ONE SEVENTY TWO

I lifted my head slowly, almost not wanting to look, my gut already coiling into something tight and poisonous.
But my eyes dragged to the screen anyway.

And there she was.

Clarice Vaughn.

For a second, I froze. Clarice. Right.

I had called her Clarissa so many fucking times in my head that the name had just registered that way now, like my mind had stripped her real name clean and slapped a new one over it, one that suited her rotten, two-faced soul better.

Clarissa sounded slicker. Meaner. The kind of name that smiled at you with blood in her teeth. It fit her in a way Clarice didn’t. Clarice sounded too soft, too innocent, and there wasn’t a single soft fucking thing about the bitch now parading herself on national television, acting like the fucking Virgin Mary while being the devil in disguise.

So, Clarissa she stayed — at least in my head. And if the world ever figured out who she really was, they'd call her worse than that.

That bitch.

That two-faced, fake-ass bitch, standing in front of a podium, the American flag flapping stupidly behind her, microphones shoved up to her plastic-smiling mouth. Her blonde hair slicked back so neat, so sleek, highlighting the beauty and shape of her forehead and facial features. It looked like she was trying so hard to look polished and perfect, but all I could see was the ugly, rotten core underneath.

Underneath her name on the screen was a bold, crawling text banner in red:

TASK FORCE SPOKESPERSON - CLARICE MARSHALL: FUGITIVES WANTED FOR MULTIPLE COUNTS OF FIRST DEGREE MURDER

I just stood there, my heart fucking stuttering against my ribs, something cold and electric sliding down my spine like a sheet of ice water, prickling every nerve ending raw.

Of course. Of fucking course. Fake name for the national television. Fake story. Fake everything.

The two-faced bitch she was — Clarissa — no, Clarice, whatever the fuck she wanted to be called — she had been playing a fucking role since the second I laid eyes on her.

A fake manipulator wrapped in pretty clothes and soft smiles, weaving lies with a needle so sharp you didn’t even feel the first cut until you were already bleeding out at her feet.

I thought back — to that fucking moment in that facility, when she played me like a fiddle, spinning her little sob story, her eyes glassy with crocodile tears about her "missing child," about how Vaughn had supposedly ruined their relationship and abducted her child.

Fuck. Fuck. It was all bullshit. All of it.

She wasn’t the fucking victim. She was the devil, the real fucking monster, the one snatching up people’s girls all over the goddamn city and turning them into killing machines while wearing a fucking halo over her blonde head.

She had looked me dead in the face, dead in the fucking face, and lied without a blink, without a tremor in her voice. And I'd believed her.  God help me, I had believed her.

She almost had me thinking I was crazy, that maybe I’d lost it somewhere along the way, like I was just another broken thing in Vaughn's fucked up world.

And Adeline — fucking Adeline who I had trusted with all of my life because Dominic trusted her— she had worked right alongside her. Feeding the same lies down my throat, standing there all calm and sweet while she poured gasoline over every inch of my sanity and handed Clarissa the match.

I could still hear their voices in my head, clear as day — those twisted words they had spoken with that sickening calmness, the way they twisted everything I said and turned it into some fucking weapon. Adeline’s voice had lingered like a poison in my ears. How she had assured me, so goddamn certain, that I had mentioned my illness when I had never as much as spoken one goddamn word about it. Not a single fucking syllable about my mental illness, about being broken in any way. But they made sure to plant that seed. Made sure to twist it into a story where I was the one unraveling.

How they knew I had no idea till that very moment. 

They nearly drove me insane. They worked in whispers and half-truths, dressing up their lies like the prettiest packages, only to open them up and let the poison spill. In a matter of hours, they'd had me questioning everything I knew about myself. Had I really said that? Did I really do that? Had I relapsed?

I blinked hard, trying to shove it down. I couldn’t let myself get lost in that again. Not now. Not when we were so fucking close to having a plan, to getting out of this alive. If Sophia hadn’t—
My chest tightened, and my eyes widened, a cold wave crashing over me.

Sophia.

Fuck.

What had happened to her? Was she still alive? Had they even known it was her who had helped me escape? Had they tortured her to find out? Had they punished her? Or worse, had they killed her like they had killed so many others? My mind raced, thinking of her small frame, her quiet courage, how she had been the only one to show me kindness in that hellhole.

I imagined her, alone in that place. I wondered if she was still there, suffering in the silence of whatever cruel punishment they had in store for her. I wanted to go back — needed to go back. Every inch of my skin screamed for it. To go back, to find her, to rescue her, and to rip that fucking place apart. Free all of those girls, whoever else was locked behind those doors, just waiting for someone to come save them.

But how? How could I go back? How could I get to her without putting us all at risk?

I shoved the thought down, trying to ignore the sick feeling that crawled through my gut like a rat gnawing at my insides. My jaw clenched so tight I heard my teeth grind together, the pressure building until my skull ached.

I wasn’t crazy.  I wasn’t fucking crazy.

They’d tried to make me believe I was. They had used me, used my past, to fuck with my head and make me doubt myself. They’d tried to break me, to tear me apart, but they hadn’t. They hadn’t won.

I had been set up.

This was all a goddamn game to them. A game where they controlled the rules and had every advantage. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized, they had planned this. Every step of it. They had set everything in motion, from the lies to the manipulation, to the way they’d placed Clarissa on that goddamn podium like she was some sort of martyr.

But I wasn’t stupid. I wasn’t their fucking pawn. I had seen through the cracks in their carefully constructed facade. I had felt the way they tried to carve away pieces of my soul, to leave me shattered, empty.

But I wouldn’t break. Not now. Not when we were this close.

And now, that same cold-hearted bitch was standing behind a podium, preaching to the goddamn nation, painting me as the monster.

Me.

The irony was so fucking thick it made me want to punch a hole straight through the television screen.

Clarissa smiled into the cameras, the perfect picture of fake, government-issued concern.

"We are asking the public to remain vigilant," she said, her voice dripping that same syrupy fake-sweet bullshit that used to fool me once. "These individuals are extremely dangerous. They are armed. They have already taken the lives of multiple innocent people."

She sounded like she gave a damn.  Like she cared about "innocent lives."  Bitch wouldn’t know innocence if it tore her fucking face off.

Dominic didn’t say a word.

Why the fuck was she even there?
Clarissa wasn’t law enforcement.
Clarissa wasn’t government.

She was just a rich, manipulative bitch who looked like she used to wear designer heels and snort coke at private clubs while pretending she was better than the rest of us.

How the hell was she standing at a podium like she ran the fucking FBI?

And then it clicked. Hard.

Her husband.

Vaughn.

I felt my knees nearly buckle at the thought.

Vaughn had money dripping from his veins and connections that could stretch into every crevice of the city — law enforcement, politics, you name it. Money buys silence. Money buys power. Money buys headlines.

Of course she could stand there. Of course she could spin the story any way she wanted.

Because Vaughn owns half the goddamn city. And though that fact was as clear as day, it still didn’t soothe me even the littlest bit, how we had been trying to escape from that bastard in forever and he kept catching up one way or the other. It felt almost like the entire city was against us because Vaughn was, fuck even my own blood and the only older man in my family which I’m supposed to look upto was on his fucking side and that’s why the media was painting us like monsters. Why there were millions in bounties slapped on our heads overnight. Why it felt like the entire fucking world had been weaponized against us.

This wasn’t just about justice. It wasn’t about finding "dangerous fugitives." It was about Vaughn. It was about control.

Clarissa kept talking, her voice getting more sickening with every word.

"We will not rest," she said, the cameras zooming closer to her gleaming fucking teeth, "until these murderers are captured and face the justice they deserve."

Murderers. That’s what they were calling us now. No more "suspected."  No more "persons of interest."

Murderers.

And she was leading the goddamn manhunt, waving her fake concern around like a banner while she sharpened the knives behind the scenes. I felt something hot and corrosive bubble up in my chest. Rage. Betrayal. Hatred so thick it made my vision blur at the edges.