The Panic Attack

The words sliced through the heavy mahogany door, sharp and precise. *Up her dosage.*

I didn't breathe. I couldn't. The oxygen in the hallway felt toxic, tainted by the casual violence of their planning. They weren't just discussing the house anymore. They were discussing my mind. My compliance.

I backed away from the study doors, my boots making no sound on the thick runner rug. I snatched Leo’s textbook from the foyer table, my fingers leaving smudges on the glossy cover. I slipped out the front door, pulling it shut with agonizing slowness to ensure the heavy latch clicked silently into place.

I didn't start the car until I was halfway down the block.

The steering wheel vibrated under my tight grip. *Before she finds the sleeping bag.*

The word 'sleeping bag' acted like a key in a rusty lock. The headache hit first, a blinding spike of pain behind my right eye. Then the memory crashed over me, completely overriding the gray, slushy reality of Arthur’s subdivision.

It was night. The house was freezing. I was standing in the upstairs hallway, wearing my pink flannel nightgown. The power was out.

Arthur and Harrison were there. They were young. Teenagers. They were standing outside the master suite, dragging something heavy. Something wrapped in dark green nylon.

"Grab the end, El," Arthur commanded, his voice tight, stripped of its usual older-brother warmth. "Help us pull."

I was crying. The nylon was wet. It smelled like frozen dirt and copper.

"Just pull," Harrison whispered, his hands stained dark in the shadows. "If you help us, it never happened."

A horn blared.

I slammed on the brakes. My car skidded sideways on the icy pavement, the anti-lock brakes stuttering violently. I came to a halt inches from the bumper of a delivery truck stopped at a red light.

My chest heaved. I dragged air into my lungs, the smell of exhaust fumes pulling me back to the present. The traffic light turned green. The truck rumbled forward.

I pulled over to the shoulder, throwing the car into park.

My hands shook so badly I could barely unbuckle my seatbelt. I leaned over the steering wheel, pressing my forehead against the cold, hard plastic.

It wasn't a nightmare. It wasn't a symptom of generalized anxiety. It was a memory. A true, suppressed memory of a crime.

And I wasn't just a bystander.

The weight of the nylon bag. The dark stains on Harrison's hands. The absolute, suffocating terror of my brothers demanding my complicity.

I lifted my head, staring blindly at the passing traffic. I had helped them move it. I had helped them drag the body into the void before they built the wall.

That was the trauma Harrison was chemically erasing. The trauma of participating in a cover-up.

My phone buzzed on the passenger seat, sitting on top of Leo's history book.

*Harrison: Your heart rate spiked again, El. Are you driving? Pull over immediately.*

He was watching the data stream right now. He was calculating the exact moment to increase my dosage. To knock me back into compliance before the memory fully formed.

I snatched the watch off my wrist. I couldn't just throw it away. He would know. He would send the police to 'check on me' under the guise of a medical emergency. He would use the unpermitted construction as proof of my instability. He and Arthur would initiate the codicil, take Leo, and drug me into permanent silence.

I needed to act normal. I needed to perform the role of the docile, slightly foggy sister perfectly, until I had undeniable proof. Proof that lived inside that sleeping bag.

I put the watch back on, forcing my breathing to slow, lowering the numbers through sheer willpower.

I picked up the phone.

*Just a close call at a red light. I'm fine. Heading home now.*

I dropped the phone back onto the seat. I wasn't fine. I was complicit.

It wasn't a nightmare. She had helped them move it.