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He scoots forward on the small love seat, his posture tense. Sloane’s eyes widen in disbelief, a hand flying to her mouth as if she’s already stringing the red yarn between the pins.

“I’ve been seeing Kaila,” I say, pausing. “I’ve been experiencing flashbacks from the accident. I’ve lost time and sometimes been unable to determine what’s real and what isn’t.”

Riven relaxes, the alarm in his eyes settling into sorrow. Sloane’s eyes dart between Riven and me in question.

“Shit, Cal.” Riven pauses. “I’m so fucking sorry, man. Why didn’t you say something to me? I could have helped you with this. I would have fucking helped you with this.”

“That’s exactly why I didn’t,” I say. “You have your life, your passions, your soulmate. You’re the happiest I’ve ever seen you, and I wasn’t going to bring my shit to you and pull you away from the life you’ve always dreamed of. You were able to break away from Sonus and the frequency bullshit. I wasn’t about to drag you back into that.”

He shakes his head, his jaw flexing as he processes my words. “What does any of that have to do with what happened tonight?” he asks. Sloane tenses beside him, her knowing bright green eyes landing on mine.

“He didn’t know it was her,” Sloane says, her voice hardly above a broken whisper. Riven turns to her and then back to me, his eyes searching mine for confirmation.

“I didn’t know it was her,” I confirm, my voice breaking. Riven’s eyes widen in disbelief as he runs a hand down his face.

“Who did you think it was? You said that you were seeing Kaila, but you wouldn’t have shot her,” he says. Closing my eyes, I release a long and steady breath.

“Riv,” I say, shaking my head. I open my eyes, finding him already watching, eagerly awaiting my answer.

“Cal, you know you can tell me anything, right? Who did you see? Was it Dorian?” he asks, worry seeping into his expression.

“No,” I answer, my next words coming out as bitter as the memory that shapes them. “It was your brother.”

41

The Watcher

Raithe

What have I done?

I pace back and forth in the emergency department waiting room of Hollowcrest Memorial Hospital, praying to whatever god will fucking listen that Lydia Aston survives.

I’m the reason we’re all here. I’m the reason Lydia nearly lost her life, and the reason Cal almost lost the love of his. I know there’s no forgiveness for what I’ve done. The frequency may explain it, but it will never absolve me. And if she dies, neither will I.

The last clear memory I have is of me hanging in a fucking torture room at Sonus. From then on, the memories fracture.

Flashes of us obliterating the Eden Frequency.

The belief that we’d won.

Sabel was dead.

Dorian was captured.

It was all over—or so I thought.

Now that my mind is clear, or more clear than it has been the last several months, I know the truth. And right now, I almost wish that I didn’t.

Sabel Matthews was controlling me long before her death. She dug her claws in and instilled the Eden Frequency into my mind weeks before she was killed. She ensured that I’d be the perfect person to take over if anything happened to her, a fail-safe. I was Sabel Matthew’s fucking fail-safe.

I shudder at the thought of everything else that sick fucking woman forced me to be for her. The only breaks I was allowed were for shows and band meetings, just enough to keep suspicions at bay while she hollowed me out behind the scenes. I had no choice, not really—not when she was using the frequencies against me. All of my memories while wearing that fuck ugly mask were stolen from me, until now.

Ugh, just thinking about the thing makes my skin crawl.

The memories don’t feel like they belong to me. It feels like I’m watching an imposter. I have no recollection of the crimes, yet I watched myself commit them. Somewhere deep within me, that version of myself still lingers, waiting in the shadows.

The mask didn’t overwrite me all at once. It wasn’t so much a possession as it was a persuasion. It was a gradual unraveling of myself until I came to believe the Sonus prophecy was my calling. Time evaded me more frequently as I wore it. That is, until I began to hear a voice in my mind telling me something was wrong, trying to force me to remember who I was. Once I finally saw myself behind that door in my mind, something clicked. I felt like I finally had the information that I needed to fight the compulsion. Of course, it slipped away again when the door was shut. I tried so hard, but I wasn’t quick enough.