Chapter 37
RAVEN
I wake up knowing something is wrong.
Not in the big, scream-worthy way — not the kind that slaps you with panic and throws you straight into survival mode.
No, this is quieter.
Colder.
It’s the kind of wrong that seeps under your skin and curls there, tight and still, like a secret waiting to be remembered.
Damien isn’t in the bed.
I sit up slowly, the blanket still warm around me, my eyes flicking across the room like I’m expecting to see a shadow that shouldn’t be there.
But there’s nothing.
Just the woods outside. Just the half-shut door. Just the cabin breathing around me, floorboards shifting under ghosts.
My phone buzzes on the table.
I don’t want to check it.
I don’t want anything to break this fragile illusion of safety we’ve been pretending is real — but my body moves before I decide, fingers wrapping around the cold metal, screen lighting up in the darkness.
Unknown number.
One message.
You remember the place with the white walls.
They lied to you there.
Ask him what he did the night you stopped talking.
I don’t breathe.
I just stare at the words until they blur, until they look like someone else’s memory, until I can’t tell if they’re new or something I read in a file once — a note left in the margin of a therapist’s report.
The white walls.
The silence.
The boy with the moths.
The one they told me wasn’t real.
I press my thumb to the message like I can erase it just by touching it too long, like maybe I imagined the whole thing if I close the screen fast enough.
But I didn’t imagine the tremor in my gut.
I didn’t imagine the way my mouth suddenly tastes like chalk and blood and something rotten.
And I didn’t imagine the way Damien didn’t tell me everything when I asked him about that night.
He said I left him there.
But he never said what happened next.
I get up slowly, heartbeat too fast, the floor too cold under my feet. The room tilts, just a little. The edges blur.
And then I remember—
The asylum.
The forced meds.
The white walls so bright they erased colour from my skin.
And the moths.
There were always moths in that dream.
They’d crawl up the inside of the window like they were trying to get back in. Like they were mine. Like they followed me.
And in the dream, someone always whispered my name from the other side.
But they told me that was hallucination.
They said no one came.
No one found me.
But the message—
Ask him what he did the night you stopped talking.
That’s not random.
That’s not a guess.
That’s someone who knows.
The door creaks open and I whip around, heart in my throat, eyes wide—
But it’s Damien.
Hair damp.
Shirt clinging to his chest.
He stops when he sees my face.
And I know he knows something’s wrong.
But for once, I don’t tell him.
Not yet.
Because I’m starting to realise this memory doesn’t belong to just me.
And the question blooming on my tongue might ruin everything.
He closes the door behind him without a word.
Doesn’t ask what I’m doing out of bed. Doesn’t blink when he sees I’m clutching the phone like a knife.
He just stares.
Like he’s counting the distance between us, calculating how fast I’ll run, how quickly he’ll catch me.
I don’t move.
Not even when he crosses the room, slow and quiet and dangerous like always. He stops just in front of me, and for a second, I think he’s going to reach for my face.
But his eyes drop to the phone in my hand.
“What was that?”
His voice is too calm.
Too even.
Like a bomb whispering before it explodes.
I say nothing.
Because if I speak, I’ll ask.
If I ask, he’ll lie.
And if he lies, I’ll never be able to pretend I didn’t know.
So instead I tilt my chin up. Just a little.
Not defiant.
Not scared.
Just… tired.
Tired of the half-truths. Tired of patching holes in my memories with duct tape and denial. Tired of waking up in someone else’s version of the past.
“You said I left you there,” I whisper. “That night. In the church.”
He doesn’t answer.
Not right away.
And that silence is louder than any scream he’s ever pulled from me.
I step back.
Just one step.
But he follows.
One step closer, until we’re toe-to-toe, his breath brushing my lips, his stare pinning me in place like a nail through paper.
“I did.”
He says it quiet.
Flat.
But I see the way his jaw tics. The way his fingers curl like he’s holding something in.
“But you didn’t tell me what happened after,” I say.
Still barely breathing.
Still clutching that phone like it’s the only thing tethering me to the present.
His gaze darkens. Shadow blooms beneath his eyes. And when he speaks again, it’s not smooth anymore. It’s cracked. Like something broke behind his teeth.
“Because you didn’t want to know.”
“Try me.”
He closes his eyes.
Breathes in like he’s about to confess.
But then—
He smiles.
No, he smirks. That crooked, broken, Damien kind of smirk that says if you want the truth, you’ll have to bleed for it.
“Tell me something first,” he murmurs, voice low and sharp. “When you were locked in that asylum with your pills and your white walls and your therapist who said you were hallucinating—did you ever see moths?”
The blood drains from my face.
I stagger back.
He catches my wrist before I fall.
Pulls me toward him like he’s reeling in prey.
“I didn’t know then,” he breathes against my ear. “But I saw them. Every night. Crawling through that cracked window. Right before I saw him.”
I freeze.
The world spins.
“You saw… who?”
He doesn’t answer.
Not exactly.
He lets go of my wrist and steps back, dragging his hands down his face like he’s trying to erase it all.
“You’re not the only one who was watched.”
My stomach flips.
“Was it the priest?”
Another silence.
Then he shakes his head. Just once.
“No. But it was someone who knew him. Someone who watched me like I was the prize. Like you were just the excuse.”
My throat dries.
My knees weaken.
And suddenly, I realise—
This isn’t just my story anymore.
It never was.
We were both being played.
And the game started long before either of us knew the rules.
My hand is still shaking when I lift the phone.
Not because I’m scared of him.
Because I’m scared of the answer.
“I got a message,” I say. My voice doesn’t sound like mine anymore. It’s flatter. Colder. Like something inside me has already decided it doesn’t believe him.
Damien stops pacing.
Slowly turns.
“What message.”
I swallow.
I don’t look at the screen. I don’t need to. The words are burned into the back of my eyelids.
“He said I remembered the place with the white walls.” My chest tightens. “He said they lied to me there.”
Damien doesn’t blink.
That’s how I know.
“They told me I was hallucinating,” I continue, every word cutting deeper now. “They told me the boy with the moths wasn’t real. That no one ever came. That I stopped talking because my mind fractured.”
I take a step closer.
“He told me to ask you what you did the night I stopped talking.”
Silence.
Not confusion.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
Damien’s jaw locks so hard I hear his teeth grind.
“Answer me,” I say.
Still nothing.
The room feels smaller. The walls breathe. The cabin creaks like it’s listening.
“Damien,” I whisper, and my voice finally breaks, “what did you do.”
He exhales.
Long. Controlled. Like he’s choosing which truth to give me and which one will destroy us both.
“You didn’t stop talking,” he says quietly.
My stomach drops.
“What.”
“You stopped responding,” he corrects. “You went quiet because you were listening to something else.”
My pulse roars in my ears.
“To who.”
He looks at me then.
Really looks.
And there’s fear in his eyes now — not of River.
Of me remembering.
“That night,” he says slowly, “they took you to the white room because you wouldn’t answer their questions. You just sat there. Staring at the wall. Whispering.”
I feel sick.
“Whispering what.”
He doesn’t want to say it.
I can see that.
But he does anyway.
“My name,” he admits. “And his.”
The floor tilts.
“H-his?”
Damien nods once.
Barely.
“You kept saying the moth boy was coming back,” he says. “They told me it was a delusion. That trauma had split your memory. That you were projecting.”
My vision blurs.
“And you believed them.”
“I wanted to,” he says.
That hurts more than anything else he could’ve said.
“So what did you do,” I ask again, quieter now, steadier, more dangerous.
“What did you do the night I stopped talking.”
Damien steps toward me.
I don’t step back.
“I went looking for him.”
The room goes dead silent.
“I thought if I found him,” Damien continues, voice low, raw, “and proved he wasn’t real… they’d stop drugging you. They’d let you out.”
My throat burns.
“And?”
“And I found something,” he says.
I don’t breathe.
“Not him,” Damien adds. “But proof someone had been there. Records that didn’t match. A name that didn’t belong on any list.”
My heart slams.
“What name.”
He hesitates.
Just long enough to confirm the truth.
“River.”
Everything inside me fractures.
Not explodes — fractures.
Clean breaks. Sharp edges. Irreversible.
Because now I understand.
River didn’t remind me of the asylum.
He didn’t guess.
He knew.
And whatever happened the night I stopped talking…
Damien was part of it.
“You knew,” I whisper. “You fucking knew.”
Damien doesn’t flinch.
He never does.
But I can feel it now—The crack behind his silence.
The guilt he’s been burying like a corpse.
“You knew it was him,” I breathe, the realisation sinking in like teeth through skin. “Even before I remembered.”
He exhales once through his nose.
Not denial. Not shame. Just… inevitability.
“I suspected,” he says quietly. “There were pieces. Patterns. A name scratched into the underside of your bed frame. A moth wing pinned to the vent. But you were slipping so fast I didn’t have time to confirm it.”
My legs feel unsteady.
I sink down onto the edge of the bed—no strength left in my spine.
“You let me think I was crazy.”