97
I despised her in a way I never had with Adeline. At least with Adeline, there was no pretense. I could deal with the explosion. But Clarice, she made me question your own instincts, my own trust. She made me feel small, insignificant, like my thoughts were nothing but puppets dancing at the end of her strings. And the worst part? She did it with that same calm, gentle smile.
I turned back to the door, the feeling in my stomach crawling like a thousand tiny insects. My fingers felt clammy, wet against the cool, solid wood of the door. I pressed my palm against it again, the sensation of contact grounding me for a split second, but it didn’t last. The air around me felt heavier now, suffocating, thick with something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I could feel my breath coming harder, faster, almost like I was suffocating.
The silence was oppressive, pressing against my chest. I knocked twice—sharp, deliberate. The sound seemed too loud in the stillness, hanging in the air too long, too unsettling. The seconds stretched on, and when no response came, a cold wave of dread washed over me.
Nothing.
I was used to silence, sure, but this? This wasn’t silence. This was the kind of silence that made the hair on the back of your neck stand up, the kind that whispered something’s wrong.
I opened my mouth to call out, my lips parting, but then, just as the words were about to fall from my tongue, something stopped me. I wasn’t sure what, but my body stilled. My eyes narrowed. I didn’t speak. Instead, I felt my heart skip a beat, and then another.
For a fraction of a second—just a split fucking second—I heard it.
A sound.
Breathing.
It was so close, so unbelievably close that I swore I could feel it on the other side of the door, pressing against the wood like something trapped and desperate. The sound was soft—shallow. It hit me like a punch to the gut, and I froze, not daring to move. My ears strained, and I could feel every nerve in my body screaming at me to listen harder.
Shh.
There it was again.
A breath.
Shaking. Ragged. As if whoever—or whatever—was on the other side of that door was trying to stay quiet, but couldn’t.
I tilted my head slightly, pressing my ear against the door. The room around me seemed to fade out, the walls closing in, leaving me standing there, tense, listening. The noise—it couldn’t have been my imagination. Couldn’t have been. It was too real, too close, too undeniable. It was there. Someone was there. Behind the door.
But just as I was about to get closer, my head spinning with the thoughts of what could be behind it, Clarisa’s voice sliced through the tension. Smooth, calm, completely unfazed.
“Ellie, sweetie, are you feeling okay?”
The sound of her voice was like a cold splash of water, jolting me back to reality. I whipped around, my heart pounding in my chest, my throat tight. She was standing there, looking at me with that same patronizing smile, the one she always wore like a second skin. The smile that made me feel small, like I was a fragile thing, something easily broken.
But I wasn’t small. Not anymore. Not with what I had just heard, not with what I was beginning to feel.
I inhaled sharply, a deep breath I didn’t need, trying to steady myself. Clarisa wasn’t going to break me. Not like this. Not with her little games. But the way she was looking at me—like I was some delicate little thing, just about to crumble—made my stomach twist in on itself. I wasn’t about to let her see that she’d gotten to me.
I stared at her, my jaw clenching. “I heard something.”
Clarisa’s smile didn’t waver. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t do anything, except tilt her head a little, like she was considering me, wondering what I’d say next. “Did you?”
I held her gaze, refusing to look away. She wasn’t going to twist this. She wasn’t going to make me feel like I was losing my mind.
I nodded slowly, every fiber of my being telling me to trust what I’d just heard. Trust my instincts. “Yes. I heard it. Breathing. Right there. Behind the door.”
She didn’t blink. Didn’t even move. She just kept watching me, that look of patient amusement still on her face, like she was waiting for me to crumble, waiting for me to question everything I thought I knew.
She tilted her head again, her voice light, like she was speaking to a child. “Or do you think maybe… you imagined it?”
The air around me felt colder. Her words were laced with something I couldn’t quite identify—something that prickled at the back of my neck and made my skin crawl. She was doing it. That thing she always did. She was trying to get inside my head, trying to plant that seed of doubt.
And it worked. For a split second, I felt the ground beneath me shift. Like maybe she was right. Maybe I hadn’t heard anything. Maybe I had imagined it, like she said.
No. No, I couldn’t. I couldn’t let her win this. I couldn’t let her twist the truth.
I shook my head, slowly, the motion almost painful, as if the weight of my own thoughts was too much. “I didn’t imagine it.”
Clarisa didn’t move. Didn’t blink. She was just standing there, eyes steady, like she had all the time in the world to wait for me to crack. Her expression didn’t change, but the silence that stretched between us was unbearable. I could feel my pulse in my throat, each beat an accusation.
“Are you sure?” she asked, her voice so calm it made my skin crawl. “Are you really sure?”
The question hit me like a blow to the gut. My chest tightened. My head swam. She wasn’t just questioning what I’d heard. She was questioning me. She was trying to make me doubt my own sanity, my own perception. And for a brief, terrifying moment, I wondered if maybe she was right.
I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t let her win.
I exhaled, trying to steady my thoughts, trying to ground myself. No. I knew what I heard. I wasn’t crazy.
“I know what I heard,” I said, forcing the words out, my voice low but certain.
Clarisa sighed, a quiet sound of disappointment that felt like a slap in the face. She looked at me like I had let her down, like I wasn’t playing the game right. Her eyes softened, but there was something too calculating in the way she stared at me, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
Then she said it.
“…Have you been taking your meds for your schizophrenia?”
The words hit me like a freight train, knocking the air out of my lungs. My whole body went still. Every muscle froze. My mind went blank for a heartbeat. The room seemed to spin around me.
I blinked, once, twice, but nothing felt real anymore. The words kept echoing in my ears, louder, louder, louder, until I could hardly hear anything else. I felt the weight of her words pressing down on me, suffocating me, making me feel like I was drowning in them.
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. I could barely breathe. How did she know that? How could she know?
I forced myself to say something. Anything. “No,” I finally whispered, the word so small, so fragile, it barely made it past my lips. My chest tightened, and I felt that crushing weight in my ribs, like the whole room was collapsing in on me.
Clarisa nodded, slow and deliberate, like she had been expecting that answer. Like she had already decided what it meant. She looked at me with that same calm expression, but there was something else behind it now—something colder, something darker.
She knew. She knew exactly what she was doing.
And then, everything inside me snapped.
I looked at her, my eyes locking onto hers with an intensity I hadn’t even realized I had. I felt this coldness inside me, like ice running through my veins, freezing everything else. I wasn’t scared of her anymore. I wasn’t scared of what she knew.
But I was damn sure about one thing.
“…How do you know about that?” The question came out rough, low, laced with something between fury and desperation. My breath hitched in my throat, my chest tightening again, but this time, it wasn’t fear. It was the need to understand, to know how deep this web went. My heart thudded, my chest heaving, I almost couldn’t breathe and I felt like my flight or fight mode would kick start soon enough.
I felt caught.
I felt trapped.
I felt like maybe, just maybe, I had walked into Vaughn’s trap myself.
Maybe Adeline was with Vaughn.
Clarisa didn’t flinch. Didn’t react at all.
She just smiled, soft, like it was obvious. “Ellie.”
I hated the way she said my name.
Her head tilted, and her voice was almost affectionate when she spoke. “You told me.”
I hadn’t.
I knew I hadn’t.
She saw it in my face. The confusion. The way my breath caught just slightly, the way my jaw clenched. She saw it, and she just fucking smiled.
Like she had won.
Like she had known exactly where to strike, exactly what to say to plant that tiny, insidious seed of doubt inside me.
Like she had done this before.
I took a slow step back, my heart hammering so hard it made my ribs ache.
This wasn’t normal.
None of this was normal.
Something was very fucking wrong.
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