I can’t breathe.

My name will be forgotten, too.

It takes me some time for other voices to filter back into my consciousness.

A soothing calming voice.

A familiar non-threatening voice.

I blink twice and Dr Khan’s blurry image comes into view.

I swallow past the ball in my throat and my choked breaths.

“I’m not in the lake,” I say, searching my surroundings.

“No, you’re not.” He offers me a glass of water.

I gulp it down in one go letting it soothe my scratchy throat.

However, I’m still searching for the lake.

For the little girl who asked me for help.

Dr Khan sits opposite me, watching me intently the way I imagine a researcher would watch his lab rats. “How do you feel?”

“I don’t know,” I choke out.

“Do you feel like you got anything out of your subconsciousness?”

“Yes.” I meet his gaze through blurry eyes. “I think I’m not normal.”

“Not normal how?”

“I’m just abnormal, Dr Khan.”

“How did you come to that conclusion?”

“I want to go back again.” I bite down the fear and terror clawing at my chest. “I need to know why I’m not normal.”

10

Elsa

Kim and I walk through the hall as she tells me about her latest Korean soap opera.

I nod along, but I’m not hearing a word she’s saying. Since my appointment with Dr Khan yesterday, I’ve been in this haze of my own making.

Last night, I relived the same memory. When I woke up, I found myself still trapped in the nightmare. It took me a few fake wake-up cycles to come back to the world of the living.

I had to watch that dark figure drowning the child version of me over and over again.

I had to listen to her gurgles and cries for help.

I drowned with her, too.

Black water swallowed me whole and I couldn’t scream or come out, no matter how much I tried to.

It was like my own custom hell.

For some reason, I didn’t scream when I finally opened my eyes to find myself sweating in my bed.

I didn’t wake Aunt and Uncle. I just washed my hands over and over. At that moment, when I looked in the mirror, I contemplated breaking it to pieces.

It took everything in me not to confront Aunt and Uncle and ask them what the hell they’re hiding from me.

This is my life. Mine. How can they keep me in the dark about it?

I stopped myself because if I raise any red flags with them and they figure out my secret therapy plan with Dr Khan, they’d put an end to it. He’s sworn to patient confidentiality, but I’m still seventeen. As my guardians, Aunt and Uncle could — and would — ruin the progress I’ve been making in my therapy.

Maybe it’s because of the endless nightmares, or what I’ve seen in said nightmares, but today, I’m exhausted, lethargic and… numb.

“It’s going to be so much fun.”

My attention snaps back to Kim. “What?”

“A party at Ronan’s.”

I groan. “Not again.”

“Yes, again! We’re totally breaking some records this year.”

“I’m in no mood to break any records.”

“Ellie?” Kim stops and makes me stop, too. We’re standing near our class as she watches me too intently, it’s almost creepy. “Are you okay?”

“Huh?”

“You’re not, are you?” She asks slowly, appearing on the verge of panicking.

Shit. I forgot that Kim, Aunt, and Uncle have been keeping a close watch on me since the pool incident.

Aunt and Uncle think I don’t know, but I heard them talking to the principal on the phone.

Their exact words were: Please contact us if anything out of the ordinary happens to Elsa at school.

“I’m okay, Kim, really.”

She rubs the side of my arm. “You know I’m here if you need someone to talk to, right?”

I nod once.

One day, I’ll tell her everything, but not until I figure it out myself.

It’s a blur now.

The images in my subconscious are even more complicated than the nightmares. I feel like I need to gather the pieces one by each bloody one before I can begin to put them back together again.

That’s why I’m willing to do the painful sessions with Dr Khan. I don’t care if I wake up screaming or crying.

My cowardice left me in the dark for years. It’s because of my cowardice that Aiden is in the know and I’m not.

Although indirectly, it’s my cowardice that allowed him to lure and trap me.

“Morning, ladies.” Knox joins us on the way to class.

“Morning.” Kim and I greet back.

“You’re so unlucky, Knox,” Kim tells him. “You transferred when we have a math test.”

“I don’t mind. I love math.”

I grin. “Me, too.”

He lifts a brow. “I bet you can’t get a perfect score like me.”

“You’re on.”

“Ugh. You shouldn’t challenge her like that.” Kim rolls her eyes. “Now her nerdy mode is on.”

Knox laughs, the sound easy and contagious. “How about a bet?”

“What do you have in mind?” I ask.

“If you win, I owe you one and vice versa.”

I shake his hand. “Deal.”

At that exact moment, Cole and Aiden appear down the hall, heading to our class from the opposite direction.

My throat dries and my lungs burn with the lack of air.

I can’t breathe properly.

Breathe, you idiot. Breathe.

The uniform glues to his tall frame like a second skin. It’s like he was born to wear RES’s uniform. The jacket is thrown over his shoulder like he couldn’t bother to wear it.

As I watch him, my mind crowds with images from the other night.

The way he tied me up, leaving me helpless at his mercy — or the lack thereof.

His shadowed face in the dark as he wrenched that orgasm out of me.

His touch as he licked my tears.

Those images won’t leave me the hell alone.

Aiden stops at the classroom’s entrance, forcing Cole to slow down, too.

He spares a fleeting glance at Knox then at his hand shaking mine. Aiden’s attention slides back to my face slowly.

Too slowly.

I stop breathing at the crazed look in his metal eyes.

It’s like demons possessed him.

It’s so reminiscent of the time he used to glare at me from afar like he wants to kill me with his bare hands.

He wants revenge, doesn’t he? So, of course, he thought about killing me. He must’ve been thinking about it for two years.

But why?

I just can’t understand why he stayed away for two years and decided to screw me over now.

Is it all a part of a grand plan?

A psychological mindfuck?

Aiden glares at me for a few seconds, but it seems like years and decades.

The air crackles with stifling tension that flows in my blood.

I can fight it all I like, but when he looks at me, everything and everyone disappears.

It’s only him and I in the middle of the hallway.