Chapter 205

Chapter 205
Megan's POV

After Ophelia died, I thought Emily would finally be free. 

I was so fucking naive.

Caitlin just found a new way to control her.

"I'm going to make her exactly like her mother," Caitlin said with that clinical detachment I'd grown to hate. "Confident, radiant, kind—everything beautiful that Ophelia was."

She called it her "psychological cloning theory." According to Caitlin, personality was just the sum of experiences. Replicate the experiences, create the same person.

Complete bullshit.She couldn’t build a beautiful garden on the ruins.

For two years, she systematically rewrote Emily's memories. She erased the imprisonment, the isolation, the fear. Instead, she implanted warm recollections of mother-daughter bonding that had never happened.

Emily transformed into a normal kid.

Simon brought me to see her once.

We stood far away, watching Emily play in a sandbox with other children, building castles. She was helping her cousin with a roof, both girls laughing and chattering.

"That's not our Emily," Simon whispered, pain etched across his pale face. "Your mother switched her. We need to find the real one."

I watched Emily proudly showing off her sandcastle to the other kids. She was confident now. Radiant.

The sunlight on her face felt like daggers cutting into Simon.

"Megan, I hate who she's become," he said.

"Why?"

"I don't know."

"Because she has other friends now? You're not her only friend anymore?"

Simon didn't answer.

But I knew. Emily was no longer one of us—the broken ones. She'd forgotten her past and severed her connection to our little circle of damaged souls.

As we were leaving, I caught a glimpse of something chilling. Emily's bright smile flickered for just a moment. She looked at the sandcastle game with pure contempt, like it was beneath her.

But the second the other kids looked her way, the smile snapped back into place.

My blood went cold. Emily's "normal" was just another performance—exactly like Caitlin's. And she was fucking perfect at it.

Caitlin had created another version of herself.

I started hating this new Emily too.

Maybe I shouldn't have taken her out of that attic. Maybe everything would have been different.

When I graduated high school, Caitlin shipped me off to college immediately.

"Megan, I never want to see you again."

By then, I'd learned to fight back. "I'm your creation. I am you. You killed Ophelia, and you know it. That's why you can't stand looking at me—I remind you of what you really are."

"But I won't become you," I said. "Never."

I thought leaving the country would free me from Caitlin's web.

Wrong again.

I studied psychology, became a therapist. I tried dating—multiple relationships that all ended the same way.

"Megan, I can't feel your love. You're performing emotions, and you're terrible at it."

I couldn't make real friends either. People thought I was nice, professional, put-together. But they kept their distance.

"Megan, you're too perfect. It's exhausting being around you. But you're still my friend."

I felt like a monster hiding in human skin.

Fine. I threw myself into work. I opened a practice with a colleague, consulted for psychological research companies.

Then I met Nolan Wheeler in my office. His story led me down a rabbit hole of doctored evidence and manipulated cases.

I investigated further. Every case connected back to Caitlin.

That's when I uncovered the pattern. During those years, Riverstone had been plagued by serial killers. All of them had one thing in common—they'd crossed paths with Caitlin Weber.

She hadn't just created broken children. She'd created monsters.

Back then, criminal psychology was barely recognized. But those cases? They made Caitlin's career. She became the city's go-to expert on twisted minds.

Because she was creating them herself.

The realization hit me like a freight train. Caitlin wasn't just evil—she was a fucking genius at it.

I decided to destroy everything she'd ever built.

The husband she once loved madly—so I killed him first.

The man who gave me life, then abandoned me to a psychopath. He deserved what he got.

When he got caught up in a malpractice lawsuit, I manipulated the victim's family. It was easy to push them toward violence.

Caitlin was devastated. Finally, I'd made her suffer.

I laid out everything I'd discovered and gave her two options: prison for conspiracy to commit murder, or play crazy and get locked up in a mental facility.

For the first time ever, I saw fear in Caitlin's eyes. "Megan, you killed your father!"

I stared at her coldly. "Why are you surprised? You always said I had criminal genes."

She broke down then—grabbed me, sobbing. "I'm sorry, sweetheart. Mommy never learned how to love because no one loved me. Please forgive me for hurting you."

For a split second, I almost believed her. Despite everything, she had given me some beautiful memories of what mother's love could feel like.

But the spell broke quickly.

"You're performing again, aren't you? You don't think anything you did was wrong."

Caitlin wiped her tears, dropped the act. "What do you want, Megan?"

"To destroy everything you have."

"Including yourself?"

I laughed bitterly. Yeah, I was one of her creations too.

Caitlin chose the mental facility.

I bribed the nurses to give her experimental drugs, slowly fracturing her mind. "I want you to feel your sanity crumble piece by piece."

Soon I found another one of Caitlin's "projects"—Bobby Owens, crippled by thanatophobia.

During one visit to the facility, I told Caitlin, "I can cure Bobby. I can help him overcome his fear of death."

"You'll fail," she said flatly.

"We'll see."

Emily was my second target. Caitlin's masterpiece. Destroying her would be the killing blow.

Caitlin figured out my plan. "Hurt me all you want, but leave Emily alone. She's innocent. I'll never leave this place—just don't hurt her."

"Since you love her so much, I'll make sure she stays here with you forever. You'd be so lonely otherwise."

Emily ended up in Woodvale, exactly as I'd planned. The memory restoration therapy would slowly bring back her childhood trauma.

Everything was going perfectly.

Then Bobby's treatment went wrong.

He killed someone.

Emily left the facility because of Bobby's killing sprees.

I went back to confront Caitlin.

"You failed," she said. "Your treatment triggered him. You created a killer."

I was speechless. How could she know anything from inside this place?

"October 20th was when his parents died in that car crash—when he first connected death with terror. I knew your therapy would make him snap."

"Bobby sees the number seven as a death cycle. If he kills again, it'll be in seven-day intervals."

"Megan, you've gotten your revenge. Stop now."

I stormed out, furious and defeated.

It wasn't enough. Not nearly enough.

I had to destroy Emily completely.

Bobby's death made me question everything about therapeutic intervention. Some damaged children couldn't be saved with gentle methods.

They needed to be rebuilt by force.

My career imploded around the same time. The research company went bankrupt.

My business partner looked devastated. "Megan, they don't want real psychological solutions. They want buzzwords and window dressing. I'm done with this industry."

Why was it always like this?

Because normal people held all the power. They only cared about mental illness when it affected them directly—when they became victims.

I finally understood Caitlin's methods.

And without realizing it, I became her.