Emma's POV
I don't sleep.
How can I sleep when there's a video of me—or someone who looks exactly like me—helping Ryan destroy my best friends?
I sit at Mom's kitchen table all night, staring at my phone, watching that video over and over. Looking for proof it's fake. Looking for any sign that it's not really me.
But every time I watch it, I see myself more clearly. The way I move. The way I smile. The cold look in my eyes that I've never seen before but that feels somehow familiar.
"Emma, you need to rest." Mom touches my shoulder gently. Dawn is breaking outside the window. "You've been up all night."
"I can't rest. Not until I figure out if this is real."
"It's not real. We've been over this—"
"Have we?" I spin to face her, exhaustion making me sharp. "How do you know? You were dead—or pretending to be dead. You weren't there that night. You don't know what I did or didn't do."
Mom flinches like I've slapped her. "Emma—"
"What if Ryan was telling the truth all along? What if I was there when Sophie drowned? What if I helped him drug Nathan? What if everything I think I remember is a lie?" My voice rises with hysteria. "What if I'm not the victim? What if I'm the monster?"
"Stop it!" Mom grabs my face, forcing me to look at her. "This is exactly what they want. They want you doubting yourself, questioning your own memories. That's how abusers win—they make you believe you're crazy."
"But what if I am crazy? What if—"
A knock on the door makes us both freeze.
It's 6 AM. Nobody should know we're here. This safe house is supposed to be secret.
Mom puts a finger to her lips, then moves silently to the window. She peeks through the curtain and her whole body goes rigid.
"It's Ryan," she whispers. "How did he find us?"
My blood turns to ice. "He's supposed to be in jail."
"Maybe he made bail. Stay here. Keep Lily quiet. I'll handle this."
"No." I stand, my fear transforming into something harder. "I'm done hiding. I'm done letting him control me. If he wants to talk, we'll talk."
Mom looks like she wants to argue, but something in my expression stops her. She nods slowly. "Okay. But I'm right beside you. And if he tries anything—"
"He won't. Not with witnesses." I hope I sound more confident than I feel.
I open the door.
Ryan stands there in an expensive suit, looking fresh and calm like he didn't just survive an explosion and get arrested hours ago. He smiles when he sees me—that same charming smile that fooled me ten years ago.
"Hello, Emma. We need to talk."
"How did you find us? And how are you out of jail?"
"I have excellent lawyers. And as for finding you—" He holds up his phone, showing a tracking app. "Did you really think I'd let you disappear with my daughter? I've been tracking your mother's car since yesterday. Simple GPS device under the bumper."
Mom curses under her breath. "I checked for trackers—"
"Not well enough, apparently." Ryan's smile widens. "Can I come in? Or shall we have this conversation on the doorstep where the neighbors can hear?"
"There are no neighbors," I say. "We're in the middle of nowhere."
"Exactly. Which is why I brought backup." Ryan gestures behind him.
Two large men in dark suits step out of a black SUV parked down the driveway. They're not cops. They're private security. Ryan's personal thugs.
"What do you want?" I ask, trying to keep my voice steady.
"I want to help you, Emma. I always have." Ryan's tone is gentle, concerned—the same tone he used when he was gaslighting me during our marriage. "You're having a mental health crisis. Last night proved that. You attacked me at Camp Hollow, you endangered our daughter, you've been hallucinating about dead people—"
"I didn't hallucinate Sophie. She was real. Everyone saw her."
"Everyone saw a woman who looked like Sophie," Ryan corrects. "Grace Bennett, Sophie's sister, pretending to be her. But you didn't know that, did you? You genuinely believed your dead friend came back to life. That's not normal, Emma. That's a delusion."
His words twist like knives because part of me wonders if he's right. What if I did imagine things? What if my mind is breaking?
"I'm not crazy," I say, but my voice wavers.
"I know you don't think you are. That's part of the illness." Ryan takes a step closer. Mom moves to block him, but his security guards shift forward threateningly. "Emma, I've filed for emergency custody. The hearing is on Monday. I have evidence of your deteriorating mental state—the texts you sent about Sophie being alive, your therapist's notes about your paranoid delusions, witness statements about your erratic behavior."
"Dr. Martinez was working with you! Her notes are lies!"
"Can you prove that?" Ryan's smile is pitying. "Or will you sound paranoid trying to explain it to a judge? Face it, Emma. You're alone. Your mother is a ghost who faked her own death—hardly a reliable character witness. Nathan is a man you abandoned ten years ago who suddenly reappeared in your life. And now you're claiming vast conspiracies against you. How does that sound to a family court judge?"
I want to scream. Want to hit him. Want to make him hurt the way he's hurt me for so many years.
But I know that's exactly what he wants. If I lose control, it proves his point.
"What do you really want, Ryan?" Mom asks coldly. "Because we both know this isn't about concern for Emma's wellbeing."
Ryan's mask slips for just a moment, showing the monster underneath. "I want what's mine. Emma is mine. Lily is mine. I built Emma into the perfect wife, and she had the audacity to leave me. Nobody leaves me."
"I'm not your property—"
"Aren't you?" Ryan pulls out his phone, showing me the video. The one where I appear to help him drug Nathan and Sophie. "I have proof, Emma. Proof that you were my willing partner eight years ago. Proof that you helped me destroy your friends. How do you think Nathan will react when he sees this?"
My stomach drops. "That video is fake."
"Is it? Or have you just convinced yourself it's fake because you can't handle the truth about what you really are?" Ryan steps closer, his voice dropping to an intimate whisper. "Deep down, you know. You remember that night. You remember planning it with me. You remember watching Sophie and Nathan, knowing what we'd done to them. You remember feeling powerful."
"No—"
"Yes." His eyes bore into mine. "You're not the victim, Emma. You never were. You're just like me. We're the same. That's why I chose you. That's why I'll never let you go."
The words hit me like physical blows. Because somewhere in the darkest part of my mind, I wonder if he's right. What if I did help him? What if I'm not who I think I am?
"Get out," Mom says, her voice deadly quiet. "Get out now, or I call the real police. The ones who aren't on your payroll."
Ryan laughs. "Go ahead. Call them. Tell them I came to check on my mentally unstable ex-wife. Tell them about your fake death and five years of fraud. See who they believe—a respected lawyer with impeccable credentials, or a woman who's been hiding from the law for half a decade."
He turns to leave, then pauses at the door. "Oh, and Emma? That message you received last night about revealing the truth in twenty-four hours? That wasn't from some mysterious enemy. That was from me. I wanted to give you time to come to your senses. To come back to me willingly. But if you don't—" He shows me his phone again, finger hovering over a send button. "This video goes public. To the police, to Nathan, to the judge handling our custody case. Everyone will know what you really are."
"Why are you doing this?" I whisper.
"Because I love you." He says it simply, like it's obvious. "I've always loved you. And if I can't have you, nobody can. Especially not Nathan Cross."
He walks out, his security guards following. The black SUV drives away, leaving Mom and me standing in the doorway, both shaking with rage and fear.
I close the door and lean against it, my legs barely holding me up.
"He's bluffing," Mom says. "That video is fake. We can prove it—"
"Can we?" I look at her with desperate eyes. "What if we can't? What if there's no way to prove it's fake? What if Nathan sees it and believes I betrayed him?"
"Nathan knows you. He'll know it's not real."
"Will he? He already thinks I abandoned him once without explanation. What if this just confirms his worst fears about me?"
Mom doesn't have an answer for that.
My phone rings. Nathan's name appears on the screen.
I stare at it, paralyzed. Does he already know? Did Ryan send him the video? Is he calling to tell me he never wants to see me again?
"Answer it," Mom urges. "Don't let Ryan make you afraid to talk to the people who love you."
With shaking hands, I answer. "Hello?"
"Emma, thank God." Nathan's voice is urgent. "I just got out of the hospital. They said Ryan made bail an hour ago. Are you safe? Is Lily safe?"
"He was just here. He found us somehow."
"Damn it. Listen, I'm coming to get you. Don't go anywhere, don't open the door for anyone—"
"Nathan, there's something I need to tell you. Something about a video—"
"I know about the video."
My heart stops. "You do?"
"Ryan's lawyer sent it to me twenty minutes ago. Along with a note saying you and Ryan planned everything together. That you were his partner, not his victim."
Tears stream down my face. "Nathan, I swear it's not real. I wasn't there that night. I would never—"
"Emma." His voice is gentle. "I know it's fake."
"You do?"
"Of course I do. I'm a psychologist who specializes in trauma and manipulation. I can spot a deepfake from a mile away. The lighting is wrong, the lip sync is slightly off, and most importantly—" His voice fills with conviction. "I know you. The real you. And the woman in that video isn't you. She has your face, but she doesn't have your soul."
I sob with relief, sliding down the door to sit on the floor. "I was so scared you'd believe it."
"Never. Ryan's trying to isolate you by making you think everyone will turn against you. That's abuse tactics 101. I'm not falling for it, and neither should you."
"But what if the judge believes it? What if—"
"Then we'll fight it. We'll get video forensics experts. We'll prove it's fake. Emma, listen to me—you're not alone in this. Not anymore. I'm coming to get you right now. We're going somewhere safer, somewhere Ryan can't find you. And then we're going to destroy him. Together."
His words give me strength I didn't know I had left. "Okay. Okay, yes. Come get us."
"I'll be there in fifteen minutes. Stay inside. Lock the doors. And Emma?"
"Yeah?"
"I love you. No matter what Ryan tries to make you believe about yourself, that's the truth. I love you. I've always loved you. And nothing—no video, no lie, no manipulation—will ever change that."
I'm crying too hard to respond, but I manage a whispered "I love you too" before he hangs up.
Mom helps me up, pulling me into a fierce hug. "See? He believes you. He knows who you are."
"But Ryan's not done. He's got the custody hearing on Monday. He's got that video. He's got—"
My phone buzzes with a new message.
Not from Ryan this time. From an unknown number.
A different unknown number than before.
My hands shake as I open it.
It's a photo. Recent. Taken from outside this safe house.
The photo shows me through the window, talking to Mom just moments ago.
Below the image: "Did you really think Ryan was your biggest problem? He's just a puppet, Emma. A useful idiot who did exactly what I needed him to do. But now he's served his purpose. In the next 12 hours, Ryan will be dead. You'll be blamed for his murder. And Lily will disappear forever. Unless you do exactly what I say. Come to the Riverside Cemetery. Your father's grave. Midnight tonight. Come alone or Lily dies. Don't tell Nathan. Don't tell your mother. Don't tell the police. I'll know if you do. I'm always watching. —The One Who's Been Pulling The Strings Since The Beginning"
Below that, another photo.
Lily's bedroom here at the safe house.
Empty.
The window open.
Her stuffed rabbit lying on the floor.
My daughter is gone.
Again.
And this time, I don't know who took her.