The sun doesn't rise for people like me, the light just leaks into the room, cold and intrusive, like a witness to a crime I didn't commit.
I woke up with my face pressed against the hardwood floor. I must have crawled off the bed at some point in the night, seeking the feel of something solid and unyielding. My body was a roadmap of agony. Every breath felt like a serrated blade sliding between my ribs a reminder of my mother's heels. My shoulder was a mess of weeping blisters from the tea, and my head throbbed with a rhythmic, sickening heat that pulsed behind my eyes.
I stood up, gripping the edge of the desk until my knuckles turned white. My vision blurred, then snapped into focus on the vanity mirror. I recoiled.
The "Pearl of St. Jude's" looked like a car wreck. My lip was split, my jaw was blooming in shades of violet and sickly yellow, and my eyes God, my eyes looked like they belonged to someone who had been dead for a hundred years.
"Is this the 'perfection' you're so proud of?"
I froze. The voice wasn't in the room, but it wasn't exactly in my head either. It felt like a vibration in my marrow, cold as a tombstone. The man from the dream. The contract.
"Get out of my head," I whispered to the empty room. My own voice sounded like dry leaves.
I reached for my concealer. I moved with the practiced, morbid precision of a mortician. I layered the thick, flesh-colored paste over my jaw, blending until the violence disappeared. I used a high-collar blouse to hide the burns on my shoulder and the ghost of Nathan's fingerprints on my neck. I brushed my hair forward, pinning it carefully with a silk ribbon to cover the gash on my hairline.
Ten minutes later, the monster was gone. In its place stood Lucille Cordilla Brown. Perfect. Untouched. Lie number one.
THE KITCHEN - MORNING
The house was deathly quiet. The smell of burnt toast and floor cleaner hung in the air the scent of a home trying to scrub away its own rot. Nathan was sitting at the head of the table, scrolling through his tablet. He looked every bit the respectable provider, the pillar of the community.
My mother was nowhere to be seen. I could hear the faint, rhythmic thump of a bottle hitting the floor in the guest room upstairs.
"Good morning, Lucille," Nathan said. He didn't look up, but I saw his nostrils flare, inhaling the air as I walked past. He was smelling for my fear. "I left some money on the counter for Julien's lunch. Make sure he eats. He's been... sensitive this morning."
"Yes, Nathan," I said. My voice was a flat, dull instrument.
I felt his eyes crawl over me, checking the buttons of my blouse, searching for a crack in my composure, a sign that I might break. He smiled a thin, oily expression that made the skin on my back crawl.
"You look lovely today. Even after the... unpleasantness last night. You're a strong girl, Lucille. Most girls would be crying, making scenes. But you? You have dignity."
He reached out as I passed, his fingers grazing my wrist just long enough to be a threat, just short enough to be accidental. I didn't flinch. I packed Julien's bag, kissed his sleepy, tear-stained forehead, and walked out the door. I didn't say goodbye. I couldn't risk the air in that house touching my lungs for a second longer.
ST. JUDE'S HIGH SCHOOL - DAY
The school felt different today. Sharper. The light in the hallways was too bright, making my head throb. The whispers of the students seemed louder, more jagged, like they were speaking in glass.
"Did you see her yesterday?""I heard Andrea cracked her skull open.""Look at her now, acting like nothing happened. Is she even human?"
I walked through the crowd, my books pressed to my chest like a shield. As I turned the corner toward my locker, my heart stopped.
Andrea and her pack were there. They were laughing, leaning against the lockers exactly where they had tried to break me twenty-four hours ago. Andrea was holding a coffee cup, her designer bag slung over her shoulder like a trophy. She looked up, and her smile faltered for a fraction of a second when she saw my face clean, perfect, and devoid of fear.
The confusion in her eyes quickly curdled into a manic kind of hatred. She stepped into my path, forcing me to stop.
"Still standing, huh?" Andrea mocked, her voice carrying across the hall, silencing the nearby lockers. "You're like a cockroach, Lucille. No matter how hard I step, you just keep scuttling back for more. Don't you ever get tired of being a punching bag?"
She reached out, her hand moving slowly, intending to flick my forehead right where the gash was hidden beneath my hair. It was a test. A public humiliation.
Usually, I would flinch. Usually, I would look at the floor and wait for the pain to pass so I could go back to being "perfect."
But today, the air around me felt heavy. Static-charged. A shadow seemed to stretch out from my feet, longer and darker than it should have been in the morning sun. I felt a cold weight settle behind my eyes, and suddenly, I wasn't just seeing Andrea.
I was seeing her pulse thrumming in her neck. I was seeing how brittle her bones looked. I was seeing a world where she didn't exist, and it was beautiful.
"Say the word," the voice whispered, brushing against my ear like a lover's secret. "And I'll make her knees hit the floor before she can even touch you. I'll make her beg for the silence you've kept all these years."
I looked Andrea straight in the eyes. I didn't smile. I didn't blink. I felt the darkness from the dream clawing at the back of my throat, a black tide rising, begging to be let out.
"Move, Andrea," I said.
The hallway went dead silent. Andrea's hand stayed frozen in mid-air, inches from my face. She looked confused, then her face went pale. Her pupils dilated until her eyes were almost entirely black. She began to tremble not out of anger, but out of a sudden, primal terror, as if she finally saw the thing staring back at her from behind my mask.
"What did you say to me?" she stammered, but her voice lacked its usual sting. It sounded small.
"I said," I leaned in closer, my voice a whisper that only she could hear, "that if you touch me again, you won't like the person who comes out to play."
The coffee cup slipped from her fingers, shattering on the floor. Hot liquid splashed her expensive shoes, but she didn't even notice.
but Lucille didn't say the word.
The black tide surged anyway, testing her, licking at the edges of her resolve like an impatient animal. Her heart slammed against her ribs. For one treacherous second, she wanted it wanted Andrea on her knees, wanted the world to finally notice her pain.
No.
Lucille dug her nails into her palm until the sting cut through the fog. She focused on the floor beneath her shoes, the weight of her books, the discipline of silence she had mastered over years of survival. She did not reach back into the darkness. She did not agree. She did not give permission.
Andrea laughed a sharp, ugly sound.
"God, look at you," she said. "You're not even blinking. What's wrong, Lucille? Did you finally lose it?"
Before Lucille could step back, Andrea's fingers fisted in her hair.
Pain exploded across her scalp as Andrea yanked hard, forcing her head back. Gasps rippled through the hallway. Someone laughed nervously. Someone else whispered her name.
"There it is," Andrea sneered, pulling harder. "She's crazy. Always has been. You see that look? She's already gone."
Lucille's vision swam. The shadow behind her surged, furious now, clawing upward, screaming to be unleashed. The pulse in Andrea's wrist throbbed under her fingers. One word. Just one
"That's enough."
The voice cracked through the chaos like a blade.
Andrea's grip loosened in shock.
Lucille felt it instantly the shift in the air, the grounding presence she'd known since childhood.
Rowan Hale stepped forward, already reaching out.
"Let her go," he said.
Andrea scoffed, but her hand trembled. "Oh my God, Rowan, don't pretend you didn't see that. She's insane. She was just standing there, staring at me like she wanted to kill me. She's already lost it."
Rowan didn't even look at Andrea at first. His attention was entirely on Lucille.
"You okay?" he asked quietly.
Lucille nodded once. It took everything she had.
Only then did Rowan turn.
"You put your hands on her," he said, voice flat. "That's assault."
Andrea laughed, too loud. "Please. She's been asking for it since kindergarten."
Rowan stepped between them, tall and immovable in his prefect blazer, the silver crest of Prefect President catching the light.
"You're done," he said. "Step away. Now."
The hallway had gone silent.
Andrea glanced around, realizing too late that every witness was watching her, not Lucille.
"This isn't over," she muttered, releasing Lucille's hair and backing away. She nearly slipped on the spilled coffee as she fled, her friends scrambling after her.
The noise rushed back in all at once.
Rowan turned to Lucille immediately, his hands gentle as he adjusted the ribbon in her hair, checking her scalp without touching too much.
"She hurt you," he said. Not a question.
"I almost—" Lucille swallowed. "I almost let something out."
"But you didn't," Rowan said firmly. "You stayed."
"There's a voice," she whispered. "It says I don't have to be weak anymore."
Rowan's jaw tightened not with fear, but resolve.
"Anything that tells you to hurt yourself or anyone else is lying," he said. "You don't need it."
The cold presence recoiled at his certainty, simmering.
Very well, it murmured. Not today.
Lucille leaned into Rowan's steadiness, her fingers curling into his sleeve.
"And if it comes back?" she asked.
Rowan's mouth curved into a restrained, dangerous smile.
"Then," he said softly, "it goes through me first."
The bell rang.
I walked through the halls with my books pressed to my chest, my smile in place, my mask perfect. Everyone looked at me as if nothing had happened as if Andrea's tantrum and the shadow behind me were nothing more than imagination. Perfect. Ordinary. Safe.
Except nothing was safe.
The shadow lingered, stretched along the walls, curling beneath my desk, whispering at the edges of my consciousness. You didn't choose me, it murmured, but I felt its patience, its hunger. Yet.
Rowan walked beside me, prefect blazer sharp, silver crest gleaming. He asked me questions, small ones. About the retreat, about schoolwork, about whether I'd considered getting a cellphone so he could reach me without calling the landline.
"Nope," I said cheerfully. "Still not allowed."
He frowned. "Lucy…"
"I know." I smiled wider. "Landlines are classic. Retro."
His gray eyes searched mine, narrowing just slightly. "And… the voices?"
I hesitated, just for a fraction of a second, then shook my head. "I talk to myself sometimes," I said, bright and light. "You know that. Always have."
Rowan didn't push. I knew he wanted to, but he trusted me. Or thought he did.
A voice, soft, cold, amused:
"You think he can protect you forever?"
I froze.
The footsteps behind me weren't Rowan's. They weren't familiar.
And the shadow shifted, faster than thought, curling into something sharp, waiting.
I didn't turn around.
I couldn't.
"He won't see this coming," the voice said, "and neither will you."
My chest tightened. The hallway felt impossibly long. My hands shook… just slightly. Just enough.
And then the lockers near me began to rattle, slowly at first, like someone or something was moving inside them.
I swallowed. I smiled.
Rowan was behind me, unsuspecting.
I wasn't.