Ashes. A promise beyond death

Chapter 6 – Echoes of the Night

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The apartment was silent, but not peacefully so.

It was the kind of silence that settled after a storm—too still, too aware, as if the walls themselves were holding their breath. Dawn pressed its pale fingers through the blinds, drawing soft stripes of light across the tangled sheets. The air was cold against her skin, yet somehow too warm, as though it remembered someone else's presence lingering beside her.

Yu Bin stirred beneath her blanket, a dull ache blooming behind her eyes. Her limbs felt heavy with fatigue, her thoughts muddled, sluggish—but it was her chest that felt the tightest. An invisible weight pressed there, not pain exactly, but a grief that hadn't been given a name.

She sat up slowly, dragging the blanket with her like armor.

Her head throbbed.

And then—like a stone dropped into the quiet of her mind—a whisper echoed.

"I'm sorry... It's my fault."

Her breath caught in her throat. That voice again. That phrase.

Always those same words, clinging to the corners of her dreams like fog—never clear, but never leaving. It followed her through sleep and into waking, stitched so deep into her bones that she couldn't tell where memory ended and imagination began.

She pressed her fingers to her temples and forced herself upright, moving with the reluctant grace of someone used to pain.

The bathroom mirror was merciless.

Dark circles pooled under her eyes, and the woman staring back looked like someone barely tethered to her own reflection. A stranger with familiar scars.

"I've got to stop drinking," she muttered.

But it wasn't the wine that haunted her—it was what came with it. That strange warmth she thought she'd felt as she was carried home. The gentle hum of a voice she didn't recognize. A hand brushing her hair back from her face like she was something precious.

She hadn't imagined that. Had she?

And if she had… why did it feel so real?

She shook her head and dressed in silence—black slacks, soft grey blouse, her hair tied back loosely. A coat over her shoulders. Her badge tucked into her pocket like a forgotten promise. Routine kept her grounded. Barely.

As she poured lukewarm coffee into her travel mug, her phone buzzed on the counter.

Moon: HQ. Now. New case. It's bad.

A pulse of dread flickered in her chest.

The precinct murmured with restrained energy when she arrived—low voices, shuffled papers, the rustle of movement like waves before a storm. Moon stood by the whiteboard, pinning photos into place. Xian Chen sat nearby, a forensic report in hand, his expression unreadable but alert.

He glanced up when she entered. Just a nod. Quiet. Steady.

She nodded back.

Yu Bin walked to the board and froze.

Two skeletal remains stared back at her in grainy photos—bound together, back to back, like something discarded and deliberately hidden. The lake had held them in silence until now, but water never kept secrets forever.

The younger child's legs were broken.

The older… her throat closed. Skull fractures. Crushed ribs.

"They weren't just killed," she whispered. "They were left like this… on purpose."

Moon handed her a folder. "Lake Ming. A hiker found part of a skull after the storm washed some of the silt out. We think they've been there a few months."

Yu Bin flipped through the pages slowly. Her eyes lingered on the forensic reports, the cold autopsy language—cleaned of the violence it described.

Xian Chen's voice came low behind her. "This wasn't random."

She looked up.

"No," she agreed. "It was a message."

Moon nodded. "We've started digging. There was a place—an unofficial shelter. Burned down three months ago. No records. Just whispers."

"Children," Yu Bin murmured, her voice trembling at the edges. "Who does this to children?"

Before either man could answer, the door creaked open.

She didn't have to turn to know who it was.

A woman stepped into the room, tall and steady, her press badge swaying gently from her lanyard. Bao Fang's gaze swept over the room like a blade—sharp, searching, and unapologetically aware.

"Yu Bin."

"You're quick," Yu Bin said, surprised.

Bao Fang offered a tired smile. "The bigger the wound, the faster the whispers."

Her eyes flicked to the board.

The moment she saw the photographs, something in her changed.

The professional mask slipped, if only slightly.

"Children," she breathed. "What kind of world leaves them like this?"

There was a pause. A fragile, aching stillness.

Yu Bin lowered her voice. "You heard something?"

Bao Fang nodded slowly. "A name keeps surfacing. The man who ran that place before it burned. No one's talking openly. Not yet. But I'm following the trail."

Moon stepped forward. "Send us whatever you get."

"I will." She accepted the coffee Xian Chen offered without question. Their eyes met—briefly, too long. It wasn't romantic. It wasn't even friendly.

It was something older.

Unspoken.

Yu Bin noticed the shift. She didn't ask.

There were already too many unanswered questions.

Before Bao Fang left, she paused beside Xian Chen and whispered something only he could hear.

"This case… be careful. It feels wrong."

Then she was gone.

Yu Bin stared at the door after her. "She always knows more than she says."

Xian Chen's voice was barely above a breath. "She carries more than she should."

Yu Bin didn't ask what that meant.

Instead, she turned back to the board.

The photos were cold, unflinching.

But she wouldn't let them stay nameless.

"Moon," she said, steady now, "check school withdrawals. Last six months. See if anyone disappeared without follow-up."

"Xian Chen, get me everything from that lake—soil, trail access, surrounding traffic cams. Anything."

They moved without question.

She stayed.

Her hand hovered above the images one more time.

"I'll find you," she whispered to the bones. "You won't be forgotten."

The sun had finally risen outside.

Thin.

Hesitant.

But still—it rose.

And maybe, for now, that was enough.