Julian had walked six streets before he realized Silas wasn't following him.
He stopped beneath the awning of a closed pharmacy and looked back.
The road behind him was empty.
No familiar black car. No man standing beneath a streetlight, pretending he had happened to choose the same direction.
Silas had actually let him go.
For some reason, that bothered Julian.
He had spent so much time fighting to escape the man's control that he hadn't considered what it would feel like when Silas finally stopped reaching for him.
His phone vibrated.
Julian looked down, expecting another message from A.
It was Silas.
SILAS: I won't follow you.
A second message arrived.
SILAS: But please don't go looking for the person from the river alone.
Julian stared at the screen.
Then he typed a reply.
JULIAN: You don't get to tell me what to do.
He hesitated before sending another message.
JULIAN: If you remember anything else, tell me. Don't wait for me to discover it.
He sent it and put his phone away.
That was as close to an agreement as he was willing to offer.
The rain had begun again, lightly enough that the pavement reflected the streetlights without filling the gutters. Julian walked toward the main road, trying to organize the information he had gathered.
Three years ago, he had gone to the river.
Someone had been missing before Silas arrived.
The scarred man had pulled Julian from the water.
Silas had taken responsibility for what happened afterward.
And Julian had deliberately arranged for his future self to forget.
The facts were simple.
Their implications were not.
If he had been trying to save someone, why had he left a message instructing himself not to remember the river?
If he had discovered something about Silas, why had he continued to trust him enough to ask for help?
And if the missing person had mattered enough for Julian to risk his life, why had no one given that person a name?
Julian stopped at a crossing.
A car passed.
In its dark window, he caught a glimpse of his reflection.
For a fraction of a second, he saw someone else standing where he stood.
A man with a colder expression, a straighter posture, and eyes that seemed to have already decided how the night would end.
Locke.
Julian blinked.
The reflection returned to normal.
He crossed the road.
He wasn't going to let the memory of a man he couldn't remember make his decisions for him.
But he wasn't going to pretend that man had never existed, either.
Not anymore.
The scarred man answered on the third call.
"Where are you?" Julian asked.
There was a brief silence.
"Why?"
"Because you told me I was trying to save someone at the river, and now I've discovered that you, Silas, and A all know different pieces of what happened."
"You shouldn't be calling me."
"Then stop answering."
The man exhaled.
Julian heard a door close on the other end.
"What do you want?"
"The truth."
"That's a dangerous habit."
"So I've been told."
The scarred man was silent for several seconds.
Finally, he said, "Come to the east side of the old freight yard. Alone."
"Why there?"
"Because you chose it."
The call ended.
Julian looked at his phone.
He almost called back to demand an explanation.
Instead, he hailed a taxi.
The freight yard lay beyond the busy part of the city, where warehouses and disused railway lines divided the industrial district into long, deserted stretches. Most of the buildings had been abandoned, but a few still operated behind high fences.
Julian paid the driver and stepped onto the pavement.
The scarred man stood beside a shuttered warehouse.
His left hand was tucked into his coat pocket.
"You came," he said.
"You sounded surprised."
"I was hoping you'd ignore me."
"That makes two of us."
The man gave him a tired look.
Julian stopped a few feet away.
"I want to know about the person who disappeared."
The scarred man's expression changed.
"You shouldn't have learned about that yet."
"Apparently, everyone has a preferred schedule for my memories."
"Julian—"
"No. You pulled me out of the river. You told me I had asked you not to explain what happened. You know I was trying to save someone, and you know that person disappeared." Julian stepped closer. "You don't get to hide behind a promise made by someone who no longer remembers making it."
The scarred man studied him.
Then he nodded slowly.
"You're right."
The admission caught Julian off guard.
"Then tell me."
"I can tell you what I saw."
"Start there."
The man removed his hand from his pocket.
A thin scar crossed his knuckles, disappearing beneath his sleeve.
"That night, I received a message telling me to go to the river. It didn't come from Silas. It didn't come from Adrian."
"Who sent it?"
"I don't know."
Julian's eyes narrowed.
"Did you go because you were paid?"
"No."
"Then why?"
The man looked toward the railway tracks.
"Because the message contained a phrase only you would have known."
Julian waited.
"It said, 'If the water takes one, don't let it take the other.'"
A chill moved through Julian.
He knew the sentence.
Not consciously.
His body recognized it before his mind could explain why.
He heard rushing water.
A man's voice shouting through the rain.
Then his own voice, hoarse and desperate.
Not both. Please, not both.
Julian caught the side of the warehouse.
The scarred man stepped forward but stopped before touching him.
"What did you see?"
Julian shook his head.
"Nothing clear."
"Don't force it."
Julian looked up sharply.
"Don't tell me what to do."
The man accepted the rebuke.
For a moment, they stood in silence.
Then Julian asked, "When you arrived, was I alone?"
"No."
The answer came without hesitation.
Julian's pulse quickened.
"Who was with me?"
"I saw two figures near the water. One was already moving away from the bank. The other was trying to reach you."
"Could you identify them?"
"No. It was raining heavily, and I couldn't see their faces."
"Then how do you know there were two?"
"Because I saw one disappear behind the old pumping station, and I saw the other enter the water."
Julian stared at him.
"Which one was me?"
"You were the one in the water."
"And the other person?"
"I never saw them again."
Julian looked toward the dark railway lines.
Someone had left him in the river.
Someone else had disappeared.
And the scarred man had received a message telling him to go there.
"Why didn't you follow the other person?"
The man's jaw tightened.
"Because you were drowning."
"That doesn't answer my question."
"It answers it completely."
Julian turned back to him.
"You chose me."
"I chose the person I could still save."
The words struck harder than Julian expected.
He looked away.
For years, he had imagined his lost memories as something that had been taken from him. A terrible accident. A deliberate act of manipulation. Perhaps even a punishment for something he had done.
But what if the missing years were the consequence of a decision he had made himself?
What if the person he had been trying to save had disappeared because everyone had been too busy saving him?
"Did I ask you to leave them?" Julian whispered.
The scarred man didn't answer immediately.
Then he said, "No."
Julian's head lifted.
"What?"
"You didn't ask me to leave anyone."
"Then why did you?"
"Because you were dying."
The man looked directly at him.
"And when I pulled you out, you tried to go back."
Julian felt his stomach turn.
"Back into the water?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"You were calling for someone."
The scarred man's voice grew quieter.
"You kept saying you hadn't finished."
Julian closed his eyes.
A flash of memory struck him.
His hands gripping wet concrete.
The river dragging at his legs.
A distant light moving through the rain.
And someone shouting his name from somewhere he couldn't reach.
He remembered the feeling of being pulled backward.
Not toward safety.
Away from someone.
He opened his eyes.
"What happened after you pulled me out?"
"I held you down."
Julian stared at him.
The man didn't look away.
"You were fighting me. You kept trying to get back to the water. I couldn't let you."
"Did Silas arrive then?"
"Later."
"Was I conscious?"
"For a little while."
Julian's breathing became shallow.
"What did I say?"
The scarred man looked at him for a long moment.
"You asked whether the other person had made it out."
"And I told you I didn't know."
"No. That was Silas."
Julian went still.
The man continued.
"You asked me first. I told you I hadn't seen anyone come out of the water. Then you asked me to find them."
"Did you?"
"I tried."
"And?"
"I found nothing."
Julian's fingers curled.
"Nothing at all?"
"No body. No identification. No sign that anyone had been taken to a hospital under a different name."
The man paused.
"Nothing that proved they were dead."
Julian felt the world narrow around those final words.
Nothing that proved they were dead.
For three years, people had spoken as though the river had closed the story.
But no one had found the person Julian was trying to save.
No one had confirmed their death.
They had simply disappeared.
Julian looked at the scarred man.
"Did you tell Silas?"
"Yes."
"What did he say?"
"He told me to stop looking."
Julian's expression hardened.
"And you listened?"
"No."
The man reached into his coat and removed a small, folded photograph.
"I continued searching for a while. Then I received this."
He handed it to Julian.
The photograph showed the entrance to a hospital.
The image was grainy, apparently taken from a security camera. A figure stood beside the entrance, wearing a dark coat and looking over one shoulder.
The face was indistinct.
But Julian recognized the posture.
The slight tilt of the head.
The way the person's right hand was held close to the body.
Something about it made his skin prickle.
"Who is this?"
"I don't know."
"Where did you get the photograph?"
"It was sent to me anonymously. No message. No explanation."
Julian turned it over.
There was a date on the back.
Three years ago.
The day after he had been pulled from the river.
He looked up.
"This person went to a hospital the day after I disappeared."
"Yes."
"Did you check the hospital records?"
"I tried. The photograph wasn't clear enough to identify the person, and the hospital wouldn't give me information about every patient who entered that day."
Julian studied the image again.
"What makes you think this is the person I was trying to save?"
The scarred man hesitated.
"Because of what was written on the back when I first received it."
Julian turned the photograph over again.
There was something beneath the date.
A line so faint he had initially mistaken it for a scratch.
He tilted the image toward the light.
The words became visible.
YOU SAVED THE WRONG ONE.
Julian stared at the message.
The scarred man watched him.
"I don't know who sent it," he said. "I don't know whether the person in the photograph was the one you were trying to save. But I know someone wanted me to believe that I made the wrong choice."
Julian's throat tightened.
"And you believed them?"
"No."
"Why not?"
The scarred man looked at him.
"Because when I pulled you from the water, you weren't calling for help."
He paused.
"You were apologizing."
Julian felt something crack open inside him.
An image surfaced.
His own hands, trembling.
A voice whispering, I'm sorry.
Then another voice, so close it seemed to come from inside his own head.
You promised.
The memory vanished before he could grasp it.
He gripped the photograph.
"Who did I make that promise to?"
The scarred man shook his head.
"I don't know."
Julian looked down at the image one last time.
He had come to the freight yard expecting to learn who had disappeared.
Instead, he had discovered that someone had been watching the aftermath of the river, documenting the people who tried to find him, and deliberately feeding them pieces of a story.
Someone wanted the scarred man to regret saving him.
Someone wanted Silas to believe Julian was dead.
And someone had ensured that Julian himself would forget the person he had tried to save.
His phone vibrated.
A message from an unknown number.
UNKNOWN: Stop asking about the person at the hospital.
Julian's gaze sharpened.
Another message appeared.
UNKNOWN: You were warned what would happen if you went back.
He typed a reply.
JULIAN: Who is this?
The response arrived almost immediately.
UNKNOWN: Someone who remembers what you promised.
Julian stared at the screen.
Then his phone rang.
He answered.
For several seconds, there was only silence.
Then a voice spoke.
A voice he had heard before, but not in a recording.
Not through a message.
In person.
Three years ago.
"Julian?"
His fingers tightened around the phone.
He couldn't place the voice.
But he knew, with a certainty that frightened him, that he had once trusted the person speaking.
"Who is this?" he asked.
A quiet breath came through the line.
Then the voice answered.
"You told me you would come back for me."
The call ended.
Julian remained motionless.
The scarred man watched him from across the narrow space between them.
"What happened?"
Julian slowly lowered the phone.
"I think I just found the person I've been looking for."
His phone vibrated one final time.
A message appeared.
UNKNOWN: Don't tell Silas I'm alive.
Julian stared at the words.
Then he looked toward the darkened road beyond the freight yard.
For three years, Silas had believed Julian died at the river.
Now someone was asking Julian to keep another death a secret.
And for the first time, Julian wondered whether the person he had been trying to save had survived only because everyone else believed they hadn't.