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“Focus, Nova. He’s not there. You’re alone, and it’s daytime. You’re okay.”
The light he tries to bring to my memories is swallowed as I hearhimheading towards me, and I know what is coming.
“Nova, have you been a bad girl?” The disembodied voice causes me to run.
Their voices become lost—no, that’s me. I’m lost in my memory, consumed by snapshots of pain, screams, and torture. I see myself being drowned. I see the fire on my skin. I see the pain. I see the one I don’t talk about before I skid to a stop.
I’m in the lab.
Oh God!
“Nova!” Nico snaps. “Pay attention, you’re not there. Go back—”
It’s too late.
Looming above me like a nightmare is my father with a gun in hand. I know what he’s going to say before I hear it. “Kill him or I’ll kill her.”
I scream and fight. I hear the others trying to calm me down, and I try to change the trajectory of the memory, but then he’s there. The man is tied to the chair, afraid and wide-eyed.
The gun is in my hand—
“No!” I roar as I lift it and shoot. The shot is deafening.
My eyes snap open, and I fall from the chair before scrambling across the floor. I press my head to the tile and try to breathe.
A hand touches my shoulder.
“Nova.”
All I see and hear is him as my memory and the present fight each other. The feel of the warm, smoking gun and seeing the excitement and pride in my father’s eyes is too much.
I jerk to my feet, knowing I look wild as I swing around before locking eyes on the door and sprinting through it.
“Fuck! Nova, wait!” someone shouts.
The corridors blur as I run through them, trying to outrun my demons.
My past.
My sins.
I run as far and fast as I can, trying to outrun my nightmares, my memories, but they are still there.
I skid to a stop, blinded by my memories, as I slap my hand out. It finds something cold—a wall, I think—and I press against it. My breathing is ragged, and my nails dig into my palms, drawing blood. I try to force the memories back into the box where they belong, but I opened it, and now they refuse to be forgotten.
“Nova.” His mocking voice echoes around my head. I feel him behind me, waiting, so I spin and lash out, but someone catches my fist.
Their hand is hard, scarred, and warm.
It’s not my father. He never had scars or calluses.
I blink, and light pierces my vision before the nightmares swallow me again.
“Nova, Nova, look at me!” I hear someone’s voice, but it morphs into my father’s. “Fuck, I knew we shouldn’t have done this. Look at me, come back, you’re not there. He’s not there.”
All I hear is him.
Father.
