The wind outside was loud. The windows trembled, but the air in the room remained still.
Hale sat across from Ivy.
She wasn't just quiet. She was off-axis.
Her fingers traced slow, perfect circles on the wood grain of the table. Her eyes blinked out of sync with her breath. And when she looked at him—it was like she was remembering him from somewhere else.
She hadn't said much since last night.
Something about her presence felt… misaligned.
Not broken.
Not grieving.
Just displaced.
She laughed at a joke that wasn't funny.
Reacted to a memory he hadn't said out loud.
Once, she turned to him—shoulders stiff, eyes too wide—and whispered:
"Do you remember Room 9?"
Then blinked, shook her head slightly, and said, "What do you want for dinner?"
Hale didn't answer.
Because that phrase—
That room—
He had never spoken it aloud. Not to her. Not to anyone.
It was just a dream. Or a hallucination. Or maybe—
A name he carved once into the wall of an old place that no longer exists.
And later, scraped out. Erased. Like it had never been there.
So how did she know?
He studied her face. She looked back at him, but not quite into him. Like she was seeing a version of him slightly out of frame.
There was a long silence.
Then, just for a second, she smiled. A sad, crooked thing. The kind of smile people give when they've already left the room.
He wasn't sure if this conversation had already happened.
Or would happen again.
The light above them buzzed, flickered once.
And for the briefest heartbeat—
—there were two Ivys sitting across from him.