Chapter 15 Erased
After Leo left, I found myself staring at my phone until the screen blurred. My thumb hovered over Mom’s contact. I hated asking her for anything, knowing full well that she’d use this as leverage later. I especially hated admitting I couldn’t handle this alone.
But I was low on options, and Mom had always cared for my friends—especially Amy and May. I hit “call” before I could change my mind.
“Melanie?” She answered on the third ring. “It’s late. Is everything alright?”
My throat closed up. For a second, I couldn’t speak.
“Mel? Talk to me.”
“I need help.” The words tasted bitter on my tongue. “Mom, I—I need your help.”
Silence on the other end. Then, quieter, almost gentle: “Tell me what’s wrong.”
And I did. She didn’t interrupt as I went through the story, and she didn’t make the comments I’d expected about me being dramatic or overreacting. She just listened.
When I finished, she was quiet for several minutes.
“You said the company name is Ekklesia Biotech?” Her voice had shifted from mother to CEO, all business now.
“Yes.”
“And they’re administering this through the university health system? St. Paul’s?”
“The study is through the university, but I don’t know where they’re actually conducting the sessions. Amy never told me.”
“Alright.” I could hear her moving, typing. “Send me everything you’ve found. Screenshots, the flyer, and photos of the bracelet. I’ll start pulling corporate records and medical filings.”
“Mom, what are you going to do—”
“Melanie, you forget,” her voice was firm as she spoke. “Elysian Health Sciences isn’t just a wellness brand or medical research company. We build phytopharmaceuticals. We partner with contract research organizations. I have people who specialize in tracking down exactly these kinds of operations.”
She kept talking, and I realized I had underestimated what she actually did and what her company was capable of.
“We have regulatory liaisons at the state level,” she continued. “A former FDA compliance officer on retainer. We can pull manufacturing permits, trace distributor invoices, and check product lot numbers against databases. If Ekklesia is running dirty, we’ll find the trail.”
My throat tightened. “I didn’t know you could do all that.”
“How would you? You’ve never asked about my work.
” There was no accusation in her tone, just fact.
“But yes. This is what we do. And besides—” Her voice softened.
“We work with neural-modulating botanicals. Cellular-support compounds. If someone’s playing fast and loose with neuroactive substances, disguising them as ‘proprietary supplements,’ I want to know about it. ”
“Neuroactive,” I repeated. “You think that’s what they’re giving students?”
“I don’t know yet. But ‘amplified dream clarity’ and ‘enhanced cognitive function’ are euphemisms. If they’re affecting REM sleep or lowering inhibitions, they’re using compounds that cross the blood-brain barrier. That’s not wellness supplementation; that’s pharmacology. And it’s dangerous.”
She paused. “I’ll talk to our scientific director. He’ll tell me if the wording matches any known compound classes. And if we can get samples of what they’re giving students, we can test it properly.”
Relief flooded through me. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
“Don’t thank me yet. This kind of investigation takes time.” Her tone turned serious. “Melanie, listen carefully. If this company is as shadowy as it sounds, if they’re running unregistered trials with neuroactive compounds, they’re not going to take kindly to being investigated.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, they’ll have lawyers. They’ll have money. They might have connections we can’t see yet.” She paused. “And if someone’s already watching, if they know you’ve been digging, this could get dangerous.”
My blood went cold. “Mom, you’re scaring me.”
“Good. You should be scared.” Her voice was steel now.
“These kinds of operations don’t play by normal rules.
They target vulnerable populations: students, people in debt, and people desperate for money or help.
They get them to sign NDAs, threaten legal action, make it nearly impossible to leave or speak out. ”
“So what do I do?”
“You do nothing. You let me handle this.” Before I could protest, she continued: “I’m serious, Melanie Cora. Don’t go chasing this alone. Don’t talk to anyone else about what you’re looking into. Not friends, not professors, no one. The fewer people involved, the safer you are.”
I winced, already thinking about Leo and his plan to infiltrate the study.
“But Amy—”
“Amy needs medical care and legal protection, both of which I can help arrange. But you running around trying to play detective will only paint a target on your back.” Her voice softened. “Let me do what I’m good at. Please.”
I nodded, even though she couldn’t see me. “Okay.”
“Call me before you do anything. Promise me.”
“I promise.”
“Good. I’ll call you tomorrow once I have information. And Mel?”
“Yeah?”
“You did the right thing, calling me.” There was something in her voice I rarely heard; pride, maybe. Or respect. “Try to get some sleep.”
“I’ll try.”
When I hung up, the room felt less restrictive now that someone with real power was finally paying attention. Exhaustion pulled at me, but I found myself too restless to sleep.
I tried to focus on my next podcast script, gathering what documentation I had on Ekklesia so far, but I couldn’t focus.
Not while Amy was in that hospital bed.
I gave up after a while and instead began to go through my mythology books again. Something about it felt safer than thinking about Amy or Ekklesia, and how everything was spiraling out of control.
I flipped to the Persephone section, skimming passages I’d already highlighted.
The pomegranate seeds bound Persephone to the Underworld; six seeds consumed, creating an unbreakable tie between her and Hades. In some interpretations, the seeds represented not imprisonment, but connection. A mark of belonging that transcended realms.
My eyes lingered on that last line.
A mark of belonging.
My wrist tingled beneath my sleeve.
I tried to keep reading, but the words blurred together.
The dreams. Marion Hale’s journal in my own handwriting.
Kian looking at me like he’s seeing someone else.
It was too much. The dreams felt real, but they couldn’t be real.
I wasn’t her. I wasn’t anyone but me. Except the journal said otherwise.
Except my birthmark wouldn’t stop tingling.
Except Kian knew something. I pressed my palms against my eyes until I saw stars.
I’m losing my mind. I have to be. There’s no other explanation.
I stood and paced, trying to breathe through the frustration clawing up my throat. My hand slipped into my hoodie pocket—
And froze.
I had thrown it out of Kian’s car. It vanished into the dark on the roadside. And yet here it was, waiting for me to find it again.
I dropped the coin on the desk.
The coin pulsed, faintly at first like the echo of a heartbeat under metal.
Then again, harder, warmth bleeding into the air until my skin prickled.
The edges gleamed, shadows stretching too long across the desk.
And then, so soft I thought I’d imagined it, my name curled out of the silence.
Whispered, as though the coin itself exhaled it.
Melanie.
The sound slid through me like oil. My stomach turned.
Melanie.
I clenched my fists, fighting the urge to fling it across the room.
The pomegranate design seemed to writhe, the seeds shifting and multiplying. Six seeds became dozens, all spilling like drops of blood.
“Stop,” I said, louder now. “Whatever you are, whatever you want—stop.”
The whispers faded, the pulsing slowed. But the coin remained, gleaming with that faint inner light.
It chooses you. It marks you. It will always find you.
Kian’s words echoed in my head.
I grabbed a tissue box and, without touching it directly, knocked the coin into my desk drawer. Shoved a textbook on top for good measure and slammed it shut.
But I could still feel it waiting. Calling me toward something I couldn’t see but somehow remembered.
I climbed into bed fully clothed, pulling the blanket over my head like a child hiding from monsters.
But the monsters were already here.
The bell above the door gave a hollow chime as I stepped into Thistle & Ink, the next morning. The sound echoed wrong, like the shop had grown larger, emptier in the days since I’d last been here.
The air inside smelled like dust and lavender, but underneath was something metallic, like old coins. It sent a shiver down my spine.
The shop was dimmer than I remembered, shadows pooling in the corners. The shelves loomed taller, books spilling over in careless stacks like they had been disturbed. The energy in the room felt wrong, as if someone had rifled through sacred space and left fingerprints on everything they touched.
The shopkeeper looked up from behind the counter. Same flowing gray braid, same beaded earrings. But the recognition in her eyes made my stomach tighten.
She’d been expecting me. I didn’t know how I knew that, but I could feel it in my gut.
“You came back,” she stated.
“Yeah. I need…” I trailed off, looking around. “Did you reorganize?”
“Hmm.” She folded a piece of parchment with deliberate care. “Not me.”
I frowned and turned toward the mythology section where I’d found Marion Hale’s journal.
My stomach dropped.
The shelves were empty. Where dozens of books had been stacked, spilling over with ancient wisdom and forgotten stories, only bare wood and dust outlines where volumes had sat undisturbed for years remained.
The entire section on pantheons and Underworld deities had been completely raided.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Someone bought them,” she explained, as if people regularly purchased entire sections of a bookstore.
“All of them?”
“Every text on Persephone, Kore, Despoina, and the Underworld.” She tilted her head slightly. “Very thorough buyer. Very… motivated.”