Chapter 010

Ivy POV:

"I don't know," I said, and it was the truth, which somehow made it worse. "Noah, I swear to you, I don't know what that means."

His eyes stayed locked on my phone, the message still glowing accusingly in my lap, and I watched suspicion war with something more fragile…hope, maybe, or just desperation for anything solid to hold onto.

"Someone clearly thinks you know something," he said. "Why would they say that to you if there wasn't a reason?"

"I don't know who's texting me," I said, my voice rising despite my effort to stay calm. "I don't recognize the number. I don't know what they mean by the accident, I don't know what they mean about the garden, I don't know anything except that someone is trying to scare me, and it's working."

Anna glanced at us through the rearview mirror, her knuckles white on the steering wheel. "Let me see it," she said, pulling into my apartment complex and throwing the car into park before twisting around to face us.

I handed her the phone, my hands trembling slightly. She scrolled through the messages, her frown deepening with every line.

"This is unhinged," she muttered. "Whoever this is wants you scared enough to meet them alone. That's not someone with good intentions, Ivy. That's someone who wants leverage."

"Leverage for what?" Noah asked, his voice tight.

"I don't know," Anna admitted. "But I don't like it."

Noah reached over slowly, and I let him take the phone from Anna, watching his eyes scan the messages with a focus that seemed to cost him, given how exhausted he already looked.

"The garden," he said quietly. "You said that was real. That I actually remembered something true."

"It was," I said. "We used to go there at night…after my shifts. You'd sneak away from the team dorms and meet me by the old fountain behind the chemistry building. Nobody ever went back there, so it felt safe."

"Then how does someone else know about it?" His eyes lifted to mine, sharp despite everything. "If it was just us, if it was a secret, how would some random number know enough to threaten you with it?"

The question sat heavy in the car, and I had no answer that didn't terrify me further.

"Maybe someone followed you," Anna suggested slowly. "Maybe someone saw you two together back then and just never said anything until now."

"Or maybe," Noah said, his voice dropping, "someone's been watching this whole time. Waiting."

A chill crept up my spine. I thought of Morgan sitting in Lockwood's office, thumb swiping frantically across her screen. I thought of the article breaking online, sources close to the program, details only a handful of people could have known.

"Morgan," I said quietly.

"You think it's her?" Anna asked.

"I don't know. But she knew about my grandmother. She knew we'd been spending time together before it was public. And she deleted something right in front of me the second I noticed her looking at her phone." I turned to Noah.

"Does that number look familiar to you at all? Even a flicker?"

He studied the screen again, brow furrowed, and for a moment I thought something might surface…some fragment breaking free from wherever his memories had scattered but his expression only tightened further, frustration bleeding through the exhaustion.

"Nothing," he said. "It's just numbers. I don't…I can't…" He stopped, pressing his palm against his temple, and I watched pain flicker visibly across his face.

"Hey." I reached over, gently pulling the phone from his hand before he could strain himself further.

"It's okay. We'll figure it out tomorrow but right now you need to sleep, and so do I."

"I don't want to sleep," he said, though his voice had gone thin, exhaustion clearly winning against his will.

"I want to remember. I'm so tired of feeling like I'm walking through my own life half-blind."

Something in his voice cracked straight through my chest. I reached for his hand without thinking, lacing my fingers through his the way I used to before everything fell apart.

"You will," I said softly. "We'll get there. I promise."

He looked down at our joined hands, something unreadable passing across his face, and for a moment I thought he might pull away, might question why the gesture felt so natural despite having no memory of ever doing it before.

Instead, his fingers tightened around mine.

"Stay," he said quietly. "Just for tonight. I don't…I don't want to be alone with my head right now. Not after everything."

Anna cleared her throat pointedly from the front seat, clearly biting back a comment, but I ignored her, focusing entirely on the exhaustion and fear still etched plainly across Noah's face.

"Okay," I said. "I'll stay."

We said goodnight to Anna, who shot me a look somewhere between concern and reluctant approval before driving off, and I led Noah upstairs to my apartment, settling him onto the couch with a blanket while I locked the door behind us, my mind still spinning from the messages burning a hole in my pocket.

I checked my phone one last time before setting it face-down on the counter, my stomach twisting when I saw a third message waiting, sent only minutes ago. I know you're hiding at your apartment with him right now. Careful who you trust, Ivy. Not everyone in that room tonight was on your side.

I stared at the screen, my pulse hammering, my mind racing through every person who'd been present…Lockwood, Anna, Morgan, Noah.

Not everyone in that room tonight was on your side. My gaze drifted slowly toward the couch, toward Noah lying there with his eyes closed, exhaustion finally pulling him under, his face peaceful despite everything crashing down around him and for the first time since this nightmare began, a horrible, unwelcome thought crept into my mind.

What if the message wasn't talking about Morgan at all? The thought lodged itself deep in my chest, cold and unwelcome, before I forced it away. This was Noah…the same boy who used to leave voice notes on my phone just to hear himself say goodnight to me, the same boy who'd once driven forty minutes to bring soup to my grandmother when she'd caught the flu.

Whatever else the accident had stolen from him, it hadn't turned him into someone capable of orchestrating this kind of cruelty.

Still, I found myself staring at him a moment longer than necessary, searching his sleeping face for something I couldn't name.

I turned my phone over again, thumb hovering over the unknown number. Part of me wanted to type back immediately, demand answers, demand a name but another part…the part that had survived years of bullies who thrived on reactions…knew better than to give whoever this was the satisfaction of a response. Instead, I opened a new message to Anna.

Someone's threatening me. Says not everyone in that room was on my side, I don't know who to trust anymore.

Her reply came almost instantly, like she'd been waiting up.

Send me the number. I'll ask my cousin at the IT department if there's a way to trace it and Ivy…lock your door. Please.

I set the phone down, my hands still trembling slightly, and moved quietly around my apartment, checking the lock twice before sinking into the armchair across from the couch. Noah's chest rose and fell steadily in sleep, his features softened in a way they rarely were when he was awake and guarded, carrying the weight of everyone's expectations.

I studied him in the dim light, remembering the boy who used to trace shapes against my palm while we talked about nothing, the boy who'd once told me I was the only person who made him feel like more than a jersey number.

Whoever was sending these messages wanted me isolated, wanted me doubting the one person who'd started remembering fragments of us. That much was clear.

But why? What did they gain from tearing us apart now, in the middle of everything already collapsing around him?

My phone buzzed once more against the counter, the sound slicing sharply through the quiet apartment.

I froze, my heart lurching painfully as I forced myself to walk over and look. Another message…same unknown number.

Ask him about the night before the championship game. Ask him what he was really doing before the accident happened. See if his memory conveniently forgets that too. I turned slowly toward the couch, toward Noah's peaceful, sleeping face, dread pooling thick and heavy in my stomach.

What had he been doing the night before the accident?