Page 165 of Hidden Echoes

She wasn’t afraid for herself.

She was afraid for me.

And for the first time since this all started, I felt truly helpless.

He shoves her inside without another word.

The door slams shut.

And I’m left on the ground, gasping, broken, watching the only person who ever cried for me disappear.

PRESENT

I don't know what hurts more in my chest.The fact that Mia might have been fooling me this whole time, or that she left me—just left, with nothing.

No goodbye. NoI’m sick of your face.No explanation. She just left.

So I followed her. I had her tracked from the moment she first vanished in Los Angeles, always making sure I could do this—find her.

It led me to a house I was ready to die for. I would’ve traded my life for hers without a second thought. But then she stepped out of the car, and nothing about her said she needed saving.

Her face was blank, indifferent, like walking away had been effortless. I watched her talk to the woman, watched her smile at her—smile—before stepping inside, completely resigned.

Like nothing had happened. Like I had never existed in her life at all.

As if one morning she just woke up and decided she’d be better off somewhere else.

She didn’t pack a bag. She didn’t hesitate. She justleft.

For a moment, I let myself believe she was just confused, that maybe this was some kind of mistake. But then the divorce papers arrived—cold, calculated, like I was nothing but a loose end to cut. With her fucking signature, I knew those letters. I knew very well she had signed that.

And why thefuckwould she do that?

It drove me fucking insane, until Lara said the words—Carter was dead.

And then it all made sense.

Those words seem to echo in my head, reverberating like a cruel drumbeat that won’t stop.

Lara’s voice breaks through the storm inside me, but it’s barely a whisper. "Do you think she did this?" Her words are full of pain, raw and fragile.

She cared about Mia, I know she did. I can feel the resentment in her voice, the way it tightens as if she’s trying to understand, trying to hold on to something that makes sense.

Why would Mia do this? But even that doesn’t make sense anymore.

"I feel very much, Lara," I say, and it’s the truth. My heart feels like it’s cracking wide open, and yet it’s still pumping, still alive with all this—this… feeling. The betrayal. The confusion. The grief. It all mixes together, suffocating me, but I feel it all so intensely, so deeply.

"Why would she run away?" Lara’s voice cracks, and I feel bad for her. She wanted to believe Mia wasn’t capable of this.

She wanted to believe in her. But now, I don’t even know if I can believe in her anymore.

Why would she run? The question pounds through my head. Maybe because she couldn’t face me. Because she knew what she’d done. Because the truth was too much. The truth that she killed Carter. And I—I—was too blind to see it, too desperate to believe the lies.

I was the one who protected her, the one who hid things from the people who might’ve seen what she really was. I did that. For her.

But she ran. She left me. And all I have now are divorce papers and that fucking smile—burned into my mind, seared into my skull—as she walked into the mansion. Carefree. Untouched. Like everything she left behind meantnothing.

I screamed her name.

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