Joel had seen a lot of messed-up things in his career, dead kids, mutilated bodies, tweakers who thought they were gods. But nothing, nothing, prepared him for the night Eliza came home.
It had been a week since she vanished.
One second, she was humming to herself in the kitchen, barefoot and glowing. Eight months pregnant. The kind of glow only a woman carrying life could have. Stirring soup like the world was still soft and kind.
The next second, she was gone.
Until seven days later.
There was a knock on the door.
He opened it expecting a neighbor, or maybe a priest.
Instead, it was Eliza.
Barefoot.
Soaked.
Eyes empty.
She smelled like smoke and lavender and something Alan couldn't name. Like rainwater poured over a fresh grave.
"Eliza?"
he asked, barely breathing.
She blinked at him. Tilted her head. And then… smiled.
But it wasn't her smile. It was like watching a stranger wear her skin.
Eliza stood there.
Soaked to the bone. Her belly still swollen. Her dress clinging to her skin like she'd crawled out of a swamp made of fog.
"Eliza?"
She didn't answer. Just blinked, slow and wrong, like a puppet remembering how to work its strings.
The moment she did, the hallway lights flickered. The air smelled like burnt hair and roses. Joel reached for her, heart racing, but her skin was cold. Ice bath cold. Morgue cold.
"Eliza, where the hell were you? The baby—"
She pressed her finger to his lips.
"I missed you," she whispered. "I brought something back."
Joel's throat tightened.
Then she bled.
First from her nose. Then her eyes. Then her mouth.
She collapsed in his arms like a puppet with its strings cut, convulsing, whispering something that sounded like a prayer… but backward.
She was rushed to the hospital.
The doctors said she was alive but barely. Her brain activity was "inconsistent," whatever that meant. Sometimes she'd twitch. Once she muttered the word "salt." Another time she growled at a nurse.
The doctors were baffled. No trauma. No wounds. But her brain? Flickering in and out like a dying lightbulb.
Sometimes she whispered things in her sleep,names no one recognized. Numbers. A chant, maybe. Once she said "don't trust the mirrors." Another time she cackled when a nurse offered her jello.
But mostly, she just lay there.
Silent.
Still.
Breathing like it was borrowed.
And Joel sat by her bed every damn day. Holding her hand. Wondering if this was karma for not shooting that cult leader when he had the chance.
He talked to her like she could still hear him. Told her jokes. Sang badly. Even made up ridiculous bedtime stories for her like:
"Once upon a time there was a dumbass cop who thought love could beat the devil. Guess what? The devil said 'bet.'"
Sometimes, he swore she smiled.
Sometimes… he saw her shadow move even when she didn't.
Yvonne wasn't allowed to visit.
Joel said it was to protect her.
But the truth?
He was scared Eliza would look at her daughter and hiss.
Because whatever had come back in Eliza's body… wasn't fully her anymore.That belly that hadn't stopped growing.
That belly carrying a child Joel was starting to fear wasn't his anymore.
And in the middle of the night, when the machines beeped slow and steady, and the nurses had all gone quiet…
Joel would stare at that hospital bed and think:
"She came back. But she came back wrong."