102

My hands were shaking. Tremors ran up my arms, small but steady. I pressed my fists against my lap, trying to still them, trying to stop the trembling.

“Your emotional responses are inconsistent. You’re feeling things that don’t match the situation—laughing when you should be afraid, crying when nothing’s wrong. And sometimes, you don’t feel anything at all.”

“Stop,” I whispered.

“Your thoughts are slipping. You start a sentence, but by the time you get to the end, you’ve lost what you were saying. You forget what’s real mid-conversation.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. My nails bit into my skin, but I barely felt it. My breath was too fast, too ragged.

“You’ve been talking to people who aren’t there.”

My stomach twisted. The room spun, just slightly, just enough to make me feel unsteady, like the floor wasn’t quite solid beneath me.

“You’ve had episodes where you think you’re someone else, or that someone else is inside your mind. You don’t feel like you anymore.”

My breath was uneven, ragged, like I had been running for miles with nowhere to go. My whole body felt stiff, locked up like my own skin had turned to concrete. I shook my head again, harder this time, even though my mind was screaming at me, telling me that every word the doctor had said was true. I could feel my nails digging into my palms, but the pain didn’t register, just a distant pressure against my skin.

I turned to Adeline, my breath hitching, and lifted a shaky hand to point at her.

“How did you know?” My voice didn’t sound like my own, hoarse, like something had crawled down my throat and died.

Adeline didn’t flinch. She didn’t glance away or shift like she was uncomfortable. She just held my gaze, steady and cold, and said, “You told us.”

My stomach twisted.

“No,” I whispered. I could feel the room closing in around me, the walls too tight, the air too thick, pressing against my ribs like a fist. “I didn’t.”

Dr. Marchette shifted slightly, and my eyes flicked to her, the way she smoothed her palms down the front of her coat, the way her lips parted just slightly before she spoke again.

“You’ve been forgetting things, Eleanor,” she said, her voice calm, steady, like she was trying not to spook an animal. “Blocks of time. Hours. Days. You don’t remember what you’ve said, what you’ve done.”

I swallowed hard, but my throat was dry, scratchy. I wanted to tell her she was wrong, but the words felt like lead in my mouth. The thing was, I had lost time. I had caught glimpses of things that didn’t make sense, moments that felt disconnected, like I had walked into the middle of a conversation I was supposed to know but didn’t. But that didn’t mean—

Adeline exhaled sharply and stepped forward, rubbing a hand down her face like she was barely holding herself together. When she spoke, her voice was tight, laced with something that almost sounded like exhaustion.

“We don’t have time for this,” she said. “We have too much to do, and we can’t be held back by this. By you.”

The words hit like a slap, and I felt my stomach drop, a slow, sinking weight that pooled at the bottom of my gut.

Adeline crossed her arms, tilting her head slightly, her eyes scanning me like she was searching for something. “You need to get your shit together, Eleanor. For your brother. You think he can afford to have you like this? You think he can fight with you losing your mind in the middle of everything?”

My throat tightened. I clenched my fists, my nails digging deeper into my palms.

Adeline let out a slow breath through her nose, rolling her shoulders back like she was trying to shake something off. “You keep seeing me as the enemy while I’m standing here trying to help you.” She let out a short, humorless laugh, shaking her head. “I broke you out of jail. I brought you here. I’ve been the one cleaning up this mess, and what do I get in return?”

She looked at me then, really looked at me, her expression caught somewhere between frustration and something else, something heavier.

“I’m trying to help you,” she said, her voice lower now, rougher. “Trying to help you get the justice you fucking deserve.”

The air in the room felt thick. My skin felt too tight.

Adeline dragged a hand through her hair, fingers gripping at the roots like she was trying to pull herself together. “I did this for Dominic,” she muttered. “Even though he was a dick when he was alive.”

She laughed again, but it wasn’t funny. It was bitter, broken.

She looked away for a second, her jaw clenched, her fingers flexing at her sides before she shook her head and muttered, “I felt guilty, alright?”

My breath caught in my throat.

Adeline rubbed a hand over her mouth, her fingers pressing into her cheek before she dropped her hand and looked at me again. “I sent you two out that day,” she said, her voice quieter now, but not softer. “I told you to go. If I could rewind time, change things so he was still alive… so my dad was still alive, I would.”

She let out a slow breath and looked at me again, waiting. Watching. Like she was daring me to say something.

But I couldn’t. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t breathe. I felt like my own mind was eating itself alive, twisting, unraveling, tearing apart at the seams. Because as much as I wanted to fight her, as much as I wanted to call her a liar, every single word she said rang true. 

Adeline took a step forward, slow like she was stepping over broken glass. Her eyes were on me, not cold this time, not biting, just watching me with something different, something quieter.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

The words came out so soft I almost didn’t believe they came from her. Adeline didn’t apologize. Adeline didn’t do gentle. But she stood there, staring at me like she meant it, like it physically hurt her to say it but she still did.

“I want him dead,” she said, barely above a whisper.

I didn’t have to ask who she meant. The name was already pressing against the inside of my skull like something poisonous, like something that would make me sick if I let it sit too long. Eric Vaughn. The reason my life had gone to hell, the reason my brother was gone, the reason Dominic was—

I swallowed, bile rising to the back of my throat.

Adeline inhaled slowly through her nose, her hands curling into fists before she forced them open again. Her nails had dug so hard into her palms that her fingers shook as she exhaled.

“I want to rip him apart with my own hands,” she said. “For everything. For what he’s done to you, for what he’s done to your brother.” She paused, and for the first time ever, her voice wavered. Just a little. Just enough that I actually noticed it.

Then, softer, almost like it hurt to say, “I want to avenge Bunny.”

Her eyes were burning when she said it. Not rage, not that usual venom that she spat at the world. This was different. This was grief. Raw, aching grief.

I felt my stomach drop.

“I miss him,” she said, voice so quiet now, I almost thought she was talking to herself. “And I’m going to make Vaughn pay for taking him away. For taking everything from me.”

I didn’t realize I was holding my breath until my chest started to ache.

She sucked in another sharp breath, then exhaled just as quick, like she was trying to push the emotions out of her body before they could claw their way to the surface.

“But I can’t do this alone,” she said. “I need you with me.”

She took another step forward.

“I need you to get your shit together,” she said. “I need you to actually help me. Because if we’re going to do this, we have to do it together.”

My fingers dug into the blankets beneath me. My nails pressed so hard against the fabric I thought they might tear straight through.

“And I don’t need crazy Eleanor,” she said, almost teasing, almost like she was trying to pull me back into something lighter, something that didn’t feel like it was suffocating me.

Then, she let out a short, dry laugh, one that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“But if I do need crazy Eleanor,” she said, tilting her head slightly, “I need it to be batshit. Like Harley Quinn batshit. So we can burn Vaughn to the ground.”

My eyes started to sting. A slow burn crept up from the corners, welling up against my lashes before I could even think to stop it. My throat tightened, swollen with something thick and ugly that made it hard to swallow. My chest ached. Not the kind of ache that spread slow and dull—but something raw, something clawing, something that latched onto my ribs and squeezed until I felt like I couldn’t breathe.

I wasn’t crying. I refused to.

I lifted my hand fast, wiped at my face before the tears had the chance to reach my jaw, pushing them away with the heel of my palm. My skin felt hot. Every breath scraped down my throat like I had swallowed glass, raw and rough, like my body was punishing me for letting my guard slip, for letting even an ounce of this crawl its way to the surface.

Adeline stood there, watching. Not moving, not speaking, just watching.

And I didn’t know what to do with that.

She had been honest before, or at least she had seemed like it. Every word out of her mouth, every inch of frustration tightening her face, every bit of exhaustion hanging onto her shoulders like she had carried the weight of the world on her back and never once put it down. But was she honest now? Or was she just playing in my face?

I didn’t know. And the not knowing dug into me like a splinter, small but deep, something I couldn’t reach, something that only got worse the more I messed with it.

I had questions. So many questions.