Page 92 of Dead Girls Don’t Forget

“Mom?” My voice sounded wrong. She lay motionless on the floor.

I dropped to my hands and knees and crawled toward her, choking on smoke. Every breath burned worse than the last. The kitchen stretched strangely around me, growing farther away no matter how hard I moved.

Mom’s eyes stared at nothing. Harmony lay crumpled near the overturned table, one cheek pressed against the floorboards.

“No!” The scream tore out of me as flames exploded up the walls.

I woke with a scream I cut off halfway, my lungs burning like I had actually inhaled smoke.

The blanket was twisted around my hips. My shirt clung damp to my spine. My breath came fast and shallow, and my hands were clenched so tightly my fingers had gone numb. I forced them open, one finger at a time, until the tremor eased.

I rolled toward the nightstand, grabbed my phone, and blinked at the bright screen until the numbers stopped blurring.

Monday. 4:47 a.m.

I lay back and stared at the ceiling, waiting for my pulse to settle. I should have expected the nightmares to get worse. Being back in Ridgeview meant being closer to the monsters who had made me, closer to the ones who still haunted my sleep. Monitoring John through the cameras I'd installed was a constant reminder that I wasn't finished. Killing two of them had carved out a little breathing room inside my chest, but it hadn't lasted. Not while the last two were still breathing the same air as me.

Friday would mark ten years.

Ten years since my mother and sister died.

Ten years since Thomas Black walked away with everything.

I scrubbed both hands over my face and forced myself out of bed before I could disappear too far into my own head.

The cold morning air bit at my skin when I stepped into the backyard. I went through my morning drills the way I always did—strikes first, then footwork, then balance work until the rhythm settled into my bones. The familiar sequence steadied me more than anything else could. By the time I showered, dressed, and made it to track practice, I felt mostly human again.

Coach wasted no time throwing us back into hell after our Saturday break. Friday’s meet and win were already old news. State was coming, which meant nobody got to breathe. Practice became a relentless cycle of laps, intervals, and exhausted swearing.

Afterward I headed toward Environmental Science, still distracted enough that I barely registered the students moving around me.

My thoughts kept circling back to the nightmare, to the anniversary, to whether checking John's cameras again tonight would calm me or make everything worse. So when a hand landed on my shoulder, my body reacted before my brain could catch up.

I twisted sharply, left arm rising to deflect as my right elbow drove hard toward the attacker’s throat. The only reason it didn't land was because he moved first. He knocked my arm aside and stepped back, both hands raised, palms open.

I stared at him, heart hammering against my ribs. The adrenaline was still there, but my brain finally caught up. Jackson stood in front of me with his hands still raised, watching me carefully.

“Oh shit,” I breathed, voice rough. “I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?”

I dropped my hands quickly, pressing them flat against my thighs to hide the slight tremor in my fingers.

Jackson stayed where he was for a beat, eyes scanning me carefully. He didn't look angry. Just watchful.

“I’m good,” he said. “Are you?”

“I’m fine. You startled me, that’s all.”

“I see that.” His gaze lingered on my hands, then lifted back to my face. “Those reflexes aren’t just from running track.”

I shrugged, trying to play it off. “Muscle memory.”

“Brian?”

“Most of it.”

He gave a slow nod. “Remind me never to sneak up on you again.” His mouth twitched faintly. “I’d rather not test how good his training really is.”

A small, shaky laugh slipped out of me. “He’d like that. You surviving the demonstration.”