Chapter 18
Billa
The kitchen in the main house is quiet—the heavy quiet that comes after too many sleepless nights.
I wander in intending to grab something that doesn’t taste like stale coffee or regret.
The Brannon mansion has more pantries than any house should, but right now I can’t even remember which one holds the bread.
I’m halfway to the refrigerator when I hear footsteps. Two sets, quick and uneven. Ember and Luke burst in like they’ve been chased. Their faces are pale, eyes wide. They’re wired, as if they’ve just seen a ghost. Or worse.
“Hey,” I say carefully, closing the fridge door. “What happened?”
Ember’s gaze flicks to Luke, then back to me. “We need to talk.”
They look rattled. Something’s gnawing at them from the inside out. I gesture toward the table. “Sit and tell me.”
They do. It pours out in halting pieces. Encrypted forums, survivors, someone named Phoenix. As they speak, I feel my own breath catching. The phrases overlap with things I’ve just heard in that support group. Performances, Observation 2, and then worst of all, the white spool.
My fingers twitch around the folded paper still in my pocket. The one-eyed bear stares at me from inside it.
I swallow. “You’re not going to believe this, but… I’ve heard some of those same phrases tonight. At a meeting Florencia took me to. Survivors. They said Laurel wasn’t the veritable monster, just the scapegoat. And they warned me about the spool, too.”
“Florencia?” Ember asks.
It’s my turn to fill them in on everything I’ve learned in the last few days.
Ember leans forward, eyes blazing. “So it’s not just online. It’s real. Unique pieces of the same puzzle.”
Luke rakes a hand through his hair. “We’re not imagining this. They’re organized and connected. Survivors in the open, survivors in the dark. Both trying to grasp onto pieces of the truth while someone’s still trying to erase them.”
For a moment, none of us breathes. The mansion seems to hold its own silence, as if listening.
Finally, I speak. “If they’re right—if Laurel’s not the mastermind—then the actual manipulators are still out there pulling strings.”
Ember grips the edge of the table. “We have to stop hiding in corners and chasing scraps. We work together. Share everything we know, pool it before they erase it.”
Luke nods grimly. “Phoenix is waiting on our next move. He’s already warned us that we’re now on their radar. We don’t have much time.”
I lean back in my chair, the bear’s paper edges cutting into my palm through my pocket. The words echo in my head—Don’t touch it. Don’t let them hand it to you.
I’m not sure if working together makes us safer… or paints a target so bright even the walls of this house won’t keep us safe.
“We’ll start small,” Ember says, determination burning in her eyes. “Share what we find, no secrets. If Phoenix has evidence, we back it up a dozen ways. And if any of us hears something new, we tell the others immediately.”
Luke nods. “And we stay low. No patterns, no obvious searches.” He gives Ember’s hand a squeeze. “We can do this.”
I want to believe him. For tonight, I let myself.
We part ways, and I head home to my little cottage after grabbing some food for later.
By the time I reach the front door, the air has chilled significantly.
Crickets sing. My phone’s light sweeps across the front porch where a moth flutters against the glass.
Everything looks the same, but I don’t feel the same.
Inside, I set down my keys and drift to the closet where old boxes wait, stacked in careless towers. I should sleep but instead tug one free then sit cross-legged on the rug.
I lift the lid.
Inside lay photos, letters, a handful of trinkets that smell faintly of cedar and time. My mother’s handwriting curls across some envelopes. I let my fingers drift over them, wondering why I always end up here after nights like this.
One folded paper slips free from a notebook. A grocery list on one side—bread, soap, flour. On the back, scrawled like an afterthought—Ask about the Radley grant.
The words jolt me.
I stare, heart thudding. Did my mother know?
But then the logic rushes in like water plugging a leak.
Radley was a research hospital, wasn’t it?
Back then, it could’ve been just another funding note, a line from town meetings or one of her community projects.
She always scribbled things like that on scraps of paper—lists of calls to make, questions to ask.
I fold the paper carefully then slide it back into the notebook.
It doesn’t have to mean anything. It probably doesn’t.
Still, when I turn off the light and lie in bed, the words echo through my head like a whisper I can’t quiet.
Ask about the Radley grant.
The phrase loops in my mind. Over and over. But then I see the woman at the support group, her eyes sharp with warning. Don’t touch it. Don’t let them hand it to you. And the memory of my own childish scrawl—the one-eyed bear I’d forgotten until tonight—presses against me like a bruise.
What if Mom knew something? What if she was trying to tell me in the only way she dared?
My pulse quickens.
I sit up, then force myself back down, clutching the quilt to my chest. “No,” I whisper into the dark. “I’m chasing shadows. Looking too hard for clues that aren’t there.”
The house creaks around me, settling deeper into the night.
I close my eyes and try to believe my own words.
My mom had nothing to do with any of this.
It was Regina Brannon. My stepmother and mom couldn’t even look at each other.
There’s no way they would both get involved in something like this.
I’m definitely making too much of nothing.
I close my eyes and try to believe my own words.
The quilt muffles my breath, and the cottage presses quiet around me. Too quiet. Then just at the edge of hearing, something shifts outside. A faint crunch of gravel, a twig snapping where nothing should move.
My eyes fly open.
I hold my breath, straining, waiting for it to come again. The silence returns, deep and heavy, as if the night itself is listening back.
It’s nothing. A deer or the wind. My imagination running wild after too many secrets.
Still, I don’t get up to check. I pull the quilt tighter and lie rigid in the dark, every nerve alive with dread. Perhaps I’ll pull together answers from my sleep.