Chapter 16

Liam is already dying when the dream starts. There’s no transition, no soft fade-in. One blink and I’m back in the sea house, the whole place shuddering like it’s breathing through broken ribs. Salt air burns my throat. The boards are slick under my sneakers. The heart monitor that shouldn’t exist here screams a high, shrill line. He’s on the mattress by the cracked window, shirt soaked, chest bandaged in the same crooked pattern I remember taping on a dozen trauma patients. The same...