"Why—why am I here?"
The voice felt wrong in my own mouth. It landed sharp and animal. I opened my eyes to a ceiling I knew too well: the white panels, the recessed lights, the faint reflection of the Allison Tower skyline. A man hovered over me. He didn't speak. His lips moved.
"You're awake," he mouthed.
I watched the shape of the words. His jaw was set. His face held the same controlled calm I'd seen in portraits and board presentations. Calder Allison. He bent closer, fingers on the rail of the bed.
"I will never let you leave," he mouthed again, slower this time as if making sure I could read it if hearing failed me.
Memory detonated. Not sights at first—names, dates. The gala, the champagne spill, Eldon's hand on my wrist. Sofia's laugh from the balcony. The text messages I had ignored. The police report I had signed against my own defense. The courtroom. My father's face. Everything I had lived and died through condensed into one clean, furious line: he had betrayed me.
Three sentences: I was back. Ten years earlier. Alive in a body that had already learned how to die.
I blinked. I let his mouthed sentence land and turned it into information. He read lips. That fact alone rearranged my options.
"Why would you say that?" I asked, voice steady but small.
He frowned, slow and honest. He mouthed, "Because you shouldn't be
