Chapter 165 CHAPTER 165
Sebastian kept staring at the phone long after the screen went dark.
The night pressed in around them, thick and quiet, the trees standing like silent witnesses. The glow from the device faded, leaving only moonlight and shadows between him and Anna. For several seconds, he did not speak. His jaw worked slowly as if he were chewing on something bitter.
Then he let out a short, humorless laugh.
“This isn’t funny,” he said, lifting his head and scanning the trees. “Sarah, you can come out now. You’ve made your point.”
Anna’s heart was still racing from the run, but now confusion joined the fear. “What are you talking about?”
Sebastian’s eyes moved from one dark patch of forest to another, as if he expected someone to step forward at any moment. “You think I don’t understand what this is? A test. A joke. Some twisted way to see if I’d believe rumors about her.”
“Sebastian, I swear…”
“I know the two of you have been spending time together,” he cut in sharply. “Is this what you talk about? Ways to mess with me? Who taught you how to edit videos like that?”
Anna stared at him, disbelief spreading across her face. “Edit? I didn’t edit anything.”
“The lighting,” he continued, almost talking to himself now. “The way it looks supernatural. Very dramatic. I’ll give you that.”
She felt frustration rising in her chest. “It’s not edited.”
“And Lucas?” Sebastian went on, ignoring her. “How did he agree to play along? I should teach him a lesson too. He can’t use himself in some cheap prank against me.”
Anna took a step back; shaken not just by what she had seen but by the way he was twisting it. “This is not a prank.”
“Then where is she?” Sebastian shouted into the woods. “Sarah! Enough!”
The forest did not answer.
The silence seemed to stretch between them, heavy and uncomfortable. Anna’s fear slowly sharpened into urgency. If he wouldn’t believe her words, he would have to see more than a video.
“Lucas,” she said suddenly.
Sebastian’s gaze snapped back to her.
“Let’s go find Lucas,” she insisted. “If this is a prank, he’ll admit it. If it’s not, he’ll tell you what happened.”
Sebastian hesitated. His pride was still flaring, but there was something else there now - a thin crack of uncertainty he was trying hard to ignore. He exhaled slowly and nodded.
“Fine,” he said at last. “Let’s go.”
They walked quickly through the trees toward the clearing Anna had fled from. The forest felt different now. Not quiet in a peaceful way, but quiet in a way that felt watchful. Sebastian’s mind churned as he walked. He kept telling himself he would expose the joke, that he would laugh in their faces once Lucas confessed.
When they reached the clearing, Lucas was still there.
He was sitting upright now, though his posture was stiff and strange, as if he were trying to understand where he was. His shirt hung loosely from his shoulders. His hair was messy, his eyes unfocused.
Sebastian let out an irritated breath. “Nice performance,” he said, stepping forward. “Let me guess. Anna texted you and told you to stay here so this could look convincing.”
Lucas blinked at him. “What?”
“You heard me,” Sebastian snapped. “You can drop the act.”
Lucas looked down at himself, then slowly around the clearing. “How did I get here?” he asked, his voice low and uncertain. “Why am I half-naked in the woods?”
Anna’s breath caught. “You don’t remember?”
“Remember what?” Lucas asked.
Anna held the phone out toward Lucas with trembling fingers.
“Watch,” she said quietly.
Lucas hesitated before taking it. His hands were still slightly unsteady as he pressed play. The screen lit up his face in the darkness, casting pale shadows across his features.
At first, he only frowned, trying to understand what he was looking at. The trees. The movement. The shapes.
Then he saw himself.
He leaned closer to the screen, his breathing slowing.
“That’s me,” he murmured, almost to himself.
The image shifted, and Sarah came into view.
Lucas’s brows drew together in confusion.
And then the light appeared.
He froze.
The color drained from his face.
“What is she doing to me?” he whispered.
His voice was no longer confused. It was frightened.
He looked up at Anna, then back at the screen as if hoping the image would change if he stared at it long enough.
“That’s not… that’s not normal,” he said, shaking his head slowly.
He swallowed hard.
“Was I unconscious?” he asked, his voice rising slightly. “Was I drugged? Did she…”
He stopped himself, breath coming faster now.
The video ended, but he did not lower the phone immediately. His eyes stayed locked on the blank screen.
He finally handed the phone back, but his hands lingered on it for a second longer than necessary, as though he were afraid to let go of the only proof that what he had seen was real.
He shook his head slowly, as if trying to shake away a dream. “I don’t remember any of that. The last thing I remember is meeting Sarah on the road. She greeted me. She said something.”
“What did she say?” Anna pressed.
Lucas closed his eyes, forcing himself to think. “I don’t know. It’s… fuzzy. I can’t bring myself to remember exactly what she said.”
Sebastian’s stomach tightened.
Fuzzy.
The word landed heavily in his mind.
Lucas handed the phone back, still pale. “You’re saying this happened? That she did that to me?”
Sebastian felt something shift inside him. The clearing seemed to tilt slightly as memories began to stir. The girls’ locker room at Lunaris flashed through his thoughts. The missing time. The confusion. The anger that had burned so fiercely inside him afterward.
He remembered saying the same word.
Fuzzy.
He had blamed Lisa then. He had been so sure. But had he truly been sure? Or had someone guided him toward that certainty?
He remembered Sarah’s voice, calm and convincing, planting explanations gently but firmly in his mind. He remembered Kael’s warning in his head the night at the woods when he had almost crossed a line with her.
He had ignored it.
No, worse. He had dismissed it.
Lisa wasn’t here. She could not possibly have done to Lucas what had just been shown in the video.
A cold wave of realization washed over him, slow and sickening.
Was it Sarah?
The thought felt almost impossible, like betrayal pressed into his chest. But it would not leave. It grew heavier the more he tried to push it away.
His breathing became uneven. He looked at Lucas, who still appeared lost and shaken, then at Anna, whose fear now seemed painfully real.
For a fleeting moment, his mind scrambled for another explanation. Maybe Lisa and Sarah were working together. Maybe this was a bigger manipulation. But even that felt thin now.
Kael had warned him.
About Lisa too.
Or had he imagined it? Did Sarah plant the voice in his head?
The memory of that warning returned with painful clarity.
Sebastian felt his legs weaken beneath him. The certainty he had wrapped himself in over the past weeks - the anger, the conviction that he was right - began to crack.
He took one step back, then another, until he could no longer steady himself. He sank down onto the dirt with a heavy thud, his hands pressing into the cold earth as if trying to ground himself.
Neither Anna nor Lucas spoke.
Sebastian stared ahead into the trees, his thoughts spiraling, colliding, breaking apart. The world he had defended so fiercely only hours ago no longer felt solid. The person he had fought for, argued for, taken a slap for - she no longer felt untouchable.
He did not know what to believe anymore.