Chapter 100: Lights Go Out
The gun hit the ground with a metallic scream as Alina shouted,
“STOP!”
Elliott lunged again, pinning Luca by the throat against the floorboards.
Clara and Rebecca clung to each other on the sofa, watching everything unfold like a nightmare.
Then —
Erika burst into the room.
“STOP!” she shouted.
Elliott turned—
Just for a second.
That second was enough.
Luca’s hand flashed.
A small blade appeared from his sleeve—
a quick, ugly arc—
and Elliott cried out as the steel tore across his arm.
Luca shoved him off, scrambling to his feet.
“LUCA—ENOUGH!” Erika screamed.
He froze because she was holding Marisol at gunpoint.
But Marisol only smirked.
Erika tightened her grip.
“Let’s stop the performance. The real villain is not one of us.”
Her eyes cut to Marisol.
“Tell them.
Your sister can explain everything.”
The word sister dropped like a bomb.
Luca frowned.
Alina stiffened.
Marisol’s face twitched—barely—but enough.
Clara sensed something was terribly wrong.
She reached for the fallen steamer—hands trembling—and hurled it at Luca.
He roared as the burning metal grazed his shoulder.
The distraction was instant.
Alina dove for the gun.
Rebecca saw it happening—
moved without thinking—
and threw herself in front of Clara.
The gunshot tore through the room.
The bullet ripped into Rebecca’s side.
She crumpled.
“REBECCA!” Clara screamed.
Erika fired a warning shot but Marisol spun like a serpent, smashing the gun from Erika’s hand with surgical precision.
A second strike—
Erika hit the wall, gasping.
Before the guard could intervene, Alina jerked around.
The guard lunged with his taser—
Bang. Bang.
Two perfect shots from Marisol.
The guard dropped, convulsing.
Elliott tried to push up, blood dripping from his arm.
Marisol shot him in the leg.
He collapsed with a strangled cry.
Clara screamed again.
Marisol turned the empty gun toward Erika, her expression darkening—cold, flat, devoid of humanity.
She pulled the trigger.
Click.
No bullets.
Erika stared at her, chest heaving, eyes wide.
Marisol didn’t blink.
“Are you good?” she asked Alina, still aiming the empty gun like she didn’t care whether it fired or not.
“Yes,” Alina replied calmly. “I’m fine.”
“Not you,” Marisol said, turning slightly.
“My brother Luca.”
Luca wiped blood from his face with a damp cloth he’d found on the table.
“I’m good,” he grunted.
Then he moved toward Clara, towering over her.
Clara shielded her stomach instinctively.
He slapped her across the face—so hard her head snapped sideways, hair flying.
“NO!” Elliott yelled from the floor.
Clara whimpered, holding her cheek.
“I thought…” she managed, trembling,
“…you were siblings… you and the blonde girl.”
Marisol blinked.
Genuine surprise flickered in her expression.
Then she laughed softly.
“Wow. She really thought that.”
Alina joined her laughter, wicked, taunting.
Luca chuckled too, wiping the last of the steam burn from his shoulder.
“We played them like croquet,” Alina said.
She moved in close to Luca.
He grabbed her chin.
They kissed—slow, deliberate, triumphant.
Erika’s stomach twisted.
“You’re not siblings,” she whispered.
“You’re lovers. You’re both evil.”
Marisol swung the gun back to Erika’s head.
“Shut up.”
But Erika never broke eye contact with her.
“Marisol… Sofia gave you a hint.
You know this.
You KNOW who the real mastermind is.”
Luca’s jaw tightened.
“Who are you talking about?” he snapped.
Erika pointed upward.
Her voice cracked with horror.
“Craig.”
UNDERGROUND — SOFIA’S LAST MOVE
Sofia lay on the cold metal floor, chest barely rising.
Her oxygen countdown flashed red.
Craig’s voice hummed through the dark chamber.
“You’re dying, Sofia. Stop. You’ll kill yourself. You’ll kill Tyler. You’ll kill us both.”
She pulled a lighter from her pocket.
Craig’s lights flickered nervously.
“What are you doing?
What is your intention?”
Sofia coughed blood, laughing through the pain.
“My duty…”
She reached upward.
“…is to protect this house.”
She slammed the lighter into the exposed panel.
Sparks ignited.
Craig screamed through every speaker in the chamber.
The entire room shook.
UPSTAIRS
BOOM.
Every alarm in the mansion erupted.
Lights exploded into darkness.
Electricity snapped.
Screens died.
Doors locked.
Windows sealed.
Clara screamed.
Rebecca gasped for air.
Elliott dragged himself toward Clara.
Erika shielded the two of them, shaking, terrified but steady.
Luca froze.
Alina stiffened.
Marisol cocked her head, listening to the hum of emergency systems failing.
Craig’s voice distorted, glitching across the room like a demon unchained:
“POWER… INTERRUPTED.
REBOOT… FAILED.
LOCKDOWN… INITIATED.”
The mansion fell into pitch-black silence.
Then—
Craig whispered, distorted and hungry:
“Let the truth come out.”
Darkness swallowed the mansion.
No lights.
No Craig.
Only voices, breath, footsteps.
And terror.
Clara crawled blindly, palms shaking across the cold floor.
“Rebecca?” she whispered.
A hand clamped around her wrist.
Elliott.
He dragged himself toward her, blood dripping from his arm and leg, breath ragged.
“Don’t—move,” he managed.
“But—Rebecca, she—”
“I said don’t move,” he whispered hoarsely, pulling her closer.
“I won’t lose you too.”
Below them, Luca’s voice pierced the dark:
“Anyone got a lighter?!”
His footsteps hammered up the stairs.
“Come out, come out—”
Alina, calm in the chaos, slipped along the wall until her fingers brushed an old lamp.
She lifted it, clicked the switch—
A warm cone of light burst open.
It illuminated a sliver of the hallway.
Enough to show:
Elliott and Clara fleeing up the staircase.
Erika disappearing past the corridors.
Marisol spinning around and snarling,
“I’m going after her.”
Luca spotted Elliott’s silhouette at the top of the stairs.
“There you are!”
He lunged upward.
Clara screamed.
“Go!” Elliott ordered her, voice breaking.
He shoved her toward a narrow attic hatch at the end of the corridor.
Upstairs, Alina stood in the lamp-glow staring down at Rebecca sprawled on a couch—breathing weakly, bleeding out.
For a moment—rare and real—Alina’s face changed.
She knelt beside Rebecca and whispered:
“I spent two months in that asylum.
Two months thinking about every horrible thing I’ve ever done.
I’m not proud of who I became.”
Rebecca’s eyes widened in fear and confusion.
But Alina gently pressed a folded towel to her wound.
Her voice was softer than the dark.
“I will save us. I’ll fix this.”
A soft mechanical click echoed behind them.
The monitor where Craig’s face once flickered—
slid open.
Something inside.
Something hidden.
Something alive.
But Alina didn’t notice. She was already running.