Prologue
Inside her mind
Lyra
The Color That ~Kills~
They say the mind forgets what it cannot *bear* . But mine remembers,just not in words. It remembers in color. *Crimson. Charcoal. Bone white.*
The first thing I asked for after the hospital wasn’t food or water. It was a canvas.
They said I tried to kill myself. I don’t remember. I only remember the painting that came after: a man sprawled across a bathroom floor, his throat opened like a broken zipper. The blood pooled just like I painted it. Down to the toothbrush knocked sideways in the sink. When it happened in real life, three days later, they called it coincidence. Luck. Instinct. Trauma.
But it wasn’t. Every time I painted, someone died. And each time, I told myself it was fate. Until I painted him.
Kael.
Dark eyes. Quiet voice. He said he was a private investigator, working a string of unsolved murders. That he believed me. That he wanted to help me. But he knew too much. About the bodies. The patterns. The nightmares.
Sometimes, I caught him looking at my unfinished canvases like he already knew what they would show. Sometimes, he asked questions only I should be able to answer. And when I painted his death—alone, drenched in red, the brush trembling in my hand—he didn’t flinch.
He smiled. "You finally remembered, didn’t you?" I thought he was here to save me. But I’m starting to wonder if he was someone I couldn't imagine.
