Chapter 4 4

Midnight.

Erich jolted awake. His heart hammered against his sternum like a trapped bird. His throat was parched, feeling like it was coated in sand.

He pushed the heavy blanket off his sweating body and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. He needed water.

He opened his bedroom door. The second-floor hallway was pitch black. The only source of light was a faint, yellow glow bleeding from beneath the kitchen door downstairs.

Erich walked toward the stairs. His bare foot pressed down on the top wooden step. It let out a sharp creak.

He froze instantly, holding his breath.

From the kitchen, the muffled sound of Brenda crying drifted up the stairwell. She was speaking in a hushed, frantic whisper into the wall-mounted telephone.

Erich pressed his back against the wall, sliding down into the shadows to listen.

"I know, I know," Brenda sobbed, her voice thick with exhaustion. "But the insurance company denied the claim. They said self-inflicted injuries aren't covered. The bank sent another foreclosure notice today."

Erich's brow furrowed. In his past life with Erik, money was an abstract concept. He had never considered the brutal reality of medical bills and mortgage payments crushing a family.

The person on the other end of the line said something sharp.

Brenda's voice spiked with sudden, fierce anger. "I am not putting him in a state facility! He is my son! I will sell this house before I abandon him!"

She paused, taking a ragged breath. "It wasn't his fault. You know he didn't plagiarize that painting. Those kids at the academy ruined his life. The internet tore him apart. That's why he took those pills."

Plagiarism. Cyberbullying. Expulsion.

The three words locked together in Erich's brain like puzzle pieces.

A sudden, violent pressure bloomed in his chest. It wasn't his own emotion. It was the residual, suffocating despair of the body's original owner. The absolute injustice of being framed and destroyed.

Brenda hung up the phone. The sound of her crying grew louder, accompanied by the frantic squeaking of a sponge scrubbing the kitchen counter. She was cleaning to stop herself from screaming.

Erich stood up in the dark. The frozen, dead space in his chest-the part of him that Erik Patton had systematically destroyed-cracked open just a fraction.

He didn't go down to the kitchen. Instead, he turned around and walked to the end of the hallway.

He stopped in front of a closed door. He wrapped his hand around the cold brass doorknob and twisted. The hinges groaned as he pushed it open.

It was the art studio.

Moonlight spilled through the uncurtained window, illuminating the chaos. The floor was littered with crumpled sketch paper. The air was thick with the bitter, chemical stench of turpentine and dried oil paint.

In the center of the room stood an easel, draped in a heavy canvas drop cloth. It looked like a corpse waiting for burial.

Erich walked over to it. He grabbed the edge of the cloth and ripped it away. Dust exploded into the air, making him cough.

The unfinished oil painting underneath was chaotic, the subject matter a storm of dark, violent emotion. It was the kind of raw, desperate art Erik would have despised. And yet, beneath the rage, he could see it-the familiar, precise way the shadows were layered, a subconscious fingerprint he couldn't erase. It was his own technique, twisted by another soul's agony.

Erich reached out. He traced his fingertips over the rough, raised texture of the dried paint.

He felt it. The exact moment the original Erich's spirit had broken.

A massive wave of empathy crashed over him. They were the same. Both of them were artists pushed to the absolute edge of a cliff by people who wanted to control them.

Erich turned his head, looking at the walls covered in rejected sketches. His jaw set into a hard line.

If Erich Colon was dead, then he would live as Erich Morrison. He would take this broken life, and he would use it to fight back. For the kid who died, and for himself.

He picked up a rusted palette knife resting on the wooden table. He gripped the wooden handle so tightly his knuckles popped.

Without a second thought, he dragged the sharp metal edge across the bottom corner of the canvas, carving a harsh, aggressive signature into the thick paint.

It was a declaration of war.

He dropped the knife. The metallic clatter echoed in the quiet room.

Footsteps sounded on the stairs. Brenda was coming up.

Erich quickly threw the drop cloth back over the easel and stepped out into the hallway, pulling the door shut behind him.

He bumped right into Brenda at the top of the stairs. She gasped, quickly wiping her wet cheeks with the back of her hand, forcing a terrible, wobbly smile.

"Erich. What are you doing out of bed?"

Erich looked down at her red, swollen eyes. For the first time since waking up in this body, he reached out voluntarily. He placed his hand on her trembling shoulder.

"Go to sleep," he said, his voice steady and deeper than usual. "Everything is going to be fine."

Brenda froze. She stared up at him, her mouth slightly open. The fragile, broken boy she had been taking care of was gone. The man standing in front of her felt like a wall of solid steel.

Erich dropped his hand and walked back to his bedroom. He had work to do.