Chapter 236 IT'S COME TO A HEAD
AURORA’S POINT OF VIEW.
I called to her again, my eyes narrowing as I tried to take as many notes of every action she made. The tapping continued as she ignored us altogether, one, two, three, one, two, three, a repetitive, haunted rhythm that didn't match the vacant look in her eyes. I allowed myself to look at every detail, even down to the tiniest ones. I noticed that her tapping didn’t sound like something she couldn’t control.
It was all too mechanical and deliberate, like an actress playing a role before a massive crowd.
Beside me, I felt Kai’s tension rolling off him in waves. To him, this was probably another broken piece from the night of our engagement gala. Denise had fallen, Armando was about to follow suit, and Morgan was the last to follow; her punishment just looked different.
He could be right. Afterall, Morgan barely looked alive, let alone sane. If anything, she resembled a hollow shell that couldn't help us win this war. I was ready to give up, especially because I felt mom tapping my shoulder as if to tell me we had to go. I stared at the clock to the left of us…fuck, we have just fifteen minutes left.
A part of me was ready to give up and give in, but I knew Morgan. I knew the girl who would spend hours practicing a spontaneous hair flip in the mirror because she felt it gave her an aura no other girl could match, not even Roxanne. She was an actress who lived for the applause of an audience she felt superior to.
"She’s not gone, Kai," I whispered, my eyes never leaving hers. I smiled, because for the first time in my life, I knew what to do to upstage Morgan. I would use her anxiety and competitive nature against her, and she would crack like a whip. “And you know, I know it, Morgan.”
I leaned into the intercom, my voice dropping into a low, conversational tone, the kind we used to use when we were forced to share a space at those suffocating gala dinners the week before dad snapped.
"The catatonic act is a bit much, Morgan," I said, my voice overlapping her haunted humming. "The unfocused stare, the rhythmic tapping... It’s very dramatic… very…you. I want to act shocked, or surprised. Afterall, you did fool the entire world, or at least anyone who watched your show of a mental breakdown at the gala a week ago. However, you always did have a flair for the dramatic. I assume you're waiting for a standing ovation, but I’m afraid we’re short on time."
The humming hitched for a fraction of a second, then resumed, along with the tapping that didn't stop. But I knew I’d gotten into her mind. Her eyes were not as unfocused as before; instead, they seemed more on guard than absent of emotions.
"Armando is going to win tomorrow, you know," I continued, watching her closely. I saw the way her jaw tightened slightly. It was just a fraction, but it was enough for me, and everyone, because from their shift beside me, I knew they’d seen it as well. "He’s already shifted the blame. His lawyers have built a solid wall between him, your mom, and you. They’re painting him as a grieving husband who was deluded by his wife and pressured by his youngest daughter into doing something he regrets. He’s going to get a slap on the wrist for Denise’s death, I’m sure….maybe something like self-defense, or temporary insanity, or manslaughter….maybe even a few years with the option of parole, he’d get out on good behaviour, and he’ll walk away, leaving you all alone in here to keep pretending as a mad woman. Imagine how long it’ll take.
Five years, ten, twenty…” I saw another twitch; this time, it was in her eyes and her lip. Her jaw tightened with a grimace, the once rhythmic tapping no longer as haunted, but now off balance. “You’d grow old, tired, ugly, while Armando gets to live a life in some other country. U
Meanwhile, you?
You’ll be forgotten, abandoned, suffering in silence.” This time, her reaction was not a twitch. It was a jerk. She stopped tapping altogether, her hands banging on the iron table in front of her. The officer stepped forward,
“Do not aggravate the patient. You risk getting kicked out early, and you have just five minutes left.” My anxiety spiked….everything rode on Morgan breaking the act, and finally talking.
If she held on for too long, we would fail; so I opted for the one thing that I knew would pull the real her out.