---
Aria didn't sleep like she used to.
Ever since the hospital, dreams came jagged and electric. She'd wake with sweat in her sheets, her breath ragged, hands aching like they had pulled triggers in another life.
Sometimes, she could still feel *his* fingerprints on her skin. His memories in her blood. Lucas wasn't gone.
**He was echoing.**
She told no one. Not her mother, not the school counselor, not even herself if she could help it. Because if she said it out loud, it would be real.
And real meant dangerous.
---
It started small.
In class, she'd suddenly know what someone was about to say—*before* they said it. She could feel lies rolling off tongues like heat from asphalt. Her instincts were sharper. Her reflexes too.
Once, she caught a falling knife at a restaurant before it hit the floor.
She didn't even *see* it fall.
That night, in the mirror, she whispered:
"Are you still in me?"
No answer.
But she didn't sleep at all.
---
One week later, she saw him.
