Page 51 of Fractured Devotion
I nod. “Just coffee. The tea is always a mistake.”
She smiles weakly and sets it down. I let the steam rise. It smells burnt and bitter, which is perfect. Nothing delicate survives at this hour.
When she leaves, I glance back at the screen. Celeste hasn’t moved. One hand curls near her collarbone like she’s bracing for something that never fully lands.
She dreams of impact.
I shift in the booth, letting the vinyl press into my spine. Her book has slipped down to her side, and I catalog the title. She’s training herself, even in slumber.
And I’m documenting every breath.
I stay for a while longer. Long enough to ensure she hasn’t stirred. Long enough to commit every image to memory.
Then I close the tablet and pocket it.
Tomorrow, I’ll cross-check activity logs. But tonight, I have everything I need.
Celeste, curled peacefully, asleep like the air itself is on hold.
And me. The only one who sees her like this.
The only one who doesn’t turn away.
Chapter 18 – Celeste - The Triggering Silence
There’s a sound that only exists inside nightmares. It’s not a scream and not a whisper. It’s something in between. Something sharp and something you feel more than hear.
I wake up to it.
My chest lurches before my eyes open. The room is still, and the overhead light is off. Only the blue flicker of the weather display glows in the corner.
It’s just after 5 a.m.
I sit upright, the blanket sliding from my shoulders as the couch groans beneath me. The book I never opened lies against my ribs, its spine warm from where my hand held it while I slept. I set it aside.
I should be calm.
But I’m not.
Something scratches at the base of my brain, just under the surface, like a scab lifting without consent. I feel it more than I understand it, a sliver of memory that doesn’t belong to this moment.
It started hours ago after the bakery. After the van left.
I’d walked home in the hush of midnight, acutely aware of the false silence. I didn’t look back, not at the bakery, and not at the shadowed curb where the van had sat for days. But I felt it. I always feel it.
The images are back now.
A hallway that’s too narrow, a door I was never supposed to open, fingers wrapping around mine, dragging me forward, and a voice that wasn’t soothing but slow. It was male. And familiar.
“No one else loves you the way I do.”
The voice fractures me.
I press both palms to my eyes, hard, and count backward.
Ten. Nine. Eight—
My breath comes back shallow, and I taste copper. I realize I bit my own cheek in my sleep again.
