"Tell her what?" I shake my head. "That we're suddenly experiencing her childhood trauma? That we felt her terror and abandonment like it was our own?" I run a hand through my hair. "She'll think we're insane."
"We might be," Rhett mutters.
But we're not. I know we're not. The memory was too vivid, too specific, too real. I can still taste the fear in my mouth, still feel the way my hands… No. Her small hands trembled as she clutched that bear.
The worst part isn't the impossibility of it.
The worst part is knowing she's been carrying that night—that level of pain and abandonment—alone all these years. While I lived right next door, hearing sounds through the wall but never saying anything because I was too afraid. I didn't know what true fear was.
"She was so small," I whisper.
"She's still small," Wes says, his voice rough with something that might be guilt. "Still carrying all of it."
We fall into silence again, each lost in our own thoughts. The mist continues to drift between us, and I wonder what all of this really means.
The sky outside the window is starting to lighten, painting everything in shades of gray.
Soon Bree will wake up, and we’ll have to pretend.
Pretend we don’t know things no one else should.
We'll have to act normal while carrying pieces of her past in our chests like shrapnel.
I think about the way she looked at us yesterday—confused, vulnerable. Finally trusting us with something that she would insist on handling herself. Letting us help her make sense of what happened. How can we do that when we don't understand it ourselves?
"What if this is just the beginning?" I ask, the words slipping out before I can stop them.
Neither of them answers. Because we're all thinking the same thing.
If one memory can bleed through this easily, what else is waiting in the dark corners of her mind?
And what happens when she realizes we're not just protecting her anymore—we understand, because we've lived it too.
The mist pulses once, like a heartbeat, and I know with bone-deep certainty that everything changed the moment she touched that crown. Not just for her.
For all of us.
Chapter 5
Bree
Sleep used to be my escape. Now it feels like hiding.
I've been doing too much of both lately—three days since the crown, maybe four. Time blurs when you spend most of it unconscious, trying to outrun the weight pressing against your chest every time you're awake.
The room is too quiet when I finally surface, late morning light filtering through curtains I don't remember closing. No voices drifting up from downstairs like there used to be. No laughter echoing through the halls, no easy banter that made this place feel alive.
At the foot of the bed, someone's left a hoodie. Folded carefully, like an offering. I can't tell whose—they all smell like cedar and safety and things I'm afraid to want too much.
I pull it on anyway, drowning in fabric that makes me feel smaller than I already am.
The mist stirs faintly when I swing my legs off the bed, curling around my ankles like it's checking to make sure I'm real. It used to feel like it was following me around, showing up when I was upset, hurt, or angry. Now? Now it never leaves. My constant companion since everything changed.
Since everything broke.
Because of me.
I clench my fists as I head to the hallway, willing it away, but it just curls closer. Like it knows I need it, even when I don't want it there.
