Chapter 151

Chapter 151
Clara’s POV

The studio came into view too slowly, the familiar glass façade reflecting the afternoon sun like nothing in the world had shifted off its axis. I pulled into the underground parking with shaking hands, barely registering the security gate lifting for me. The moment I stopped the car, I grabbed my phone.

Mia: Bring George. Meet me downstairs. Now.

I didn’t wait for a reply. I stepped out of the car and paced once, twice, my pulse hammering so violently it felt like it might split my ribs. Every instinct in me was screaming that time mattered, that standing still was the worst thing I could do.

They came running less than five minutes later.

Mia’s face was pale before she even reached me. George looked confused, scanning the garage like he expected Ayleen to appear out of thin air.

“What’s going on?” George asked immediately. “Where’s Ayleen?”

I didn’t answer. I walked back to my car, opened the driver’s side door, and leaned inside. From the compartment beneath the dashboard, I pulled out an old phone. No case. No identifying marks. I turned and held it out to them.

“Use this,” I said. “If you need to reach me, use this phone only. Don’t text. Don’t call me from your personal numbers.”

They stared at me.

Mia blinked. “Clara, what—”

“Just take it,” I cut in, my voice sharper than I intended. I forced myself to breathe. Slower. Controlled. “I’m not being dramatic. I need you to trust me.”

George frowned. “Why?”

Because if I say it out loud, it becomes real. Because if I say it, I won’t be able to hold myself together.
“I think Ayleen is in danger,” I said finally.

The words landed like a dropped glass.

Mia’s hand flew to her mouth. “What?”

“That’s insane,” George said, but his voice cracked halfway through. “What are you talking about?”

I met his eyes. I didn’t soften it. “ I know something happened"

Mia shook her head slowly. “Clara—”

“If something happens,” I continued, forcing the words through the tightness in my chest, “I don’t want anything tying what I will do back to you. I don’t want evidence on your phones. If someone’s watching, if someone’s waiting for a mistake, they won’t get one.”

George dragged a hand down his face. “Jesus Christ.”

“Wait here,” I said. “By this phone. If I need help, I’ll contact you. If Ayleen reaches either of you, you call me immediately.”

Mia grabbed my arm. “Where are you going?”

“To my apartment."

“What if you’re wrong?” George asked.

I pulled free gently. “Then I’ll apologize for panicking. But if I’m right—” My voice broke despite my effort. I swallowed hard. “I won’t forgive myself.”

Neither of them argued after that.

Mia took the phone with trembling fingers. “Be careful,” she whispered.

I nodded once, already turning away. Staying would break me. I needed motion. Action. Something that wasn’t waiting.

I got back into the car and pulled out of the garage too fast, tires squealing against concrete. The city swallowed me almost immediately, traffic thickening the closer I got to Ayleen’s place. Every red light felt like a personal attack. Every second that ticked by without my phone lighting up tightened the vise around my chest.

Come on, come on, come on.

I tried calling her again, hands-free this time. Straight to voicemail.

I could barely hear the automated message over the pounding of my own heart.

My thoughts fractured, jumping between memories and fears. The way she’d looked that morning, half-asleep and smiling. The way she’d kissed my shoulder and mumbled something about coffee. The stupid, ordinary sweetness of it all.

This morning. It had been this morning.

I switched lanes aggressively, ignoring the angry honk behind me. Up ahead, traffic slowed to a crawl. Red brake lights stretched endlessly down the road.

“No,” I muttered, leaning forward as if that would help. “No, no, no.”

An accident.

I could see it now, the flashing lights in the distance, the cluster of cars pulled to the side, the unmistakable red and blue of emergency vehicles. My foot hovered uselessly over the accelerator.
As I crept closer, dread crawled up my spine, cold and suffocating.

Ambulance. Fire truck. Police.

I told myself it meant nothing. Accidents happened every day. This was a city built on near misses and bad timing.

Then I saw the car.

My breath left my body in one violent rush.

Black paint crumpled like paper. The rear end crushed inward. The driver’s side door bent at an unnatural angle.

Then I saw the license plate on the floor.

Ayleen’s car.

The world narrowed to a pinpoint.

I don’t remember pulling over. I don’t remember opening the door. I only remember the sound of my own heartbeat, thunderous and wrong, drowning out the sirens, the shouting, the chaos around me.

I stumbled forward, legs weak, vision tunneling.

“No,” I whispered. “No, no, no.”

Someone was saying something to me. A voice, distant, distorted. A hand touched my arm. I barely felt it.

The ambulance doors were open. A stretcher stood beside it.

I couldn’t hear anything anymore. Not the traffic. Not the sirens. Not the people around me. Just that relentless pounding in my ears, each beat a reminder that I was still standing while something essential had just been ripped away.

This is my fault.

The thought hit with brutal clarity.

I had left her alone.

I had gone to Greenport chasing a feeling instead of staying where I was needed. I had convinced myself that danger was theoretical, that fear was just old trauma resurfacing.

I stared at the wreckage, at the shattered glass on the asphalt, at the twisted metal that had once carried the woman I loved.

My knees buckled.

I sank down onto the curb without realizing it, my hands shaking so badly I had to press them flat against my thighs to keep from screaming.

I couldn’t think. Couldn’t plan. Couldn’t even pray.

All I could see was her smile from that morning, burned into my mind like a photograph I would never be able to look away from.

“Where is she?" whispered to no one. “Ayleen.”

The sirens kept wailing and I couldn't find my voice.

And somewhere beneath them, beneath the noise and the panic and the guilt clawing through me, I walked closer to the car.