Chapter 106 Trapped Together
Matilda's POV
His expression shifted through several emotions in rapid succession, fear and calculation and something else I couldn't quite identify.
"I'm calling Sebastian right now," I said firmly, reaching for my phone on the side table with hands that shook only slightly. "He and Damian need to come back immediately to deal with you!"
He lunged forward with a speed that caught me off guard, his hand closing around my phone and yanking it from my grasp before I could even begin to dial. His face twisted into something ugly and vicious, all pretense of being Nolan completely abandoned as he leaned down close enough that I could see the cruel glint in his eyes.
"Old hag, you'd better not meddle in things that don't concern you!" he snarled, his voice dropping to a harsh growl that sent ice through my veins.
The shock hit me like a physical blow, stealing the breath from my lungs as the reality of the situation crashed over me in waves. "You... you really aren't Nolan?" I managed to get out, my voice barely above a whisper as my mind struggled to process what was happening.
Where was my grandson? What had this monster done to him? The questions tumbled through my head in a chaotic rush, but I forced myself to stay calm and think clearly because panic would only make things worse.
I let my hand drift casually toward the armrest of my wheelchair, my fingers searching for the emergency alert button hidden beneath the wooden surface while I kept my eyes fixed on the his face to avoid drawing his attention to what I was doing.
My fingertips brushed against the smooth button, and I was about to press down when something on my bedside table caught my eye. The porcelain doll sitting there seemed to shimmer slightly in the afternoon light filtering through the curtains, its painted eyes appearing to stare directly at me with an intensity that made my breath catch in my throat.
The world tilted suddenly, my vision blurring and reforming in a way that made no sense, and I felt a rushing sensation like falling even though my body remained perfectly still. When my sight cleared, I found myself staring at a strange scene that took several long seconds to comprehend because the perspective was all wrong.
I could see my own body sitting in the wheelchair across from where Nolan stood, but I wasn't looking through my own eyes anymore. The realization came slowly, accompanied by a creeping horror that spread through me like poison as I tried to move and found myself completely unable to respond to my own commands.
My limbs wouldn't obey me, my voice made no sound when I tried to scream, and I could only watch helplessly as the body that should have been mine moved without my control. The thing wearing my face attempted to stand up from the wheelchair, its movements clumsy and uncertain, before it stumbled and fell back heavily into the seat.
"Tsk... this old woman's body is useless," the impostor in my body muttered with obvious disgust, and the casual cruelty in those words made something inside me break. "Can't even stand up properly."
I wanted to scream, to rage against what was happening, but I remained trapped in perfect silence while the horror of my situation sank in with terrible clarity. Whatever dark magic or evil power Aurora had given these monsters, it had stolen not just Nolan's body but mine as well, and I could do nothing but watch as the impostor wearing my grandson's face walked over to my bedside table.
His hand closed around the porcelain doll, lifting it carefully, and my perspective shifted again as he turned the doll to face the thing now inhabiting my body. The confirmation hit me like a sledgehammer even though part of me had already understood what had happened—my soul, my consciousness had been trapped inside this small porcelain prison.
"You're Matilda now," the impostor told the thing in my wheelchair, his voice taking on an instructional tone that suggested he'd done this before. "You can't leave the Pack House casually. Aurora said to keep you here."
Aurora's name cut through me like a blade, sharp and cold and devastating, because hearing it spoken aloud in that context made the terrible truth impossible to deny any longer. "Aurora... it really is her..." My thoughts churned with shock and grief and a desperate need to believe this was somehow a mistake.
The impostor laughed, the sound harsh and mocking as he looked down at the doll in his hands. "I told you Aurora wasn't any kind of good person, but you were too senile to believe me~"
He tucked the doll—tucked me—into his jacket pocket, and I felt the world go dark as the fabric closed around my small form. The movement jostled me slightly, and I clung to a thin thread of hope even as despair threatened to drag me under completely because surely there had to be some explanation that made sense, some way this could all be a terrible misunderstanding.
Maybe Aurora was being controlled by something evil, maybe she didn't know what was happening, maybe there was still a chance that the girl I'd raised and loved hadn't truly betrayed us all so completely. I needed to believe that because the alternative was too painful to accept.
Time passed in darkness and confusion, the impostor's footsteps and the sound of a car engine reaching me through the muffling fabric of his pocket. When light finally returned, I found myself staring at an unfamiliar room, and my last fragile hopes shattered completely when I saw Aurora standing a few feet away.
"Aurora... is it really you? I'm your grandma..." I tried to call out, pouring every ounce of desperate affection and confused hurt into words that she would never hear.
She glanced at the doll with cold indifference, her expression completely devoid of the warmth and gentle affection she'd always shown me before, and that single look contained more cruelty than any words could have conveyed.
This was the real Aurora, I realized with sick certainty, the monster that had been hiding behind a mask of sweetness and filial devotion while she plotted against us all.
Her hand came up suddenly, striking the impostor across the face with enough force that the sharp crack of the slap echoed through the room. "You nearly ruined everything today!" she snapped, her voice dripping with contempt and anger.
The impostor stumbled back, his hand going to his reddening cheek, but he didn't dare talk back to her. I watched this exchange from my prison, seeing Aurora's true nature laid bare in every harsh line of her face and every cold word that fell from her lips, and the girl I'd loved might as well have been a complete stranger because I had never truly known her at all.
The impostor carried me deeper into the apartment, and when he flipped on the light switch I felt my consciousness reel with fresh horror at what the illumination revealed.
Shelves lined every wall, filled with dozens upon dozens of porcelain dolls arranged in neat rows, their painted eyes staring out with blank expressions that now seemed sinister rather than innocent.
Aurora followed us into the room, her heels clicking against the hardwood floor with measured steps, and she took the doll containing my soul from the impostor's hands with careful precision. She walked over to one of the shelves and placed me down next to another doll, this one dressed in expensive clothing that looked achingly familiar.
"Grandma, don't say I'm not filial," Aurora said with a smile that looked gentle and loving on the surface but felt like poison now that I could see the truth behind it. "I'm putting you together with Nolan so you two can keep each other company from now on."
The words hit me like physical blows, each one driving the horror deeper as the implications sank in. "Nolan! My grandson is here too?! Nolan!!" I screamed with everything I had.
"Grandma! It's me! I'm here!" Nolan's voice suddenly filled my consciousness, and I realized with a mixture of relief and fresh devastation that we could somehow communicate within these prisons even if the outside world couldn't hear us. "Aurora didn't even spare you?! How can she be this cruel?!"
Tears would have been streaming down my face if I'd still had a body capable of crying, my heart breaking completely as I heard my grandson's voice and understood that he'd been suffering in this nightmare even longer than I had. "Nolan... what sins did our family commit to raise such an ungrateful wretch?!"
The rage and grief poured out of me in a torrent of words, everything I'd been holding back while trying to maintain some shred of dignity and composure, and I cursed Aurora with every ounce of venom I possessed for her betrayal and her cruelty and her complete lack of conscience.
When my fury finally exhausted itself, leaving only hollow despair in its wake, I found myself grasping at straws in a desperate attempt to make sense of the senseless.
"Nolan... is there any possibility that Aurora is being controlled by some evil force?" I asked, my voice small and broken. "Maybe this isn't really her doing?"
The silence stretched out for several long moments before Nolan finally responded, his voice heavy with a weariness that spoke of hard-won acceptance. "Grandma, you need to accept the truth."
The truth settled over me like a heavy shroud, suffocating and inescapable, and I finally stopped fighting against it because what was the point of lying to myself when the reality was staring me in the face.
I had been blind, had chosen to see only what I wanted to see in Aurora instead of recognizing the warning signs that must have been there all along, and now my grandson and I were both paying the price for my foolishness.
A long sigh escaped me as an expression of bone-deep regret and exhaustion. Nolan and I fell into silence after that, both of us understanding without words that no amount of remorse or self-recrimination would change our situation now, trapped together in our prisons.