It was still odd to her how much Lacey had become a ghost in her memories of that summer despite how cruel she’d been, always on the periphery, outside of frame. But Lacey had never really talked about herself, had never become vulnerable, never become real. So she stayed that girl on the beach with the sad eyes and dark hair and slightly off sense of humor, never fully forming into a person beyond that.

Maybe that’s why she was so good at it. Manipulating them. She figured out the dark, terrible things they all whispered to themselves at night and then became that voice. No longer her own person but a malicious twist of a knife into an already-formed cut.

Memories are funny, aren’t they? They only show us what we think happened, not what really did.

Lacey’s words had replayed in Mia’s head each night as her legs twitched and twisted, restless beneath the blankets, her body exhausted from the endless waves of pain but unable to be still.

Repeating, repeating, repeating those words. Until they slowly started making sense.

Mia’s hand dipped into the jacket of her pocket, sliding along the lining until she found what she was looking for.

The sun hit the metal of the razor blade she’d slipped out of the evidence room. She blinked against the glare, even as her fingers pressed into the tip. Her flesh gave but didn’t rupture, and she let off the pressure.

They only show us what we think happened.

The thing Lacey hadn’t realized was that she fell prey to that, as well.

She hadn’t been in the room with Asher, Monroe, and Mia. That’s what they realized when Cash had started filling in the blanks in the story.

Lacey had set everything up, but she’d been waiting outside. Ready to intercept Mia.

Only one person really knew what happened that night.

The memories hadn’t come back slowly but rather all at once. A thick fog peeling away, a bandage ripped off hard enough to take skin with it.

The night was blurry enough at the edges, their behavior strange enough, that it confirmed a suspicion Mia had been holding in a firm grasp. Lacey, for all her confident bravado, for all her scheming ways, had drugged them into complacency. It didn’t erase Mia’s role in what happened, nor the guilt she’d wear just as permanently as the scars on her wrists, but it blunted it.

Mia and Asher held hands like they’d had when they were kids. It was too hot, but their palms pressed together anyway, sweat slicked and uncomfortable.

Everything felt soft and distorted, anyway. Slow and disjointed, like a dream, when you ended up in impossible places doing impossible things for no reason at all.