Page 133 of Dead Girls Don’t Forget

“The men who came to your house… Brian believes they’re part of something organized. Dangerous. If they find out you’re alive…” She let the silence finish the thought. “This was the only way to keep you safe for now.”

I set the pen down and turned my face toward the wall.

They had buried my mother and sister while I was unconscious. The world had already moved on. I was dead to everyone. And some part of me wished I really was.

The next day, Brian arrived with Janet. I wrote the question that had been burning in me since I woke up and held up the notepad.

Why didn't you let the police help?

Brian pulled the chair closer and sat forward, elbows on his knees.

"I've been watching the investigation," he said. "I have people keeping an eye on it. The fire scene should have been full of evidence. DNA, fibers, prints. A crime like that, you don't walk away clean unless someone is cleaning up after you."

He let the words sink in.

“Three weeks later and almost nothing. No suspects. No forensic results. Evidence that should exist… doesn’t. That tells me these men have people inside the system. Police. Forensics. Maybe higher.”

I stared at him.

“If we go to the cops with what you know,” he continued, “we’d be handing your name straight to the same system that’s making this case disappear. Can you guarantee it reaches the right person? Or that it doesn’t land on the desk of someone who’s already been paid to bury it?”

I didn't move.

"And the second you come forward, they know you're alive. Right now they think you died in that fire. That's the only thing keeping you safe." Brian’s eyes were hard. "They burned your house down with your family inside it, Harper. What do you think they do to a loose end?"

I wrote slowly, the letters jagged.

So they just get away with it?

Brian looked at the notepad for a long time, then back at me.

“For now,” he said.

I put the pen down. Something inside me that had still been holding on, some small stubborn piece that believed the world worked the way it was supposed to, went quiet.

Weeks passed in a haze of painkillers, surgeries, and nightmares that never let me rest.

My face stayed wrapped in thick bandages for most of that time. Nurses helped me relearn the simplest things. Standing without falling, walking without dizziness, swallowing soft food through the narrow gaps in my wired jaw without choking.

When they finally removed the bandages, I didn’t look like me anymore.

The swelling and surgeries had distorted my features into something unfamiliar. Fine red stitches traced along the left side of my face, disappearing into my hairline and down beside my nose. Bruises still bloomed yellow and purple under my skin. One eye remained bloodshot and glassy. I stared at the stranger in the mirror while the surgeon proudly declared the reconstruction a success.

I wondered what exactly he thought he had saved.

After that, the days lost all meaning. I stopped asking questions. Stopped caring what day it was. They gave me a walker and made me pace the long white corridor three times a day. I obeyed because it was easier than arguing.

The hallway became something I knew too well, every scuff on the floor, every supply closet, every nurses’ station. Especially the medicine cabinet at the far end.

It was always locked.

I watched the nurses retrieve the key from the top drawer of the station halfway down the hall, unlock the cabinet, take what they needed, and lock it again. The same pattern, every shift. Over and over.

I wasn’t planning anything at first.

I simply watched.

The nightmares grew worse at night. I would wake gasping, still feeling their hands on me, still hearing Harmony’s scream as it cut off. The physical was nothing compared to what waited for me when I closed my eyes.