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My phone buzzed on the counter while I was still staring at Kira's bandaged arm.
One new voicemail.
I picked it up. The screen showed an unknown number, but the timestamp made my stomach drop. 2:47 a.m. Right after we got back from the store.
"Play it," I said.
Kira looked up from the couch where she'd been pretending to rest. Her eyes went sharp. "Layla, wait—"
I hit play.
Static first. Then breathing. Then a voice I hadn't heard in three years.
"Layla, sweetie, it's Mom."
The phone almost slipped out of my hand.
Kira was on her feet. "Don't listen to that."
I turned away from her, pressing the phone harder against my ear. Mom's voice kept going, soft and tired, the way she sounded after double shifts at the diner. "I know it's late, baby. I just wanted to hear your voice. Call me back when you can, okay? I miss you."
The message ended.
I played it again.
"Layla." Kira's hand reached for my wrist.
I yanked it back. "Don't touch me."
"That's not your mom."
"You don't know that."
"I do." Her voice dropped, careful, like she was talking to someone standing on a ledge. "I know exactly what that is."
I looked at her then. Really looked. She wasn't moving closer. Wasn't trying to grab the phone. Just standing there with her shoulders tight and her jaw set, and something in her eyes that looked like she'd seen this before.
"My mom's dead," I said. "She died three years ago. Car accident on Route 40. So yeah, I know it's not her."
"Then delete it."
"No."
"Layla—"
"I said no." My voice cracked. I hated that. Hated how my hand was shaking. Hated that Kira was watching me fall apart over a stupid voicemail that I knew, I knew, wasn't real.
But it sounded like her.
God, it sounded exactly like her.
Kira took a slow breath. "It's called an Echo. It's what I've been trying to tell you. The things that are coming through the rift, they don't just look like shadows. Some of them learn. They listen. They find the shape of people you loved and they wear it like a mask."
"Stop."
"They use your grief against you. That's how they get close."
"I said stop!" I threw the phone at her.
She caught it. Didn't even flinch. Just held it in one hand and looked at me with that same steady expression that made me want to scream.
"Give it back," I said.
"No."
"Kira, I swear to God—"
"You can hit me if you want." She set the phone on the coffee table between us, screen-down. "You can yell. You can kick me out. But I'm not giving that back until you understand what it is."
I was across the room before I'd decided to move. My palm connected with her cheek, hard enough that the sound echoed in the small living room.
Kira's head turned with the blow. She didn't step back. Didn't raise a hand. Just stood there, a red mark blooming across her face, and looked at me.
"That's not your mom," she said again. Quiet. Certain.
My hand stung. I wanted to hit her again. Wanted to grab the phone and lock myself in my room and play the message over and over until I could pretend it was real.
Instead I just stood there, breathing hard, my nails digging into my palms.
"How do you know?" My voice came out raw.
Kira touched her cheek, winced, then dropped her hand. "Because the Echo doesn't know she's dead. It's pulling from old memories, things it scraped from the air around you or the store or anywhere you've been grieving. It doesn't create. It mimics. And it always gets one thing wrong."
"What thing?"
"Listen again. Really listen."
I didn't want to. But I picked up the phone anyway, hands shaking, and played it one more time.
"Layla, sweetie, it's Mom. I know it's late, baby. I just wanted to hear your voice. Call me back when you can, okay? I miss you."
I closed my eyes.
And then I heard it.
Mom never called me baby. She hated that word. Said it sounded like something you'd call a dog. She called me Laylee when she was happy, mija when she was serious, and kiddo when she was tired.
Never baby.
"It got it wrong," I whispered.
Kira nodded. "They always do. They're good, but they're not perfect. Not yet."
I sat down on the arm of the couch. My legs felt like they were going to give out. "So something out there is listening to me. Watching me. Trying to sound like my dead mom."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because you're the anchor." Kira sat down too, slow, keeping space between us. "The rift is tied to you. I don't know why yet. But the Echo knows. And it's testing you. Seeing how far it can push before you break."
I wanted to laugh. Wanted to cry. Wanted to throw the phone against the wall and watch it shatter.
Instead I just sat there, staring at the black screen.
"What happens if I break?"
Kira didn't answer right away. When she did, her voice was so quiet I almost didn't hear it.
"The rift opens. And everything on the other side comes through."
We sat in silence. The air felt too heavy. Outside, the wind picked up, rattling the window frame.
I should've deleted the voicemail right then. Should've listened to Kira and smashed the phone and buried the SIM card in the desert.
But I didn't.
I set it on the table and stood up. "I'm going to bed."
"Layla—"
"Don't." I didn't look at her. "Just don't."
I walked into my room and shut the door.
I didn't lock it. Part of me still didn't trust her. But another part, the part that had seen her take a hit from something with claws and still ask if I was okay, the part that had watched her stand there and let me slap her without flinching—
That part thought maybe she was telling the truth.
I lay down on the bed, still in my jeans and hoodie, and stared at the ceiling. My phone was still out there on the table. I could hear Kira moving around, quiet, probably checking the windows again like she had last night.
I closed my eyes.
And then I heard it.
My phone. Ringing.
I sat up. No. I'd left it in the living room. But the sound was coming from my nightstand.
I turned my head.
My old phone. The one that had been in the drawer for two years, the one with the cracked screen and dead battery, the one I'd kept because it had the last photos of Mom on it.
It was lit up. Ringing.
I reached for it, my hand moving on its own.
The door burst open. Kira stood in the doorway, breathing hard. "Don't answer that."
I looked at the screen.
Mom's name. Her contact photo, the one from her birthday two months before she died, smiling with frosting on her nose.
Incoming call.
"Layla, do not answer that phone."
My finger hovered over the screen.
I should've listened. I knew I should've listened.
But I swiped.
Static. Breathing. And then—
"Layla, don't let her take you into the desert."
Mom's voice. Clear. Urgent. Scared.
"She's not what she says she is. Don't trust—"
The line went dead.
I dropped the phone.
Kira was staring at me, her face pale. "What did it say?"
I couldn't answer. Couldn't breathe.
Because the last time I heard my mom scared like that was the night she called me from the highway, right before the accident, and said someone was following her.
Kira picked up the dead phone. The screen was black again. She turned it over, checked the battery.
Empty. Just like it had been for two years.
"It shouldn't be able to do that," she said. "The Echo shouldn't be able to reach through tech that's offline."
She looked at me. For the first time since I'd met her, she looked rattled.
"Layla, we need to leave. Now."
"Leave? And go where?"
"Anywhere but here. It knows where you sleep. It's escalating."
I shook my head. "I'm not running. Not until you tell me what the hell my mom has to do with any of this."
Kira opened her mouth. Closed it. Her jaw worked like she was choosing her words carefully.
"Your mom didn't die in an accident," she finally said.
The air left the room.
"What?"
"I'm sorry. I wanted to wait. I wanted to find the right time, but—" She looked down at the dead phone in her hands. "Your mom was investigating the rift. She found something. And the Echo killed her for it."
I couldn't feel my hands. Couldn't feel anything.
"You're lying."
"I'm not."
"You didn't even know me three days ago. How the hell would you know anything about my mom?"
Kira met my eyes. "Because I'm the one who was supposed to protect her."
The words hung between us.
And then my phone, the one still sitting on the coffee table in the living room, started playing the voicemail again.
Loud. On speaker.
Except this time, it wasn't the message I'd heard before.
This time, Mom's voice said:
"Layla, don't let her take you into the desert. She's the reason I'm dead."