CHAPTER 22: The Burn Unit File
Ava couldn't sleep.
Not with that newspaper clipping folded under her pillow like a buried scream. Not with the name Eli echoing in her head from a past she had no right remembering.
And not with the growing sense that someone was watching them.
The next morning, she did what she hadn't dared to do before.
She went back to the locked records room.
The therapy center was quiet. Too quiet. Even the usual creaks in the hallway seemed to hold their breath.
Her fingers trembled as she slid the key into the old brass lock. She didn't ask how she had the key. Maybe she'd always had it. Maybe it had been given to her by someone who wanted her to find the truth.
The door groaned open.
Dust spiraled in the shaft of light that crept in behind her. Files lined the walls—boxes of forgotten stories. But Ava's feet moved without thought, stopping at a drawer labeled:
BURN UNIT: 15 YEARS AGO
Her hand hovered. Then opened it.
Inside, a thin folder. Light. As if someone had already taken pages out.
She flipped it open.
"Patient: Male. Age 9. Severe burns. Blunt trauma to the head. Admitted unconscious."
She read further, breath catching.
"Eyes permanently damaged. No known family identified at the time. Name given: Eli—repeated by another child in the ambulance before passing out."
Ava's world tilted.
She clutched the drawer like it could anchor her. Like it could stop the sob rising in her throat.
He'd been nine.
She had said his name.
She turned to the attached sketch—a police composite, drawn based on descriptions from the fire scene.
Her hand covered her mouth.
The boy in the sketch… it looked just like Eli.
Same jawline. Same mouth.
But his eyes—
They had once been full of life.
And then the worst part. A nurse's note scribbled in the margin:
"The other child—female—taken in by social services after memory loss diagnosis. Unidentified."
Her knees buckled.
That was her.
Ava stumbled back, the file clutched to her chest. "No… no, no…"
She had been there.
She had known him.
The fire that broke him…
The fire that blinded him…
She had watched it happen.
And she had forgotten.
Something cracked inside her—something old and buried. A scream from a little girl who never had the chance to grieve.
She turned—
And Eli was standing in the doorway.
Face pale. Still. Like he already knew.
"Is it true?" he asked.
Ava opened her mouth, but no sound came.
He stepped forward. "Was it you?"
Tears blurred her vision. "Eli, I didn't remember. I swear to you, I didn't remember until now—until this."
She held out the file.
He didn't take it.
"I've spent years," he said, voice low, shaking, "trying to piece together a night that stole everything. And now you tell me you were there?"
"I didn't know," she whispered. "I was a child. I forgot to survive. I didn't want to forget—I just… did."
He turned away.
"Eli…"
"Do you know what it's like," he asked quietly, "to realize the person you trusted most might be the same one fate used to break you?"
Her heart cracked.
"I'm not fate," she said. "I'm not your pain."
But he didn't answer.
He walked out.
And this time, the silence didn't scream.
It wept.