I felt the walls closing in, the air growing thick.

My breath came in shallow gasps.

How had I forgotten him?

Had he always been there, buried in the corners of my mind?

Why didn’t I remember drawing him?

I ran my fingers over the pages, hoping that somehow the truth would come pouring out, but the more I searched, the more I felt like I was losing control.

“You should have remembered, Lena,” Cassian’s voice slithered through my thoughts, cold and taunting. “You always knew. You just didn’t want to remember.”

I slammed the journal shut, but it didn’t help.

The images of his face—his smile—were burned into my mind now.

Every time I closed my eyes, I could see him.

His eyes were always following me.

My hands shook as I clutched the journal to my chest, trying to calm the panic that was bubbling up in my throat.

“What’s happening to me?” I whispered, not knowing if I was asking myself or Cassian.

12

DR. HALVERSON

I knew Lena was struggling.

I could see it in her eyes when she came into my office—her movements stiff, her body coiled like a spring ready to snap.

She’d been through a lot, and I could only imagine the toll it had taken on her.

But today was different.

There was something darker in her eyes, something more dangerous.

“Lena,” I began gently, watching her closely. “I know it’s difficult, but you need to trust me. We’ve made progress, but there’s still a long road ahead.”

She didn’t answer right away.

She was distracted, her gaze far away.

I could tell she was lost in her own thoughts again, trapped somewhere in her mind where I couldn’t follow.

“I know it’s hard to accept,” I continued, “but sometimes, the trauma from your past isn’t something we consciously remember. Sometimes it gets buried, hidden away in places even we can’t see. Your mind does that to protect you.”

Her eyes flickered to me, but there was no recognition.

It was like she wasn’t really seeing me.

She was elsewhere, lost in some memory or vision I couldn’t access.

Her lips parted, but no words came out.

“What’s been happening, Lena?” I asked softly, trying to pull her back.

Her voice, when it came, was quiet.

“I found something. Something I don’t understand.”

I waited, but she didn’t continue.

“You mean the sketches?” I asked carefully.

She nodded slowly, her eyes flickering with something like fear.

“What did you find?”

Lena looked at me then, really looked at me, and for a moment, I saw the fear in her eyes.

The fear that had been buried for so long.

“There was a man. In my drawings. He looked like…”

Her voice faltered.

“He looked like him, Dr. Halverson. The man who’s been following me. The one I thought was just a hallucination.”

I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck prickle.

This was a breakthrough, but it was also a dangerous one.

“Tell me more, Lena. What was in these drawings?”

She hesitated, and I knew she was holding something back, something important.

“He’s been in my head for so long, I—I thought I was losing it. But now, I—”

She stopped, eyes wide with realization.

“But how could I have drawn him when I was a child? I don’t remember him. I don’t remember doing it.”

I knew this wasn’t just about memories being repressed.

This was something deeper.

Something I hadn’t seen before.

I leaned forward, my voice low.

“Lena, when I look at your past, the pieces don’t quite fit. You’ve had breaks before. When you were younger. You had... psychotic episodes as a child. Do you remember that?”

She flinched, as if my words had cut too deep.

“What do you mean? What do you know about my childhood?”

Her voice trembled, the fear crawling up her spine.

I couldn’t meet her gaze.

“You had breaks. Episodes where your reality fractured. Things you can’t remember now. But they’re in there, Lena. You just don’t know how to access them.”

The room was silent, the weight of my words sinking into her chest like a stone.