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The space between us thickened with unspoken words. I wanted to push him to make him crack, to force him to either confess or deny whatever was festering inside him but my chest hurt and exhaustion pressed me down like wet cement.

I opened the door and stepped outside.

The air was sharp carrying the smell of salt and rust from the sea. I walked down the street while my shoes crunching against gravel. The town was still like everyone had vanished into hiding. My eyes flicked from corner to corner, every shade feel like a trap.

And then, there he is again......

Nolan.

Across the street, half-hidden behind a rusted lamppost. His dark jacket and his unmistakable stance watching me.

My breath caught. “No,” I whispered, my knees became weak.

I glanced around wildly looking for someone else, anyone else to confirm it. Then I saw a woman pushing a stroller walking past and humming softly. I pointed across the street. “Do you see him? Right there....”

The woman frowned following my finger. She sees an empty sidewalk, cracked pavement and weeds.

She gave me a nervous glance and hurried off.

When I looked back, Nolan was gone, again, making me look stupid.

The ground tilted beneath me, a wave of nausea rising. My body shook as I stumbled back toward the house clutching the doorframe when I reached it.

Damien stood in the doorway, his expression were like a storm. As soon as he sees me, he knew.

“You really saw him,” he said flatly, like testing the shape of the words.

“I did,” I whispered. “I swear I did. He was right there.”

But Damien’s eyes said something else: I don’t believe you and that broke something inside me.

I stepped back with a shaky voice. “You think I’m crazy, don't you? That I have completed lost it. Say it.”

“Camille...” He said with confused expression.

“Say it!” it's shouted.

Damien ran a hand over his face, exhaling sharply. “I think you’re being manipulated. I think whoever’s behind this knows exactly how to make you doubt yourself and doubt you. That’s what they want, to divide us, to make me question you while you do the same."

His words were reasonable, almost too reasonable they felt rehearsed and practiced.

I narrowed my eyes. “Or maybe that’s what you want. To keep me off balance, to keep me dependent on you. Isn’t that what this has always been? You swoop in at the right time, say the right words but never enough. You want me broken.”

His face darkened. “That’s not true. If you really believe I want you broken then why am I still here?”

The question hung heavy in the air and I didn’t have an answer to it because beneath all the suspicion, the rage and fear.... a part of me wanted to believe him.

Without Damien, I had no one else here......maybe that was the trap all along.

I turned away with my heavy chest. The walls of the house felt too close and suffocating. My skin itched with the phantom of Nolan’s gaze, his silent whisper threading through my thoughts.

I didn’t know who to fear more between the ghost in the shadows and the man standing in front of me.

~

The first thing I noticed was the cold, the kind that want to make you to sink deeper into it like water pulling you under. My skin prickled with gooseflesh but my arms wouldn’t move to rub away the chill. My body felt like it belonged to someone else, heavy and slow as if I have been dipped in tar.

A smell hit me next, its not sterile like hospitals and not sharp like bleach, it's dust, rosin and faint perfume, the kind that lingers in fabric long after the person is gone, beneath it is something sour, almost metallic.

I forced my eyes open.

At first the room came in fragments, a warped floorboard with scratches across it, the dull gleam of mirrors lining the wall and a faint gold glow flickering from the corner. My vision cleared and my breath caught in my throat.

I saw the studio...... Ivy’s studio.

Every cell in my body screamed it couldn’t be but there it is with the pale walls and the long stretch of mirrors stained with age, the barres worn down by years of little girls’ fingers clutching too tightly. A place we haven’t set foot in since we were children, since before everything ended.

How did I get here? Then I realized I have been abducted.....again.

I heard the click of metal teeth and the winding turn of a crank. A pause then the soft chiming notes of a lullaby spilled into the room.

Not just any lullaby. Ours.

The one our mother used to hum when Ivy couldn’t sleep. The one Ivy later carried in a little wooden music box shaped like a swan. The one that after her disappearance, I couldn’t listen to without tearing myself open.

I wanted to sit up, claw at the air and smash that sound into silence but my arms were useless, my legs were heavier than stone. The drug held me like a cruel hand pressing me down.

“Camille,” a voice whispered.

I flinched while my head jerk toward the shadows. For a moment there was nothing there, only my reflection staring back from the mirror.... my eyes were wide, face was pale and my hair tangled. Then I saw it.

Her.

No, not her......my mind knew it even as my heart rebelled but Ivy stood in the center of the room with bare feet planted on the floor while her ballet skirt dance at her thighs and her hair braided the way she used to wear it for class. Her face was blurred and distorted, as if someone had tried to redraw her from memory and gotten the lines wrong.

I blinked to be certain.....she was gone.

My stomach twisted. The drugs. It had to be the drugs.

The music box kept playing while the notes keep winding around me tugging memories loose I havn’t meant to touch.... Ivy giggling when she tripped on a turn.... her pressing my hand against the mirror and saying, “See? You’re my twin in the glass.” Ivy whispering after our parents fought, “We’ll always have this place. Just you and me.”

I wanted to scream then the door creaked.

A figure stepped inside, slow and deliberate. The light from the corner caught him in piece..... shoes first polished black, then legs clad in dark pants, the rest, tall and steady, with face that's been obscured by mask but gleamed like porcelain. A featureless face.