Chapter 17 Echoes Through Flame
I was running through marble halls that rang with screams and the roar of flames. The air was thick with acrid smoke, burning my throat with every gasping breath. Heat pressed insistently against my skin.
Scrolls curled in the fire, their ink bleeding black as flames devoured centuries of knowledge. The Library was collapsing around me, the greatest treasure of the world turning to ash and memory.
My arms ached from the weight of parchments clutched to my chest. My stola was torn, hem blackened with soot, olive leaves wilting in my hair like a ruined crown. Ash streaked my face, mixing with tears. My lungs burned with smoke and grief.
I stumbled into a colonnade, marble columns cracking in the heat. Shelves collapsed behind me, sending up showers of sparks. The knowledge of ages—mathematics, philosophy, medicine, poetry—all of it burning. All of it, lost.
And I couldn’t save it. Couldn’t save any of it.
And then someone else was there.
A figure moving through the smoke, and the sight of him split me open in recognition. His face in firelight across a dozen different lives. His hand reaching for mine in moments I shouldn’t remember but did. The shape of his grief, familiar as my own heartbeat.
Rubble blocked the corridor between us, into collapsed marble and burning timber, but there was a narrow gap. I shoved a book through it, my hands shaking.
“Keep it safe,” I whispered, my voice breaking. “She’ll need it.”
He stared at me with wide, terrified eyes. “I don’t understand.”
“You will.” Tears streaked through the soot on my face. “We always forget. But we always try to find our way back.”
Soldiers burst into the colonnade behind him.
Three of them rushed him at once, blades drawn, and he turned to meet them. Steel rang against steel. He fought with a ferocity akin to a beast, but there were too many. They kept coming, wave after wave of armed men flooding the corridor.
I pressed my palm against the gap in the rubble, reaching for him even as the flames closed in around me.
The battle raged, and I could hear him calling my name as he fought, but the smoke was starting to cloud my vision.
Just beyond the chaos, I could make out something else.
A presence that felt wrong in ways that made everything inside me recoil.
Eyes like coals watching through the discord, patient and hungry.
The flames bent toward this figure as if fire itself recognized its master.
I couldn’t see his face, but I didn’t need to.
I felt him in my marrow like inevitability.
The Shepherd.
He wasn’t just watching, he was orchestrating.
The flames closed in, smoke shrouding my vision. I heard the sound of my name above the roar and then knew nothing more.
I jolted awake with a scream caught in my throat.
For half a second, I couldn’t remember where I was. The dorm room looked too modern and alive when everything should be ash. I could still feel the weight of the scrolls against my chest. My throat burned like I’d been breathing smoke for hours. My pulse raced, each beat saying fire, fire, fire.
I pressed the heel of my hand to my forehead. Dream or memory? I couldn’t tell anymore. I felt an odd chill in my palm, and I opened my hand slowly, already knowing what I’d find.
The coin sat in the center of my palm, cold and damp like it had been pulled from the bottom of a river.
I hadn’t taken it from my desk drawer.
Beside me, the mattress shifted. Luz leaned over, and I watched her eyes go from sleepy concern to absolute shock. Her gaze locked on the coin in my palm.
“That’s—” Her voice came out strangled. “Qué diablas, we threw that in the river!”
“I know,” I whispered.
Luz’s face had gone pale. “That’s not possible.”
“I know,” I sighed, dropping the coin onto the nightstand.
Luz went quiet, sinking onto the bed beside me, studying my face.
“Another dream?” Luz asked, voice lacking her usual brightness.
I didn’t answer right away. Part of me still wanted to be angry at her, to demand answers she said she couldn’t give. But Amy was in the hospital, and anger felt like a luxury we couldn’t afford.
“The Library of Alexandria,” I said, voice hoarse. “I was there when it burned. I died there.”
Luz considered this for a moment, brow furrowed. “Do you remember who you were?”
“I was a scholar. I tried to save the scrolls but…” I couldn’t finish.
Luz hesitated, then placed a gentle hand on my shoulder. “It sounds traumatic.”
That had to be the understatement of the year. I leaned into her touch, enjoying the comfort.
“I’m still mad at you,” I admitted. “But I want to check on Amy. I can show you both what my mom found about the study and the people behind it.”
That flickered a spark of interest behind Luz’s eyes, cutting through the fear. “It’s worse than we thought, isn’t it?”
“Much worse. We need to go public,” I stated. “We have to work on a podcast script and get it up tonight or tomorrow.”
Luz’s eyes widened. “You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.” I grabbed my keys. “Let’s go see Amy.”
The Uber ride to the hospital was quiet and tense.
Even the driver seemed uncomfortable, glancing at us through the rearview mirror before turning the music to something slow and jazzy in an attempt to mask the weight in the air.
Luz stared out the window, her fingers fidgeting with the hem of her sleeve. I kept my gaze on the coin in my lap, turning it over and over like I was trying to rub answers out of it.
When we arrived, we slipped into the hospital lobby without a word and made our way to the elevators.
The hospital was too quiet when the elevator doors opened.
Not the usual bustle of visitors and staff, call buttons, and distant conversations.
Just an eerie, sterile silence that made my skin crawl.
The nurse at the desk looked up when we passed, her expression neutral. But I caught a flicker of recognition, the way her eyes tracked us like we were being monitored.
“Does this feel off to you?” I whispered to Luz as we walked down the hallway.
She nodded, her hand finding mine. “Like walking into a trap.”
Amy’s floor was even worse. The hallways were empty, fluorescent lights buzzing like insects. We walked into her room, and my breath caught.
Amy looked like she was already halfway to death.
Her skin was gray-white, her lips tinged blue, and dark circles carved so deep beneath her eyes they looked like bruises pressing into bone. The monitors surrounding her beeped and flashed, tracking her slow decline with clinical precision.
Wires snaked out from beneath her hospital gown. A nasal cannula sat beneath her nose. Her breathing was shallow, labored, each breath a visible effort that made her chest barely rise. The bracelet on her wrist remained.
A nurse was there, replacing an IV bag with practiced efficiency. She looked up when we entered and offered a kind but tired smile.
“How is she?” I asked, stepping closer to the bed.
The nurse winced. “Stable now. But it was a rough night. Her vitals kept dropping.”
My breath caught.
“Nah,” Amy slurred stubbornly from the bed. “I was just sleepin’…”
“Hey, amor,” Luz said, moving to Amy’s side and brushing a lock of hair from her forehead.
Amy smiled weakly, eyes not quite focusing. “Lu-Lu… Melly…” she whispered, almost childlike. “Told you… I’m fine…”
I wished I could believe her, but she looked like she was slipping through our fingers.
“When does the doctor get in?” I asked the nurse, trying to keep my voice steady.
“Dr. Sloan will be in later today, probably around eleven or twelve.” The nurse glanced at Amy. She excused herself, and the door eased shut behind her with a soft click.
I pulled a chair close to Amy’s bed and sat, taking her hand in mine. Her skin felt clammy, her pulse fluttering too slow beneath the surface. She gave my fingers the faintest squeeze.
“You look like a raccoon with insomnia,” Amy mumbled, closing her eyes. Her lips twitched into a faint smile.
I huffed a soft laugh despite myself. “You’re not exactly glowing yourself.”
“Damn… guess I’ll cancel my runway debut.”
Luz let out a shaky laugh from the other side of the bed, tears gathering in her eyes. I hesitated, eyeing the bracelet on Amy’s wrist. I weighed the risks of telling Amy what Candace had found. But Amy deserved to know the truth.
“I talked to Candace last night,” I said quietly, brushing my thumb across the back of her hand. “She gave me a file on everything she could dig up on Ekklesia.”
Amy’s brow creased, but she didn’t open her eyes.
“They’re not clean, Ames,” I continued. “The company is practically a ghost. Shell websites, scrubbed media, and executives who don’t have public records.
The only things Candace could trace were backdoor donations to private labs and—” I hesitated.
“And a handful of lawsuits that never saw trial, all related to experimental compounds and neurological effects.”
Amy’s eyes flickered behind her eyelids.
“There’s more,” I said, my throat tightening. “Candace told me that Aunt Reenie was looking into them before she got sick.”
Amy’s head jerked slightly, eyes opening to stare at me in surprise. “Reenie?”
Luz murmured a curse in Spanish.
“She was investigating them,” I whispered. “Trying to trace where their money went, what they were really doing. But she got sick before she could finish.” My voice cracked. “I think… I think they did something to her.”
Amy’s fingers twitched in mine. “You think they did this to me?”
“Yes,” I said. “I think you were never just a test subject. You were a target.”
The room fell silent except for the steady beep of monitors.
“Maybe I should’ve stuck with Flintstone vitamins,” Amy whispered after a long moment.
My laugh felt broken. “Don’t joke like that.”
“Why not?” She cracked one eye open, looking at me with exhausted fondness. “Feels like I might not get too many more chances.”
An ache twisted through me. “You will. We’re going to figure this out. I promise.”
Amy didn’t respond, but she didn’t let go of my hand either.