Ava dreamed of water.
But not the peaceful kind. Not the kind that lulls you.
This was deeper. Wilder. Black waves slamming against something that couldn't be seen. Wind screaming like it was made of teeth. And at the center of it—Em. Standing barefoot on a dock that shouldn't exist, soaked in rain, mouth open like she was saying Ava's name.
Only nothing came out.
Just silence.
Then the waves swallowed her.
And Ava woke up choking on air, hands gripping the sides of the motel bed like it might tilt her back under.
---
She sat in the bathroom for ten minutes after that. Light off. Tile cold beneath her thighs.
Eli knocked once.
She didn't answer.
Didn't have to.
He left a cup of water by the door. Didn't push. Didn't speak.
Just waited.
---
They were back on the road before sunrise, the motel fading in the rearview as the sky began to bleed light.
The notebook sat open between them, the map page torn neatly down the side so Ava could keep it in her lap. The red X they were heading toward wasn't on any real GPS—just coordinates jotted in Em's slanted handwriting, like a secret only someone who understood her could find.
"We're getting close," Ava murmured.
Eli didn't look away from the road. "You always say that."
"I mean it this time."
He smiled, barely. "You always mean it too."
---
They hit the edge of a forgotten town by noon.
No name on the sign. Just rust and vines, and the kind of silence that didn't feel natural.
Ava felt it before she even stepped out of the car—that hum beneath her skin. Like the ground was whispering.
Like something was waiting.
Eli parked near what used to be a gas station, now swallowed by weeds. The windows were shattered. The doors looked like they hadn't opened in years.
But the red X on the map sat right here.
Right beneath their feet.
---
The station's backroom was padlocked.
Eli crouched by it, fiddling with a rusted hinge.
"Think you can pick it?" Ava asked, arms folded.
"I think I can break it," he muttered. "Picking's not really my style."
One hard kick, and the lock clattered to the floor.
He glanced back, smug. "See?"
Ava rolled her eyes but followed him in.
The room smelled like oil and something older. Like mold. Or memory.
And there—nailed to the wall—was a photo.
Yellowed. Cracked.
Three people.
Two women and a man. One of the women had Em's eyes.
Ava moved closer. "That's her mother."
Eli's brow furrowed. "You sure?"
"She showed me once. Said she looked just like her."
She turned the photo over. There was a note scribbled on the back.
> DORMIRE isn't a place. It's a memory you can't escape from.
Her blood ran cold.
---
Outside, the wind shifted.
And suddenly, the town didn't feel abandoned.
It felt watched.
Ava turned sharply, scanning the rooftops. The broken windows. The spaces between shadows.
But there was no one.
Still, she felt it.
The press of something unseen. Something old.
"We shouldn't stay long," Eli said, voice low.
Ava didn't argue.
But she pocketed the photo before they left.
---
They found the trail behind the station.
Half-covered by branches, marked by stones that had clearly been arranged—not recently, but deliberately.
It led them into the woods.
And with each step, Ava felt closer to her.
To Em.
Like the air knew her name.
Like the trees had heard the songs she used to sing.
---
They walked for hours.
No phone signal. No voices. Just the sound of their feet and the occasional creak of branches.
Ava was quiet most of the way.
Eli didn't push. He just stayed near, matching her pace even when hers faltered.
Finally, she stopped.
"Did you ever love someone," she asked, "and know that even if you lost them, they'd still be part of you?"
Eli's jaw tightened.
"Yeah," he said after a beat. "I did."
Ava nodded like that answer hurt and helped at the same time.
"She's everywhere in me," she whispered. "And nowhere at all."
---
They reached the clearing by sundown.
A single cabin stood in the middle—old, worn, barely holding itself together.
But the window was lit.
A soft, warm glow, like a lantern.
Ava froze.
Her chest thudded so loud it drowned out everything else.
"Do you think—?" she started, but Eli's hand was already on her arm.
"Careful," he murmured.
They moved closer. Slow. Quiet.
Every footstep felt too loud. Every breath like a risk.
At the door, Ava hesitated.
Then knocked.
Once.
Twice.
No answer.
But the door creaked open.
And inside—
A room filled with maps.
Hundreds. Pinned to every wall. Scrawled with notes. Red strings connecting cities to names, years to dates. A thousand threads weaving into chaos.
And in the middle—
A figure with their back to them.
Hair dark. Shoulders tense. Standing too still.
Ava's voice broke before she could stop it.
"Em?"
The figure didn't turn.
But something about the air changed.
Like the past had just turned around and looked her in the eye.
She didn't turn around.
Not right away.
Just stood there, facing the wall of maps like Ava hadn't spoken. Like time hadn't moved. Like it was still that night, and Ava was still someone who knew how to reach her.
The silence between them stretched, thick with everything unsaid.
Eli hovered near the door, like he wasn't sure if he was allowed to step further. His hand brushed the side of the frame—just once—and then he let it fall.
Ava's voice was barely above a breath.
"Em… it's me."
Nothing.
No reaction. No movement. Not even a flinch.
But the air crackled. Something inside the room—inside Em—shifted.
And then, slowly, she turned.
---
Her face looked the same.
But it didn't feel the same.
There was something older in her eyes. Not age exactly, but… weight. Like the days had pressed down on her harder than they should have. Like whatever she'd been running from had caught her and whispered secrets she couldn't forget.
Ava's mouth opened—then closed again.
Because the words she'd rehearsed, the ones that used to burn in her throat at night when she couldn't sleep, suddenly felt too small.
Too careful.
Too late.
Em blinked once. Then again.
And finally, her voice cracked through the silence.
"…You shouldn't be here."
---
Ava stepped forward anyway. Just one pace. Enough to feel the ground shift beneath her like some invisible line had been crossed.
"I looked for you," she said. "I never stopped."
"That's not true." Em's eyes were sharp now. "You did stop. Or you wouldn't have taken so long to find me."
Ava flinched.
Because it wasn't wrong.
She had stopped—at least for a while. When it got too heavy. When the guilt turned into routine and people stopped asking and it became easier to say I'm fine than to admit she still woke up hearing Em's laugh like a ghost in her chest.
"I didn't know where to look," she whispered.
"That never stopped you before."
---
Eli cleared his throat softly from behind her.
"Maybe I should—"
"No," Em said sharply. "Stay."
Her eyes flicked toward him—too quick, too knowing—and for a second, something unreadable passed over her face.
"You're the one who helped her dig, right?" Em asked. "The guy who kept her looking when it got quiet."
Eli didn't answer.
He didn't have to.
Em nodded once like that told her everything she needed. "Then yeah. You stay."
---
Ava glanced around the room, eyes darting over the maps, the scribbled notes in Em's messy scrawl, the fading photographs pinned in corners like reminders of who she used to be.
"You've been tracking them," Ava said, almost to herself.
Em's jaw tensed.
"I've been tracking everything," she muttered. "Every thread they left behind. Every lie. Every person who vanished after me."
Ava's stomach twisted. "You think they're still watching?"
"I know they are."
A long beat passed.
And then Em turned, walking toward a battered drawer near the back wall. She pulled it open, rifled through a stack of papers, and tossed something onto the table.
A photo.
A grainy one. Blurry.
But Ava's breath hitched.
Because it was her.
Taken from a distance. At a gas station. Same jacket. Same hair pulled back the way she wore it when she wasn't thinking. The timestamp said two months ago.
"I found that in a mailbox," Em said, voice low. "Unmarked envelope. No return address."
Ava stared at it.
"That's not possible."
Em's smile didn't reach her eyes. "You still think this is about what's possible?"
---
The room felt like it was getting smaller.
Or maybe it was Ava who was shrinking.
She sat down slowly on the edge of a chair that looked like it hadn't been used in years.
"You didn't reach out. You could've called. You could've let me help."
Em turned to her, finally—fully.
And Ava saw it then. All of it.
The nights Em hadn't slept. The battles she'd fought alone. The way her shoulders never dropped, like she didn't trust anything to hold her.
"I didn't want to pull you in," she said. "Not again."
Ava's voice cracked. "But I was already in. I always was."
---
They didn't speak for a long time after that.
Just sat there in the space between too much history and not enough forgiveness.
Eli stood near the door, eyes flicking between them like he wasn't sure if he was supposed to step in or disappear.
Eventually, Em broke the silence.
"I followed the last thread two weeks ago," she said. "Led me here. I think this is where it started."
Ava frowned. "What started?"
Em didn't answer right away.
She just walked to the window and pulled back the curtain.
Outside—nothing but trees. Sky. Stillness.
But her voice made Ava's skin prickle.
"The thing we thought we buried."
---
It took a few minutes to settle in.
To realize what she meant.
This wasn't about Em anymore.
It wasn't even about the past.
It was about them.
What they'd seen. What they knew. What they tried to forget.
"What do you need from me?" Ava asked softly.
Em looked at her.
And for the first time since she'd turned around, something softened in her gaze.
"You," she said. "Just you."
---
Ava crossed the room in two steps and pulled her into a hug.
It was awkward at first. Tight. Hesitant.
Then Em's arms locked around her like a vice, and Ava felt her shake—just once. A tremble that said this broke me even if her mouth never would.
They stood like that until Eli cleared his throat again.
Gently this time.
"Sorry," he said, "but… I think we should go. If someone's been tracking you both, this place isn't safe anymore."
Em didn't argue.
But she didn't let go of Ava, either.
Not yet.
---
Outside, the wind picked up.
And somewhere deep in the woods, something moved.
A branch cracked.
A shadow shifted.
But in that tiny cabin filled with maps and memories and the weight of everything left unsaid—
They weren't running anymore.
They were choosing.
To stay.
To fight.
To remember.
Together.