Chapter 38
Elena's POV
The shouting woke me from fitful, dreamless sleep.
I blinked at the ceiling, disoriented, my head pounding from hours of crying. The house was too quiet, no distant clatter of breakfast being prepared. The servants had been let go months ago. Now there was just emptiness, and the sound of my parents' voices rising from downstairs, sharp and vicious enough to carry through the walls.
I pulled the blanket tighter around myself, trying to block it out, but their words cut through anyway. My bare feet hit the cold floor as I padded to the door, drawn by some masochistic need to hear exactly how bad things had gotten.
"Why did you send him away?" My father's voice was raw with fury. "Do you have any idea what you've done?"
"Saved our daughter from humiliating herself further?" My mother's tone was icy, clipped. "He doesn't want her, Donald. Anyone with eyes can see that."
"Then she needs to make him want her! That's the whole point!" Something crashed—a glass, maybe, shattering against the marble floor. "You should have let him go upstairs, let him see her—"
"Let him what? Comfort her? Manipulate her into thinking he cares?" Vivian's laugh was bitter and sharp. "Or were you hoping for something more direct? Should she strip naked and climb into his bed? Get herself pregnant so he has no choice but to marry her?"
The silence that followed was somehow worse than the shouting.
I pressed my hand against the wall, my stomach churning, unable to look away from the top of the stairs where I could just barely see into the foyer below.
"We're out of options," my father said finally, his voice cracking. "The company is facing difficulties. Our pack is falling apart. I can barely shift anymore. If we don't secure this alliance—"
"So you'd sacrifice Elena? Your own daughter?"
"Sacrifice?" He spat the word like venom. "She's useless, Vivian! She can't even complete her First Shift! All these years and she's still—" He broke off, breathing hard. "If that boy had lived... if she'd been a son instead..."
"Enough!" My mother's shout rang through the entire house. "Enough, Donald! I won't listen to this anymore!"
But I'd already heard it. The words carved themselves into my chest, each one a fresh wound—useless, if she'd been a son, sacrifice—and my grip on the bannister tightened until my knuckles turned white. My vision blurred.
I couldn't listen to anymore.
I turned and ran back to my room, my feet slapping against cold floors, and slammed the door behind me, twisting the lock with shaking hands. Then I sank to the ground, my back against the wood, and wrapped my arms around my knees. The tears came silently this time, spilling down my face in hot tracks that I couldn't stop.
Every word my father had said played on loop in my head. Useless. Defective. A disappointment. I thought of last night—those judgmental stares that made my chest constrict.
What was the point of any of it? Years of trying to be good, trying to be perfect, trying so damn hard to make everyone happy, and here I was—alone on the floor of my childhood bedroom, sobbing into my knees while my father screamed downstairs about how worthless I was.
"Maybe I should..." The words slipped out in a whisper, ragged and small. "Maybe it would be easier if I died." My breath hitched.
But even as the thought formed, a figure appeared in my mind. A memory surfaced, unbidden and sharp.
A window across the way. Christmas lights strung through every house on the street except one. Blackwood Manor, dark and silent, with only a single dim glow from a second-floor room.
The whole Vance family had gone abroad for the holidays, but they'd left Caleb behind. Even the staff had been given time off. He'd been alone in that enormous, empty house.
I'd spent the entire night unable to sleep, wondering if he was cold, if he was scared, if anyone had left him food.
I pressed the heels of my palms against my eyes, trying to push the image away, but it only grew clearer.
---
The next morning, I'd woken up early, before my parents stirred, and crept down to the kitchen. There were leftovers from the night before—roasted meat, bread, some soup—and I'd heated them quietly, my heart pounding with the fear of getting caught. I found an old thermos, packed everything carefully, and slipped out the front door into the freezing dawn.
I was halfway to Blackwood Manor when I saw him.
Caleb was walking toward me from the opposite direction, his coat too thin for the weather, his shoulders hunched against the wind. Even from a distance I could see the exhaustion in the way he moved—slow, mechanical, like each step cost him something. When he got closer, I noticed his eyes. They were empty. Like he'd stopped expecting anything from the world.
"C-Caleb." My voice came out stammering, nervous. I held out the thermos with both hands. "I brought you some food. It's still warm."
He stopped. Looked at me. For a moment I thought he might actually take it.
Then he turned and kept walking.
Not angry. Not cruel. Just... gone. Like I wasn't even there.
I stood frozen, clutching that stupid thermos, watching his retreating back disappear down the street. He didn't look back.
But I followed him anyway.
I don't know why. Maybe I was too stubborn to give up. I kept my distance, trailing him through empty streets as he walked with no apparent destination, just moving for the sake of movement.
We ended up at the old park on the city's edge—the one with the pond and the stone bridge. It was completely deserted. The water had frozen over, a thin sheet of ice glinting dully in the weak winter sunlight.
I hid behind a tree, my fingers numb around the thermos, and watched as Caleb climbed onto the bridge railing.
My heart stopped.
He stood there for what felt like forever, staring up at the gray sky, his expression so calm it terrified me. There was no hesitation. No fear. Just resignation.
And then he jumped.
The memory hit me like a punch to the gut, and I was on my feet before I could think, my hands pressed against my mouth to muffle the sob that tore out of me.
I'd screamed his name. Dropped the thermos. Run to the edge and screamed for help even though there was no one around to hear me.
The bubbles rose to the surface, but he didn't.
My body had moved on instinct. I'd climbed over the railing, my hands slipping on the frozen stone, without letting myself think about the cold or the danger or anything except the fact that he was drowning—
I jumped.