"Next time, there won’t be any scalpels or tests. Just you and the silence I’ve prepared for us. I want to see that light in your eyes go out again, just so I can be the one to light it back up."
He lets out a soft breath that sounds almost like a sigh of relief. Then, as abruptly as he arrived, he slides out of the booth. He stands tall, buttoning his suit with a clinical precision that contrasts sharply with the frantic energy he brought in.
He doesn't look back at me. To him, I’m still just the "anchor," a tool to be used against Madeline.
"Stay safe, ladies," he says, his voice returning to that terrifyingly calm, melodic tone.
"The city is a dangerous place for people with so many secrets."
With a final, lingering look at Madeline that feels like a branding iron, he turns and walks out of the café. The bell above the door chimes again with a sickeningly cheerful ring as he vanishes into the crowded sidewalk.
The moment the door closes, the air seems to rush back into the booth. Madeline collapses against the vinyl, her head falling into her hands as she begins to shake with violent, silent sobs.
I stare at the door, my heart hammering a rhythm of pure, unadulterated rage. He’s my brother. A psychopath who just threatened to "have" my best friend again. And he thinks he’s the one in control.
I reach across the table and grab Madeline’s wrists, pulling her hands away from her face.
"Mali, look at me," I demand, my voice hard and cold.
"He’s gone. For now. But we aren't victims anymore. We know who he is. We know who we are."
Madeline looks up, her face a mask of ruin.
"Lucy, you don't understand... he’s never going to stop. And now,he saw you again. He saw the only thing I have left to lose."
"Then let him look," I hiss.
"Because the next time he sees me, I’m not going to be the girl in the café. I’m going to be the mirror he’s too afraid to look into."
CHAPTER 21 - Deimos
After my little confrontation, I made a quick visit to Madeleine's own home, then I headed back to my apartment.
It is the only place in this rotting city where the chaos of other people’s lives cannot reach me. I strip off my suit and toss it onto the leather armchair, my movements quick. My skin feels too tight, a byproduct of the static electricity humming under my veins.
I walk to the only floor-to-ceiling window my apartment owns, staring out at the grey skyline. I can still taste the stale coffee and the scent of cheap perfume from that café.
The way she looked at me. That mixture of pure, unadulterated terror and the flickering spark of the woman who held the gun, it feeds me.
She thinks she can retreat into the mundane safety of her "normal" life, but I’ve already burned the bridges behind her. By eliminating Bryan, I didn't just remove a rival; I gave her a secret she can never share with anyone else.
Except for her.
Lucy. The defiant little brat who thinks she can shield Madeline from the inevitable. Sitting in that booth, watching the way they held hands, it felt like a structural flaw in my design.
Lucy is the noise in Madeline’s signal. She represents the "before," the version of Madeline that still believes in sunlight and mercy. As long as Lucy exists, Madeline has a reason to fight the shadows.
I pour myself a drink, the amber liquid swirling against the crystal glass. I’ve been isolating Madeline, peeling her away from the hospital, from the law, from her own sense of morality. I’ve made her a killer. I’ve made her mine in the dark. But Lucy is the tether I haven't managed to cut.
I should kill her.
The thought is clinical, a simple removal of a redundant variable. If Lucy were to "disappear"—an accident in her apartment, a stray mugger in an alley. Madeline would have nowhere left to run. She would fall right into my arms because I would be the only solid thing left in her world.
But I pause, the glass halfway to my lips.
Madeline isn't like the others. She has a fragile, beautiful resilience. If I break the anchor too violently, the ship might not just drift to me; it might sink. If she ever found out... if she even suspected I was the one who silenced her precious Lucy, the light in her eyes wouldn't just go out. It would turn into a cold, dead vacuum.
She would never choose me. I would have to break her limbs and lock her in a cellar just to keep her. And I don’t want a broken doll. I want the Doctor. I want the woman who chose mercy at the end of a blade.
