Kaden didn’t think he was unconscious for long. But he felt as if he was surfacing after a very deep dive. Not that he’d ever made a really deep dive, but it was what he imagined it would feel like. The world slowly came back into focus and he exhaled.
Jalis was at his side. “Oh fuck, fuck! Are you okay? Do you need me to call for help?”
“Has Harris gone?”
“Yes, I pushed him out and locked the door.”
“Did you hit him?”
“Yes. His body isn’t very happy. That isn’t my fault.”
What does that mean?Kaden sat up, helped by Jalis. “I remember…you told me you hit him before, but I thoughtIdid.” Kaden rubbed his head. “Ouch.”
“We both sort of hit him. I did it on my own this time.”
Jalis looked at him as if he was waiting for something more to spring into Kaden’s mind. For a moment, it felt as if Kaden was on the brink of remembering. Something flickered at the edge of his mind, like a word on the tip of his tongue.
But it slipped away.
Kaden pushed himself to his feet and crossed the room, lowering himself onto the edge of the bed. The mattress dipped beneath his weight. Jalis followed quietly and knelt on the floor beside him.
“I bought you this.” Jalis held out a Mars bar. “Your favourite.”
How do you know?The wrapper crinkled softly as Kaden took it, and the sound alone cracked something open. He felt himself thrown back to the last time he’d bought a Mars bar. Swimming. The sharp sting of chlorine in his nose. Lying atthe bottom of the pool, his lungs burning, but not being afraid. Chocolate on the way home.
He remembered a conversation about sweets being named after things in space. But… He’d been alone in the pool. Alone when he’d bought the Mars bar.
Jalis didn’t speak. He only watched Kaden’s face, studying it with a fragile, almost fearful hope.
The memory sharpened suddenly, then twisted. A strange, disorienting sensation rippled through Kaden’s mind.
Jalis didn’t say anything. He just watched Kaden intently, as if all his hopes hung on him.
Kaden remembered the feeling of not being alone even though he was.
Someone warm.
Someone curious.
Someone endlessly, painfully apologetic. Kaden remembered saying—don’t keep telling me you’re sorry, but who to?Someone inside me?No, that was ridiculous…
He’d clutched the Mars bar so hard it was starting to melt and he set it aside. Fragments fluttered through him like bits of dreams he was trying to recall.
Reading while he was asleep…
Feeling someone at his back when no one was there…
A hand on him that was not his own, but his own was all he could see…
A hole in the ground…
Wings being eaten…
His stomach turned. “It’s stupid. I keep getting these flashes. Dreams that don’t belong to me. Yet, not dreams at all.”
Jalis’ jaw tightened, barely perceptible but Kaden saw it. There was something about him that felt familiar in a way that had nothing to do with the past few days. It wasn’t his face. Nor his voice. It was deeper than that.
Recognition lived somewhere in Kaden’s bones. A quiet certainty that he had known Jalis longer than it appeared and that Jalis knew him well. It was as if his body had already solved a puzzle his mind was still clumsily trying to put together.
