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The signal shrieks, warping violently, the sound bending and tearing as if the radio itself is fighting to stay intact. Her voice doesn’t blur or soften the way echoes do—it fractures, splintering into jagged pieces that cut straight through me.

My hands start shaking so hard I hear my teeth chatter, a dry, clicking sound that feels too loud inside my own head. My stomach flips, heat flooding my chest so fast it makes me dizzy, and I realize I’m whispering no over and over again without meaning to, like the word might wedge itself into the signal and stop it.

“No,” I breathe. “No—no—no⁠—”

The static surges again, aggressive now, screaming loud enough that it makes my ears ring—and then her scream punches through it, higher this time, thinner, unraveling into something almost unrecognizable.

“STAY THE FUCK AWAY⁠—”

Before the words can finish tearing themselves out of her, another voice slides underneath.

The voice that answers is male. Controlled. Almost kind, in a way that makes my skin crawl worse than cruelty would have.

“Easy now.”

The radio squeals, a high-pitched protest, but the voice doesn’t hurry. Doesn’t strain. It speaks like it knows it has all the time in the world.

“She can hear you.”

Something inside me gives way.

I scream—loud, broken, animal—and the sound feels like it rips straight out of my throat. The radio hits the floor somewhere near my feet. I don’t remember letting go of it. I don’t remember the door flying open hard enough to rattle the frame.

I only remember rain slamming into my face, icy and punishing, soaking me through in seconds, water running into my eyes and mouth and down my spine as Cass screams my name through the storm like it’s the last thing she has left to give.

And underneath the rain, underneath the static still screaming behind me, I feel it settle in my gut—slow, sick, absolute.

Whatever took her wanted me to hear.

Whatever took her knows exactly who I am.

The woods don’t echo.

They eat sound whole—rain slamming down hard enough to turn the world into smear and motion, my boots sliding in mud that grabs like hands, my lungs burning like I’ve been breathing rust instead of air. Water floods my eyes and mouth and collar, soaking me through until it feels like my skin never existed—just nerve and bone flayed open to the storm.

“MAL—EK!”

My scream rips out of me feral and ruined, torn apart by rain and distance. It doesn’t sound like my voice. It sounds like something dragged out of my chest and thrown into the dark.

I run because stopping would end me.

Branches tear at my arms. Bark scrapes skin. Mud sucks at my boots and I wrench free, nearly falling, my bad leg screaming its protest straight up my spine. I ignore it. Pain doesn’t get a vote anymore.

Then I see him.

Standing there like the storm was built around his spine. Still. Braced. Waiting—like he knew exactly where I’d break open and chose to meet me there.

I slam into him.

Hands flat against his chest, shoving hard enough that he stumbles back a step, boots skidding, rain flying. The impact rattles up my arms—but it’s not enough. It will never be enough.

“You knew.” It comes out small at first. Horrified. Then the anger finds its teeth. “You fucking knew.”

He snaps to me instantly—too fast, too grounded. Rain streaks down his face, plastering his hair to his forehead, sliding along scars I suddenly hate for surviving things my sister didn’t get to outrun.

“Selah—”

I grab his face.