, distorted, as though I was waking from a dream I couldn't quite remember. My body felt heavy, unresponsive, like I was sinking into the bed beneath me, but something wasn't right. There was a sharpness in the air, a tension that I couldn't quite place.
I blinked, the movement slow, sluggish, and my mind was... empty. There was a vast, cavernous space inside my head, a void where something should have been. Something important. I opened my eyes fully, trying to ground myself, but it felt like I was seeing everything through a haze, as though the world itself was muted, its edges blurred.
Miras was there—standing in front of me, his face drawn with worry, but I didn't feel the usual warmth when I saw him. I didn't recognize the depth of the bond we shared. It should've been familiar, comforting, but instead, I felt... distant. He was a stranger. Not a complete one, but distant enough that I couldn't place the connection between us.
"Cherish?" His voice was low, strained, his hand hovering near mine. "Are you with me?"
My gaze flickered to his hand, the warmth of it drawing me in, but the sensation felt foreign. His voice, his presence—they should've felt like home, but I didn't remember how to reach out and take that comfort. The panic surged, tightening my chest.
"I…" I swallowed hard, my mouth dry. I wanted to say something, but my words felt empty, scattered. I tried to remember who he was, why I should trust him. But my mind was a jumbled mess of blank spaces and fractured images, as though my memories had been shredded, tossed into the wind.
I could feel Seraphine watching, the subtle hum of the machine beside me only serving to heighten the disorientation. There was a coldness to her presence now, something different. Something that didn't sit well. She was digging too deep, and I hadn't been able to stop her.
"You've lost a few memories," she said, her voice clinical, detached. "It's temporary. A side effect of the process. We'll have you back to normal soon."
I stared at her, but I couldn't remember if I trusted her. The words, the explanations—they didn't mean anything to me. I wanted to believe her, but a growing sense of dread gnawed at the edges of my mind.
"Miras…" I finally croaked, my voice barely more than a whisper, and his name felt like a lifeline, but I wasn't sure why. "Who... are you?"
I couldn't keep the fear from my voice, the panic rising with each passing second as I searched his face for something—anything—that would trigger the memories I had lost. But his expression didn't change. It was filled with something like desperation, but there was also a flicker of grief.
"Cherish…" His voice cracked as he said my name, and I felt the weight of his emotion, even if I couldn't quite understand why it hurt so much. He stepped closer, but I flinched back, my body rebelling against the instinct to let him in.
"I don't..." I stopped, unsure of how to continue. I could feel his eyes on me, heavy, searching. "I can't remember."
My heart twisted. The way he looked at me—so broken—shattered something inside me. I should remember. I should know him. But the space where those memories should have been was hollow, empty, and aching in ways I couldn't comprehend.
Seraphine moved closer, the machine humming louder now, more insistent. "Cherish," she said again, her voice now almost pitying. "This is the price we have to pay. The process requires full access to your mind. It's a lot to bear."
I didn't care about her words. I didn't care about the machine. I wanted to understand why everything felt wrong. I wanted to remember who I was, who he was, who I had been before all of this, before the Cube, before the power that I couldn't control.
"Miras, I…" I couldn't finish the sentence. The words felt like they were trapped in my throat. I didn't know what I was trying to say, I didn't know what I wanted from him. The connection we had—whatever it was—wasn't there anymore, not the way it had been.
His hand hovered over mine, but he didn't touch me. He couldn't bring himself to, and I could feel that hesitation deep in my bones.
"Cherish, I'm right here," he said, his voice thick with emotion. "I'm not going anywhere. Don't you remember? You... you're everything to me."
Everything. The word sent a pang through me, a thread of something I should have known. But it was so distant, like I was reaching through water, my fingers slipping through the surface of what once was.
"I'm... sorry," I whispered, my voice barely audible. "I don't know who you are."
I saw his face crumble—his jaw tight, his eyes squeezed shut for a moment, and it felt like a knife in my chest. He knew me. He loved me. But I couldn't remember. I couldn't feel it, and the guilt clawed at me, sharp and insistent, digging into my soul.
"I can't..." I couldn't finish the thought. I didn't even know how to make sense of what I was feeling anymore.
Seraphine's voice was a cold reminder of the harsh reality. "The memories will return," she said, though I could hear the doubt in her tone now. "You'll be fine."
But her words held no comfort. She was lying. I could feel it in the way her eyes lingered on me—measuring, calculating. She wasn't worried about me. She was worried about what she hadn't seen yet, what had slipped through the cracks of my fractured mind.
I didn't know how to move forward. I didn't know how to piece myself back together.
Miras stayed silent, his presence suffocating in its quiet grief. But I couldn't reach him. The space between us had grown too wide, and I wasn't sure I could cross it again.
I wasn't sure I would ever be the same again.
****
The tension in the room thickened, choking the air around me, making it hard to breathe. The pain in my chest—the confusion, the ache of not knowing—was only amplified by the chaos unfolding around me. I could feel Miras' eyes burning into me, but his presence felt like a distant echo, something I was supposed to recognize but couldn't fully grasp.
I turned to look at him, but it was like I was looking at a stranger. His face, filled with worry, was so familiar, and yet... I couldn't remember why it should matter. My heart twisted with a guilt I couldn't explain, as if I were failing him in ways I couldn't even understand.
"Cherish…" Miras' voice cracked, and my name sounded like a plea, but it wasn't enough. I couldn't bring myself to reach for him. I didn't even know how.
Imani stood at the edge of the room, his posture tense, his expression a storm of frustration. He was watching me, but I couldn't read his thoughts. The feeling of being observed, of being so deeply scrutinized, added to the suffocating weight of my confusion.
Miras moved suddenly, his chair scraping back as he stood, and I flinched involuntarily. His gaze was wild, frantic, as though he were on the edge of losing something precious—and maybe he was. Maybe I was slipping away from him, out of his reach, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
"This is what you've done to her?" Miras snapped, his voice low, the anger rising like a storm, but there was something else in his eyes—something desperate, broken. "You promised this would be temporary!"
Imani stepped forward, his fists clenched, trying to maintain a semblance of control. "You need to stay calm," he said, voice tight with the strain of holding everything together. Just let her do her job so we can help her. It's only been a few seconds."
Help her?" Miras spat, his voice rising, more frantic now. "You're not helping! She doesn't even know who I am, Imani. I'm losing her." His voice cracked at the last word, and something inside me—a forgotten, buried memory—flickered with recognition, but it was gone before I could grasp it.
I tried to speak, to explain the confusion swirling inside me, but the words wouldn't come. My mouth was dry, my thoughts jumbled, and the space between us felt so vast that I couldn't even reach across it to tell him I was trying. I wanted to remember, I wanted to hold onto him—but I couldn't.
Imani's eyes flicked between Miras and me, his jaw clenched, his anger mixed with something else. Regret? Fear? But he didn't move. He didn't know how to help, either.
Miras' body tensed, and in a sudden, violent motion, he crossed the room, his hand grabbing Imani by the collar. "You promised," he snarled, his voice a low growl of frustration. "You promised me she'd be okay, that she wouldn't—" His words broke off as his anger boiled over, and he shoved Imani backward, the motion rough and forceful.
Imani staggered, but he didn't fall. "Miras, stop it—" he warned, his voice tight with the pressure of trying to keep his composure. But Miras was shaking, trembling with a barely-contained rage, and the space between them had become a battlefield.
The sound of the scuffle was deafening in the room, their bodies colliding with too much force, and I felt paralyzed. Everything in me screamed to do something, to stop this, to fix what was happening, but I couldn't. My mind was too clouded, too frayed. I was losing myself, losing everything I should know—and in that moment, I felt completely helpless.
"Enough!" Aunt Nayley's voice cut through the chaos, firm and commanding. Her presence filled the room like a grounding force, and I felt it—like a pulse of calm spreading through the air. Her hands were on Imani's chest, pushing him back with surprising strength, her voice unwavering. "You're not helping her by tearing each other apart."
Imani, breathing heavily, stepped back, rubbing a hand over his face in frustration. Miras remained still, his chest heaving with the remnants of his anger, but he didn't lash out again. The tension between them hung heavy in the air, but Aunt Nayley's intervention had forced a moment of stillness.
Miras' gaze locked on me then, and there was a rawness in his eyes—a pleading, an anguish that I couldn't look away from. It hit me harder than anything else: the weight of his pain, of him watching me slip away, of him not knowing if I'd ever come back to him the way I had been.
"Cherish," he whispered, his voice thick with emotion. "Please... don't forget me."
I stared at him, but nothing inside me clicked. I couldn't reach him, couldn't find the connection that was supposed to be there, and it felt like I was drowning, suffocating in the emptiness that was consuming me. I wanted to scream, to beg for my memories back, to somehow make it stop—but the words wouldn't come.
Aunt Nayley moved closer to me, her hands gentle on my shoulders, grounding me in a way that no one else could. She didn't speak at first, just stood there, her touch a comfort even in the chaos. "Cherish," she said quietly, looking at me with eyes that held both understanding and concern. "You'll get through this, sweetheart. You just have to hold on. All of you—you're stronger than this."
I wanted to believe her. God, I wanted to believe her.
But in that moment, as I felt the distance between me and Miras stretch further and further, the weight of the uncertainty settled in. What if I never remembered? What if I never came back to him the way I should? What if the pieces of me that had been lost couldn't ever be put back together again?
The room felt cold, distant, as though the world had shifted without me—and I was stuck in the wrong place, the wrong time, surrounded by people I should have known, but who were slipping away from me too.
The room felt suffocating as Seraphine's fingers pressed into my temples again, her touch sharp and invasive, like she was rummaging through the deepest parts of me. I wanted to pull away, to stop her, but I couldn't. I was too weak, too lost in the fog of my own mind. She was digging deeper now—beyond the surface—like she had opened a door that I didn't even know existed.
I tried to brace myself, but it was impossible. It felt like everything inside me was being ripped apart, scattered, like shards of glass spinning through the air, each fragment sharp enough to slice through my very sense of self.
Seraphine's voice was a low murmur, cold and detached, as she muttered to herself, tapping at the machine beside me. I felt her presence, her influence, burrowing into the corners of my mind, picking apart everything I had been trying to hold together.
Don't fight me, she'd said. But how could I not? How could I not fight when I could feel everything I was, everything I had been, being torn from me?
Then, suddenly, the pressure—no, the weight—shifted. The machine hummed louder, almost as if it were alive, feeding on me, consuming me, and then...
Everything came crashing back.
It wasn't gradual, not like I had imagined. No, it was a tidal wave—an overwhelming, suffocating rush of memories, of faces, of voices—of Miras.
I remember him. His smile. His eyes. His laugh. I remember loving him.
The memories hit like a lightning bolt—sharp, blinding, intense—and I was drowning in them. Every moment we had shared, every promise, every fight, every kiss, every tear. The weight of it was so intense, it felt like I was being crushed under the sheer force of it all.
But there was more. So much more. The pain. The fear. The torture. The Cube. The raw, pulsing power that had twisted itself into my very soul.
It's too much. It's too much. I can't handle it.
I gasped, my breath coming in ragged, desperate sobs, my body trembling violently as the memories continued to flood back, too fast, too overwhelming. The confusion from earlier was suddenly eclipsed by the sharp, undeniable clarity of my past.
I remember. I remember everything. I remember the pain.
And then, the weight of the realization hit me. I remember all the things I had tried so hard to forget. The moments I thought I had pushed to the back of my mind, the trauma I had buried deep, all of it was back, suffocating me.
I was drowning.
I couldn't breathe.
I felt the world tilting, spinning, and before I could process it, my hands were gripping at my head, my nails scraping against my skin as though I could somehow pull the memories back out, shove them away, stop them from consuming me. But it was no use. They were there—everything I had wanted to forget was there, filling every crevice of my brain, overwhelming me, suffocating me.
"Cherish!" Miras' voice sliced through the chaos, frantic and desperate. I could hear his feet pounding against the floor, his hands grabbing my shoulders, trying to hold me steady. But nothing was steady. The world was spinning, shifting, breaking apart at the seams.
I looked up at him, my vision blurry with tears, but I couldn't speak. I couldn't even find the words to tell him what was happening, to tell him I was drowning in these memories that were flooding me all at once.
"Cherish, breathe. Breathe!" His voice was hoarse now, panicked, but the sound of it only made everything worse. It was too much. His touch—it was grounding, but it wasn't enough to stop the flood, to stop the sensation that my mind was splintering under the weight of it all.
I couldn't hold on anymore.
My body spasmed, and then I felt myself falling. Falling into darkness, falling into the void, where I couldn't distinguish the memories from the present, couldn't figure out where I ended and where the past began. It was too much. I couldn't process it. I couldn't bear it. Everything went black.
The world comes back in pieces.
First, the sharp press of a headache blooming behind my eyes, pulsing in time with my heartbeat. Then the distant hum of voices—low at first, distorted—but rising, sharpening, until the sound crashes over me like a wave.
"…told you the sedative wouldn't work—"
"She needed to be grounded first, not drugged into oblivion—"
"Oh, and your way was so much better?"
The voices are thick with anger, overlapping, clashing. I recognize them—Imani, Seraphine, Miras. They're arguing. Again.
I exhale, a slow, shaky breath, and immediately regret it. My chest is tight, my limbs unsteady, my head a tangle of static and too much sensation. My memories feel… brittle. Like if I move too fast, they might shatter.
I try to shift, but even that small movement sets off a sharp pang behind my ribs. A hiss escapes me before I can stop it.
The arguing cuts off like a snapped wire.
The sudden silence is worse.
"She's awake." Miras' voice is the first to break through. Rough. Tight.
I force my eyes open.
The room is too bright. I flinch at the fluorescent glare and squint against the shapes standing above me. Miras, tense and rigid with his arms crossed, his jaw locked so tight I think he might shatter his teeth. Imani, equally stiff, eyes sharp with frustration. Seraphine, utterly unreadable, her hands folded neatly behind her back like she isn't standing in the middle of a warzone she helped create.
The air is thick, charged with something unspoken.
I don't want to be here.
"Cherish?" Miras' voice softens, but the tension doesn't leave his frame. "Are you—?"
"I think that's enough," Aunt Nayley's voice cuts in, steady and firm. I hadn't even noticed her enter the room, but now she's there, moving toward me with quiet purpose. She places a warm hand on my arm, grounding me. "She doesn't need this right now."
"She needs answers," Seraphine says flatly.
"She needs space," Aunt Nayley counters. There's no room for argument in her tone.
I don't hesitate when she helps me sit up, though the movement sends my stomach lurching. The chaos in my head is too much—every memory, every second of pain, everything I'd been forced to remember all at once, it's still sitting heavy in my chest. I can't handle being in this room, with them, with all the tension and anger and unspoken things crackling in the air.
Aunt Nayley must sense it because she doesn't waste time. "Come on, sweetheart," she murmurs. "Let's get you out of here."
I don't argue. I don't even look back.
She helps me to my feet, steadying me when my legs tremble beneath me. My body is still wrung out, still weak, but I move anyway, letting her guide me to the door.
I can feel their stares—Miras' especially—but I don't turn around. I don't think I can bear it.
The moment we step into the hallway, leaving them behind, I finally breathe. It still hurts, but at least it's my own.
Aunt Nayley keeps a steady hand on my arm as we walk, her grip firm but never restricting. I let her guide me, focusing on the rhythm of our steps instead of the mess in my head. Each stride feels a little more real, a little more solid, pulling me out of the chaos that still lingers in my chest.
For a while, she says nothing. Neither do I.
It's better this way.
We move through the corridors in silence, past empty rooms and glass windows that stretch high above the city below. The world outside looks just as I remember—grey, sharp, restless—but I feel different. I feel like I don't quite belong in my own skin. Like I've been shattered and hastily put back together, and none of the pieces fit the same way anymore.
Aunt Nayley finally speaks when we reach a balcony overlooking the city. "Take a breath, sweetheart."
I try. The cold air stings my lungs, but it's a relief compared to the stifling weight of the room we left behind. I grip the metal railing, letting the solid chill of it anchor me.
She watches me for a long moment. "You wanna tell me what's going on in that head of yours?"
I don't even know where to start.
I shake my head. "It's… a lot."
"I figured." She exhales, leaning beside me. "That kind of thing—you don't just bounce back from it."
She says it so simply, like it's a fact, not something I have to fight against.
I swallow hard. "I remember everything. But it's… messy." I pause, searching for the right words. "It's like all my thoughts are overlapping. Too much at once. Too loud."
She nods like she understands. Maybe she does.
"Imani and Seraphine—" I start, but she cuts me off with a dry snort.
"—are about as stubborn as they come?" She gives me a knowing look. "Yeah, I caught that."
I huff a quiet laugh, but it fades just as quickly. "They think this was necessary." My fingers tighten around the railing. "That all this pain is worth it."
"Do you think it was?"
I hesitate. "I don't know."
Aunt Nayley reaches out, tucking a strand of hair. "You've been carrying too much. I can see it. Miras can see it. And I know damn well you can feel it." She squeezes my arm.
---
Aunt Nayley stays beside me as the wind tugs at my sleeves, the city stretching out below like a vast, unfeeling machine. My thoughts are still tangled, my body still aching, but for the first time since waking up, I feel like I can breathe.
Until the elevator chimes behind us.
I stiffen instinctively, already knowing who it is before I turn.
Miras steps onto the balcony, his expression carved from stone, his eyes dark with something raw and stormy. His gaze locks onto mine like he's afraid I might disappear if he looks away.
Aunt Nayley sighs. "I'll give you two a minute."
I don't know if I want a minute.
Miras doesn't move until she's gone, until the soft click of the door leaves us alone in the night air. Only then does he take a slow, measured step toward me. "You left."
I grip the railing tighter. "I needed air."
His jaw tics. "And you didn't think I'd want to be there?"
I don't answer. Because I don't know how.
Miras exhales sharply and drags a hand through his hair. "You scared the hell out of me, Cherish." His voice isn't angry. Just… tired. "I thought I lost you."
A flicker of guilt twists in my chest. "I came back."
His lips press into a thin line. "Not at first."
The words hit harder than they should. Because he's right. For a while, I hadn't been there. And then, when I finally was, I hadn't remembered him.
And even now—even now—I still don't feel like I'm all the way here.
Miras must see something in my face because his shoulders drop, his frustration giving way to something softer. He closes the space between us, careful, cautious, like he's waiting for me to pull away.
I don't.
His hand ghosts over mine on the railing, warm against my cold fingers. "Talk to me."
I swallow hard. "I don't know how."
"That's okay." His voice is quieter now. "Just let me stay."
For a long moment, I don't move. Then, slowly, I lean into his warmth, letting my forehead rest against his shoulder.
He doesn't press me for anything more.
I don't know why I came here.
I'm standing in front of my own scrambled thoughts, broken down into flickering waves and numbers on Seraphine's screens, and I feel like I'm looking at something that isn't me.
Then, from somewhere behind me—
"Okay, so serious question," Dewey says, voice echoing just a little too loudly in the sterile space. "Do we actually know if Cherish's brain is, like… y'know, normal enough to compare this to? 'Cause I've met her. I have my doubts."
I shoot him a glare. "I will throw something at you."
He grins, completely unbothered. "See? That's exactly what an unstable person would say."
Seraphine sighs, rubbing her temple. "Dewey."
"What? I'm just saying, this could all be totally normal for her. Like, maybe her brain just likes to be complicated."
Seraphine pinches the bridge of her nose. "Your input is unnecessary."
Dewey folds his arms, smirking. "Rude."
For a second, just a second, the tension cracks. But then Seraphine's gaze flicks back to the screen, and the weight of everything slams back into me.
I clear my throat. "What does it mean?"
Seraphine doesn't hesitate. "It means the underground didn't just want to control you." She turns, meeting my gaze, and her next words are cool and precise, like she's already dissected the truth of it in her head.
"They wanted to make you theirs."
The world lurches.
Dewey goes very still beside me. "Okay. Not a fan of that sentence. Can we workshop it?"
I barely hear him. My fingers tighten around the edge of the desk as my pulse pounds in my ears. "You're saying—what? That I'm still—" I shake my head, trying to force down the panic crawling up my throat. "No. That's not possible."
Seraphine doesn't blink. "If they activate it again, you won't have a choice."
Dewey makes a quiet choking sound. "Oh. Oh, great. No choice. Love that for us."
I grip the desk harder, the nausea twisting deep in my gut.
This isn't over.
It never was.
And no amount of Dewey's jokes can make that go away.
"Their influence is still embedded in your neural pathways," she explains, fingers tapping rapidly across the keyboard. "It's not just conditioning—it's structural. A rewiring of how your brain processes control, memory, and—"
"Yeah, yeah, okay, we get it," Dewey cuts in, rocking back and forth in one of the lab's rolling chairs. "She's got some bad brain spaghetti. The question is—how do we un-spaghetti-fy it?"
I blink at him. "…Un-spaghetti-fy?"
Dewey gestures vaguely at my head. "Your neurons are all tangled up with their creepy mind-meddling. We need to untangle them. Or snip the bad parts. Or—I don't know, do some kind of psychic brain exorcism." He spins in a lazy circle. "Might need holy water. Anyone got some?"
Seraphine exhales sharply, clearly regretting every decision that led to Dewey being in this room.
I can't help it. I snort.
It's a tiny thing, barely there, but it's the first real breath I've taken since she told me the truth.
Seraphine pinches the bridge of her nose. "No, we do not need holy water. We need to sever their influence completely before they can activate it again."
"Okay," I say, straightening. "How?"
Seraphine hesitates.
Dewey perks up. "Ooh, she doesn't know. That's bad."
Seraphine glares at him before refocusing on me. "It's not a matter of if we can do it. It's how we do it safely."
I frown. "Meaning?"
Seraphine glances at the monitors. "If we go in too aggressively, we risk severing pathways that are critical to your cognitive function."
Dewey frowns. "So, what? She'll forget things?"
"Possibly," Seraphine admits. "Or worse—her mind could destabilize entirely."
My stomach twists.
Dewey whistles low. "Yikes."
Seraphine shoots him another glare. "But if we don't act soon, and they activate their control—"
"I lose myself," I finish.
The words hang in the air. Heavy. Unshakable.
Dewey, for once, doesn't have a joke.
Seraphine exhales. "We need to rewrite their influence. If we can counteract the way they altered your neural structure, we might be able to overwrite their control."
I nod, forcing down the anxiety creeping up my throat. "Okay. Then we do that."
"It won't be easy," Seraphine warns. "And it won't be painless."
I look at her. "I don't care."
Dewey swipes a hand down his face. "Why is it always pain? Why can't it ever be, like, a gentle spa treatment for the mind?"
Seraphine ignores him. "We'll start tonight."
Tonight.
My hands curl into fists.
No more waiting. No more hesitation.
Dinner is awkward.
Like, worse-than-a-weird-family-reunion awkward. Worse-than-running-into-your-ex awkward. Worse-than-anything-I've-ever-experienced awkward.
And considering my entire life lately, that's saying something.
The four of us sit around a sleek, modern dining table in one of the tower's common rooms, plates of untouched food in front of us. The lighting is soft, the space big enough that the silence feels even heavier, like it's pressing down on all of us.
Miras sits to my right, his knee bumping mine under the table, the only sign that he's still tense after the lab. He hasn't stopped watching me, like he's half-expecting me to collapse or disappear or—hell, I don't know—start levitating from brain surgery anticipation.
Aunt Nayley is across from me, calmly cutting her food like she's not sitting in the middle of a storm waiting to hit. She's been unshakably steady since I got back, but I can tell she hates this. Hates that she can't fix it.
And then there's Imani.
Sitting next to Miras, picking at his food with the same disapproving frown he always wears when he's in a room with him for more than thirty seconds.
The tension is unbearable.
So, naturally, I decide to break it in the worst possible way.
"So. Brain surgery." I poke at my food, trying for a joke. "That's fun, right?"
Aunt Nayley sighs, setting down her fork. Miras makes a low, strangled noise next to me. Imani drags a hand down his face.
"Cherish," he says, exasperated.
"What?" I gesture vaguely. "It's not like we're all thinking about anything else."
No one argues. Because, well. It's true.
Miras finally speaks, voice low. "They shouldn't be doing this to you."
Imani tenses immediately. "It's the only way to keep her safe."
Miras' fork scrapes against his plate, sharp enough to make my nerves jolt. "Safe?" He lets out a short, humorless laugh. "You think putting her through this is safe?"
"I think letting the underground own her mind is worse," Imani snaps.
I groan, slumping forward against the table. "Oh my God, can we not?"
Aunt Nayley clears her throat. "Boys."
They shut up instantly, though Miras still looks like he wants to launch his plate at Imani's head.
Nayley folds her hands. "Arguing isn't helping."
I peek up at her, grateful. "See? She gets it."
She gives me a dry look. "That doesn't mean you get to make brain surgery jokes at the dinner table."
I blink. "Wait, so I can make them—just not at dinner?"
Miras exhales sharply, like he's barely holding onto his sanity. Imani mutters something under his breath that definitely includes the word "impossible."
Aunt Nayley just shakes her head. "Eat your food, Cherish."
I grin, despite everything. "Yes, ma'am."
Just when I think the conversation might settle into something vaguely normal, the door swings open.
Dewey waltzes in like he owns the place, a plate already in hand, piled high with food he definitely didn't get from this table. He plops into the empty seat next to Aunt Nayley, utterly unbothered by the thick cloud of tension hanging over us.
"Whew," he says, digging into his food. "What's up, nerds? How's the 'pre-brain-surgery-last-supper' going?"
Every single person at the table groans.
Miras drops his head into his hands. Imani looks physically pained. Aunt Nayley closes her eyes like she's summoning patience from the universe itself.
I just shove a spoonful of food into my mouth to keep from laughing.
Dewey blinks at all of us. "What?" He gestures vaguely. "That's what's happening, right?"
Miras lets out a long breath through his nose. "Dewey."
"What? Oh, wait." Dewey's eyes widen with mock realization. "Are we not making brain surgery jokes at the table? My bad. Thought we were past that."
Imani pinches the bridge of his nose. "I should have locked the door."
Dewey grins, completely unbothered. "You should have. But you didn't. And now you get to bask in my presence. Lucky you."
Miras, voice flat: "So lucky."
Dewey winks. "Aw, love you too, big guy."
I can't help it—I snort. The tension cracks just a little. The meal is still awkward, but at least now, it's awkward with Dewey in the mix, which is somehow less unbearable.
I barely tasted my food. Now, back in my room, the clock ticking louder than it should, I felt suffocated. I needed air. I needed out.
And I needed to see my dad.
I stood in front of Imani, arms crossed, pulse pounding. "Let me go."
"No."
I clenched my teeth. "Imani, please. I don't know what's going to happen in that surgery. I need to see him before—"
"Before what?" he interrupted, gaze sharp. "Before you make a reckless decision that puts you in danger? Again?"
I flinched. "That's not fair."
Imani let out a slow breath, rubbing his temples, " you're still healing, and the people who did that to you are still out there. You think I'm letting you just waltz out of here and hand them another chance?"
I exhaled hard through my nose. "It's not about them. It's about my dad. I need to talk to him. I need—" My voice cracked, humiliatingly, and I swallowed it down. "I don't know if I'll wake up the same after this. What if I don't even remember him?"
Imani's jaw tightened, but he hesitated, and I lunged at the opening.
"I get it, okay?" My voice was sharp, desperate. "You're doing your job. You're protecting him. But I'm not asking you to take me to some unknown location with snipers on the roof. I just want to see my dad. You really think I'd run? That I'd risk my life just to—"
"Yes."
That stung more than I wanted to admit. I swallowed around the lump in my throat. "I deserve to see him."
Imani looked at me for a long moment. The same way he always did when he was trying to weigh the risk against what he thought I could handle. Then he sighed, rubbing his temples. "You stay in my sight the whole time. We go in and out. No detours."
Hope surged through my chest so fast it almost knocked me over. "You mean—"
"We leave in ten minutes."
I let out a shaky breath. "Thank you."
He didn't respond, just shook his head like he was already regretting it.
I didn't care. I was going to see my dad.
Imani's grip on my arm is firm but not forceful, guiding me through the house with the quiet efficiency of someone who's done this a hundred times before. The sound of the television fades as we move down the hall, away from the echo of my father's voice, away from the version of him meant for the world to see. My ribs ache with every step, a dull reminder that I shouldn't even be moving this much yet, but I keep going. I need to see him. I need to—
A choked sound makes me stop.
Not just a sound—a sob. Raw, unrestrained.
I look up, my heart lurching before my body even stills.
Miras is crumpled in Aunt Nayley's arms, shaking with the force of his grief. His hands clutch at the fabric of her cardigan like it's the only thing keeping him from falling apart completely. She holds him without hesitation, her palm cradling the back of his head, fingers lost in his hair.
I can't hear what she's whispering, but it doesn't seem to matter. He isn't answering her. Just breaking.
It doesn't fit.
This is something different.
Something private.
I should look away. I should keep walking. I should let him have this moment without my eyes on him.
But I don't.
I stand there, my pulse unsteady, watching him fall apart like I'm trying to make sense of a puzzle missing too many pieces.
Imani clears his throat beside me, low and deliberate. A reminder.
I force my feet to move.
As we pass, Aunt Nayley's eyes flick to mine. There's something knowing in her gaze, something I don't have time to decipher before we're turning the corner, before Miras is out of sight.
But not out of mind.
Not even close.