Chapter 8

Adrian didn’t answer immediately.

The silence stretched quietly between them beneath the dim garage lights while rainwater echoed through distant pipes overhead. Somewhere above them, a car door slammed shut, followed by muffled laughter drifting briefly through concrete levels before disappearing again.

Evelyn watched him carefully.

Not because she expected him to lie.

Because she was suddenly afraid he wouldn’t.

Adrian rested his clasped hands loosely between his knees, gaze lowered toward the wet floor for several seconds before finally speaking.

“Yes,” he said.

The word landed with almost no force at all.

That made it worse.

Evelyn felt her body react before her thoughts caught up — pulse tightening sharply, breath turning shallow again, muscles pulling tense beneath skin that had only just begun calming down.

“You were there,” she repeated.

“Yes.”

“On the bridge.”

“Yes.”

“And you never told me?”

Adrian looked up then.

Rainwater reflected faintly across his face from the garage entrance several yards away, softening the sharpness she usually associated with him. But nothing about his expression looked defensive.

If anything, he looked tired.

“I wanted to,” he said quietly.

Evelyn stared at him in disbelief.

“That’s supposed to help?”

“No.”

“Then why say it?”

“Because it’s true.”

Something hot and immediate flared through her chest.

For days now she had been chasing fragments — videos, voices, gloves, photographs — while Adrian moved around her carrying entire pieces of the story without offering them unless cornered.

And somehow he still sounded calm.

That calmness suddenly felt unbearable.

“When exactly were you planning to mention it?” she asked. “After another anonymous video showed up? After I remembered something useful for you?”

His expression shifted almost imperceptibly at that.

“Useful?”

“You keep watching me like I’m evidence.”

The words echoed harder than she intended through the empty garage.

Adrian inhaled slowly before answering.

“I was trying to keep you stable.”

Evelyn laughed once under her breath.

The sound came out sharp and humorless.

“Stable?”

“You had a panic attack ten minutes ago.”

“And somehow that justifies lying to me?”

“I didn’t lie.”

“You withheld it.”

“Yes.”

The honesty stunned her for half a second.

Most people instinctively softened ugly truths once confrontation began. Adrian didn’t seem interested in protecting himself that way.

That only made her angrier.

Evelyn pushed herself abruptly to her feet.

The sudden movement made dizziness ripple briefly through her vision, but she ignored it.

“You knew I was at the bridge for five years,” she said. “You knew I couldn’t remember what happened and you still sat in that office pretending we were strangers.”

“I never said we were strangers.”

The answer stopped her cold.

Not because of the words.

Because he sounded almost careful saying them.

As though precision mattered.

Evelyn searched his face for some sign she was misunderstanding him.

“What does that mean?”

Adrian rose slowly to his feet as well, leaving enough distance between them that she never felt cornered.

“I mean,” he said, “you remembered less than I expected.”

The sentence hit somewhere deep enough to hurt.

Without warning, Evelyn slapped him.

The sound cracked sharply through the garage.

For one suspended second afterward, neither of them moved.

Pain bloomed across her palm.

Adrian’s head turned slightly from the impact before settling still again.

He didn’t touch his face.

Didn’t step forward.

Didn’t look angry.

That unnerved her more than retaliation would have.

Rain dripped steadily from overhead pipes into a puddle beside them.

Evelyn’s breathing had become uneven again.

“You had no right,” she whispered.

Something shifted behind Adrian’s eyes then.

Not anger.

Something heavier.

“You’re right,” he said quietly.

The simplicity of the answer nearly destabilized her more completely than an argument would have.

She wanted him defensive.

Cold.

Manipulative.

Instead he just looked exhausted.

Evelyn grabbed her bag from the concrete floor before turning toward the elevator.

“Evelyn.”

She stopped walking but didn’t turn around.

“I didn’t tell you because I thought remembering too quickly would hurt you.”

She laughed softly without humor.

“You don’t get to decide that.”

“No,” Adrian admitted. “I don’t.”

The elevator doors opened with a metallic hum.

Evelyn stepped inside without looking back.

Just before the doors closed, she heard him say one final thing.

“You were terrified that night.”

The elevator sealed shut before she could answer.

By the time Evelyn reached her apartment, the anger had curdled into something far more dangerous.

Doubt.

She threw her keys onto the kitchen counter hard enough to startle herself, then paced once across the living room before turning back again.

The rain had started up harder outside.

Lightning flashed pale against the windows.

Adrian’s words kept replaying against the inside of her skull.

You remembered less than I expected.

Less than expected.

Not:

less than hoped.

Not:

less than normal.

Expected.

As though memory loss itself had once been part of a conversation between them.

Her chest tightened.

No.

The thought felt too unstable to follow.

Her phone buzzed against the counter before she could spiral further.

Mara.

Evelyn answered immediately.

“You sound awful,” Mara said.

“Good evening to you too.”

“I found something.”

The tension in Mara’s voice erased the remains of Evelyn’s anger instantly.

“What kind of something?”

A brief pause.

Then:

“Audio.”

Evelyn stopped pacing.

“What?”

“Old police audio from the bridge.” Mara lowered her voice slightly. “Mercer never uploaded it officially. Somebody archived fragments wrong.”

A cold sensation moved through Evelyn’s stomach.

“Mara—”

“You need to hear this yourself.”

Static crackled softly through the phone before another sound emerged beneath it.

Rain.

Police radios.

Someone crying.

Then—

Her own voice.

Distorted by panic and weather.

“I did it.”

Evelyn’s knees nearly gave out.

Static swallowed the sentence briefly before her voice returned louder this time, breaking apart around ragged breathing.

“Oh my God— I did it—”

The recording ended abruptly.

Silence crashed hard into the apartment afterward.

Evelyn stood motionless beside the kitchen counter while rain battered the windows behind her.

Her own voice still echoed faintly through the room.

Mara spoke carefully.

“Eve?”

Evelyn couldn’t answer.

Because somewhere beneath the horror, beneath the confusion and panic and exhaustion—

Something inside her recognized the guilt in that voice immediately.