Page 26 of Lost Echoes
Children in rows, lined up like paper dolls. Masks painted on their faces. My costume scratchy against my skin. Laurel’s voice booming, “Make them believe. Make them pay.”
A boy stands in front of me, smaller, shaking. His one good eye wide with terror. He clutches a bear, half its face missing.
The syringe is in my hand. My hand. And when I press it into his arm, his scream rips through me, shredding something I can never repair.
I stagger back, clutching the hospital wall, my throat raw. “I hurt him! It was me.”
Dr. Hanson—Claire, whoever she is—moves closer. “Kenzi, it wasn’t your fault. You were made to?—”
“No!” The word erupts out of me like a volcano long overdue. My vision clears. I see the hospital now, not the theater. The padded walls. The barred window. Reality.
“They made me a performer,” I choke out. Tears blur my vision. “A puppet. But I wasn’t just a victim. They used me to hurt others. To break them.”
Underneath my grief is something harder. Hotter.
I wipe my face with the back of my sleeve. “No more. They don’t get to use me anymore.”
The lights don’t dim. The curtain doesn’t fall. I’m not waiting for Laurel’s cue.
I decide for myself.
Dr. Hanson—not Claire, not anyone but herself—has a look in her eyes like she sees my shift. She sets a hand on my arm. “Kenzi, slow down. You’ve had a breakthrough. Don’t overwhelm yourself.”
But I shake my head. “I need to know if it’s real. If I’m really free.”
The old programming whispers in my skull, oily and insistent.
Milkshake.
Curtain call. Showtime.
Words that used to drop me into darkness. Words that made me theirs.
Everything swirls around me. My breath hitches, and the room tilts. My knees weaken.
Not this time.
I slam my palm against the wall, grounding myself in the rough paint beneath my skin. “No,” I whisper, then louder. “No!”
The spiral tries to pull me under—images of masks, needles, screaming children, wires—but I anchor myself with every ounce of will. I name the surrounding room. “Bed. Chair. Window. Light.”
The stage flickers and fades.
I stay here, stay me. The pressure lifts, sudden as a snapped cord. I’m shaking, drenched in sweat, but still standing.
Dr. Hanson’s eyes widen. “You resisted a trigger without hypnosis.”
“I broke it.” My voice is raw but steady. “They don’t own me anymore.”
I hope. A wave of terror follows fast on the heels of triumph. If I can resist, then they’ll know. Whoever’s still pulling the strings—they’ll feel the slack in the line.
And they’ll come for me.
I wrap my arms around myself and let the fear burn into determination. “Let them try,” I murmur. “This time, I’ll fight back.”
The victory shudders through me for all of three breaths before my body betrays me. My hands move on their own, slipping into familiar patterns—cupping air as though dipping into a makeup pot, patting invisible powder across my cheeks. My fingers pluck at seams that don’t exist, smoothing the lines of a costume that isn’t there.
My shoulders draw back, spine straight. Chin up, smile fixed. I hear myself humming scales under my breath, throat vibrating with rehearsed warm-ups. The theater presses in again, rehearsals carved into my bones.
