Chapter 863 - 865
Jude moved through it all as if part of a dream, noting every detail. He saw the tiredness in Sophie’s eyes as she stirred the breakfast stew, the way Zoey stood unusually close to him when they passed in the garden, the faint tremble in Amelia’s hands as she sharpened a stick near the edge of camp. All of them acted almost normal. Almost. But there were cracks in the surface now, small enough to miss if he weren’t paying attention.
He watched them. He spoke to them, gently and without suspicion, and they smiled like nothing was wrong. But Jude’s mind churned beneath his calm expression. The voice in the forest, the blue flicker he’d seen, the seductive strangeness that overtook each of them, one by one, it wasn’t over. It was evolving.
After breakfast, he called for Emma to help him inspect the fish traps again. It was an excuse, and they both knew it, but she agreed without question. She always liked being near the water.
They walked in silence for a while, the morning air humid and thick with the scent of damp earth. The forest around them was still, but not comfortably so. It was the stillness of something watching.
Emma broke the silence. "You haven’t said anything."
Jude glanced at her. "About what?"
"About what happened yesterday. At the beach."
He didn’t answer immediately. The path dipped into a gully filled with broken stones and low ferns, and he focused on their footing as they descended. At the bottom, he turned to her.
"You tell me," he said. "What do you remember?"
Emma looked down, her brow furrowed. "That’s the thing. I don’t. I remember walking with you, talking about the tide. Then... there’s a gap. I remember looking at you and feeling..." she paused, eyes darkening slightly. "It wasn’t normal. Like I was someone else. Like someone else was... inside my head."
"Do you remember what you said?"