Chapter 174: The Memory Unmasked
Easter~
The space around us pulsed with tension, heavy and electric. Time itself had stilled in the shimmering frozen memory where my past screamed to be heard. But Jacob wasn’t finished.
"You humans," Jacob said with a smirk. "You never cease to amaze me."
He raised one graceful hand, fingers slicing the silence like a whip. The frozen scene flickered, blurred—like fog lifting from glass—and began to melt into something else entirely.
"Let’s shift the lens, shall we?" he said, his voice calm, but the edge in it sharp as a knife. "Let’s stop pretending holiness runs in your blood."
The memory dissolved into another—vivid and horrifying.
We were in the church—our family’s church. But it wasn’t a sermon we were watching. It was Mama, dressed in her pristine choir robe, sneaking into the back room after rehearsal, locking the door with trembling fingers. And there he was.
Bruno.
The same Bruno who’d been standing all stiff and sanctimonious by the door blocking my escape just moments ago—clutching his imaginary halo like he was the second coming—was now trembling like a leaf. His act had shattered the second his memory-self flashed on that screen, exposing everything he thought he’d buried.
She practically leapt into his arms, their mouths crashing like waves in a storm. Clothes came off. Gasps filled the air. She moaned his name.
I clamped my hand over my mouth, my heart stuttering. I heard my own gasp. "Oh my God," I whispered.