It had been Sinclair and Margot this whole time—the braids, the pills, the pages.
Lauren’s journal flashed in her mind—waking up drugged… disoriented… and finding her hair braided neat.
“You think it just happens?” Margot’s mouth curved faintly. “Lauren used to ask the same thing.”
Tessa snapped her head back and slapped Margot’s hand away.
“Don’t,” she said, voice low and lethal.
Margot blinked—hurt, almost offended.
Then she recovered.
“Oh, sweetheart,” Margot whispered. “You’re scared.”
Tessa stared at her.
“You did this,” she said hoarsely.
Margot’s eyes widened—not in denial, but in genuine surprise that Tessa was only now catching up.
“Of course I did,” she said softly. “He can’t even remember to feed you.”
“He gets lost in structure,” Margot continued. “In endings. He forgets the body.”
Her fingers smoothed the blanket again, gentle as prayer.
“Someone had to make it kind.”
“You…” Tessa breathed. “Oh my God.”
“It was you,” she whispered. “You were in this with him.”
“He said you were close to the ending,” Margot murmured.
“The ending,” Tessa repeated.
Margot nodded. “All you had to do was finish it.”
Tessa’s mind raced backward. The soups. The stews. The way the world always went soft at the edges halfway through a bowl. Waking to find one journal missing, another returned later—slashed with red edits.
“He only ever talked to you through the wall,” Margot said. “You were so sure you were alone. But you weren’t. I was always here.”
“Lauren wasn’t supposed to be the ending,” Margot continued. “The story stopped too soon. Then Sara came along. She fit. So much like Lauren.”
Her gaze flicked over Tessa, assessing.
“And then you,” Margot said, eyes bright with devotion. “You were the ending.”
“You’re sick,” Tessa whispered.
“I believed in what he was doing,” Margot said simply. “I still do.”
Her eyes softened.
“You slept so deeply once the drops settled,” she went on. “Lauren. Sara. You. You still fought in your sleep, but that’s just fear. I bathed you. Dressed you. Braided your hair so you’d wake up tidy. I brought your pages out so he could work.”
“He never saw the parts that mattered,” Margot said softly. “The trembling. The nightmares. The names you whispered in your sleep.”
