Page 42 of Cracked Doll

It gives.

Just as I touch the cold metal and twist it, the door clicks and swings open.

‎I gasp, slipping inside and closing it softly behind me, my back pressed to the wood for a moment while my eyes adjust. The room is a stark contrast to the party outside. It’s a private office, drenched in shadows. It's an office. Dark, cavernous, lit only by a single lamp burning low on a heavy desk and the pale, cold wash of ghostly moonlight pouring and streaming through floor-to-ceiling windows along the far wall that overlook the carnival grounds. I tell myself to look at the desk, to find papers, a name, anything that explains him. I make myself move toward the desk first, toward whatever papers might be scattered there —

But as I turn, something in the center of the room catches my eye.

My breath stops.

It’s a massive corkboard, and it is a nightmare made manifest. Standing in the middle of the room, taller than me, covered edge to edge in photographs, string strung between them in a dense, deliberate web.

It's covered in photos of me—hundreds of them. Red strings crisscross the board, tying one image to another in a web of obsession.

My legs go weak. I have to lean against the wall to keep from collapsing. I step closer, my eyes scanning the evidence of my own life being dismantled.

A photograph of me as a child. My birth certificate. Hospital records dated before I turned twelve and stopped being taken to the hospital when ill, the paper trail simply stopping after that, the way my whole life seemed to.

A photograph of three identical little girls in matching bows, black hair, ice-blue eyes, grinning at a table with a cake between them — Cordelia, Rosalind, and me, twelve years old, taken the very day of the birthday that ended everything.

Me, Cordelia, and Rosalind. We were twelve, taken on the day of our birthday party. We look identical—three porcelain dolls with matching black bows in our hair and ice-blue eyes that stare back at me with a haunting innocence. This was the day before the night that took their lives.‎

Beside it: newspaper clippings. Homicide.

‎Next to the photo are yellowed newspaper clippings: TRAGEDY AT THE SORRELL HOUSE. Autopsy reports for my sisters. Police files detailing the homicide of two children. Police documentation of two children's deaths, laid out in cold, clinical language.

‎The strings lead forward in time, shifting to the present.

A photo of me from a few days ago, the first time he saw me. A shot of me sleeping in my own bed, looking vulnerable and unaware. A photo of me crying by my window at night. Me reading on the floor. Me cooking in my kitchen. Even a grainy shot of my drunk father on the street, drunk, screaming at me in the street at night, caught mid-shout of a twisted yell.

And at the very top of the board, in the same sharp, elegant hand I've come to recognize far too well, my own name. Written in a bold, possessive hand that makes my blood run cold, are two words:

Ophelia Sorrell.

My chest seizes. The room tilts. My breath comes shallow, then not at all, and the panic finally rises up to claim me whole.

Chapter 13

‎The walls are closing in. I can feel the panic clawing at my throat, a cold, suffocating grip that makes every breath feel like I’m inhaling shards of glass. My eyes are glued to that bloody board, and it’s too much. It’s all too fucking much.‎

‎There I am. My face. And then, the photos from my twelfth birthday party. Cordelia. Rosalind. Me.

‎The air leaves my lungs in a ragged gasp. My father’s voice, screaming, echoing from a decade ago, rips through my mind. He’d yelled at me for it—how I hadn't changed. How my face a stagnant thing. He was right. I look at the photos, then I think of the mirrors I’ve spent years avoiding, and the truth hits me like a physical blow to the gut. My face has barely shifted. I still look exactly as I did when I was twelve despite being older. I look exactly like them.‎

‎I’ve spent years playing a mental game of hide-and-seek with my own identity. I tried that bollocks self-therapy, trying to scrub the memory of Cordelia and Rosalind’s faces from my mind. I thought if I could just forget what they looked like, I’d stop seeing them every time I caught a glimpse of myself in a shop window or a polished spoon. But how the fuck am I supposed to forget their faces when I’m wearing one? I am a living ghost, a walking reminder of a tragedy I can't escape.‎

‎I jerk my head away from the board, tears blurring my vision, sobbing so hard my chest aches. This man—this absolute lunatic—knows everything. Every dark secret, every shattered piece of my family history. He hasn't just been stalking me; he’s been studying me like some twisted detective with a case he’s obsessed with solving. I feel exposed, stripped bare, and utterly terrified.

‎Then, suddenly, I’m not alone.

‎Strong arms wrap around me from behind, pulling me back against a broad, solid chest. I don't even have to look; I know the scent of him—expensive cologne, old leather, and something dark and metallic that smells like danger. It’s Rhys.

‎"Shhh, love. I've got you," he murmurs, his voice a low, vibrating rumble against my spine.

‎He doesn't just hold me; he anchors me. His touch is firm, possessive, but there's a strange, grounding quality to it. He begins to rub slow, rhythmic circles into my sides, his large hands warming me through the fabric of my dress. He whispers things—dark, soothing promises—telling me that I'm safe in his grip, that the world outside doesn't matter, only that I belong to him.

‎I collapse into him, sobbing into his chest, my fingers clutching the expensive fabric of his coat. Usually, when the panic hits this hard, I crash. I exhaust myself until I black out or fall into a dead sleep just to make the noise in my head stop. But this time, it's different. His presence is too intense, too demanding. He keeps me awake, forcing me to feel the way he breathes, the way his heart beats steady and slow against my ear. For the first time in my life, I ride out the storm without disappearing into the dark.

‎As I start to settle, I feel something cold touch my skin. I must have dropped my necklace in the chaos. He leans forward, his fingers brushing my nape as he carefully fastens the black skull and roses around my neck. It feels like a collar. A mark of ownership.