Chapter 2 2

I couldn't speak, frozen by a terror that went bone deep.

Julian's face contorted with rage.

He kicked a stack of Eleanor's unwanted boxes, sending them scattering.

"Stop it!" he snarled. "Stop that disgusting display!"

His voice was ice. "I have never, and will never, want anything like that from you."

He turned on his heel and stormed out, slamming the door.

The sound echoed in the cavernous house.

I collapsed onto the floor, shaking, the shame a suffocating blanket.

Despair settled in, heavy and cold.

A little while later, I heard them.

Sounds from Julian's bedroom.

Eleanor's soft laughter, Julian's deeper murmur.

The unmistakable rhythm of intimacy.

It wasn't meant for my ears, but the mansion's quiet carried every sound.

He was warning me.

That's what it felt like.

A deliberate, cruel reminder of my place.

Of his new life, his new love.

The old, foolish affection I'd once felt for Julian was long dead.

ClearPath had burned it out of me, cauterized it with pain and fear.

He had made his feelings perfectly clear that night he found my letter.

"Perverse," he'd called me. "Sick."

The pain I felt now wasn't for a lost love.

It was for the echoes.

The auditory hallucinations that ClearPath had seared into my brain.

The imagined sounds of their taunts, their footsteps, their "treatments."

Those were my constant companions.

I curled up on the cold floor, wrapping my arms around myself.

"I don't love him," I whispered to the empty room, over and over.

A desperate litany.

"I don't love him. I don't love him."

Each denial was a small, sharp stone I swallowed against the rising tide of panic.

Breakfast was another silent torment.

I kept my eyes on my plate, avoiding Julian's gaze, ignoring Eleanor's saccharine smiles.

They cooed at each other, a perfect picture of domestic bliss.

I felt like an intruder, a stain on their pristine world.

"What happened to your hand?" Julian asked suddenly.

His voice was sharp.

I looked down. A small, healing scratch from my frantic packing of the burner phone.

I'd forgotten about it.

"Nothing," I said, my voice flat. "I bumped it."

I planned to stay in my room, invisible, until my escape.

Just a few more days.

"It looks like a scratch," Julian pressed, his eyes narrowed.

Eleanor interrupted, her voice bright and brittle.

"Julian, darling, don't pester Amelia. She's probably just clumsy."

She turned to me, her smile not reaching her eyes.

"Amelia, Julian and I are going to look at wedding venues this afternoon. Why don't you come with us? It might cheer you up."

It was an invitation, but it felt like a command.

Julian's gaze was insistent.

"Yes, Amelia. You should come."

His authority was absolute. There was no refusing.

"Alright," I said, my voice barely a whisper.

Another ordeal to endure.

The venues were opulent, extravagant.

Eleanor gushed over floral arrangements and seating charts. Julian nodded indulgently.

After the third one, Julian got a call and had to step away.

He left me alone with Eleanor.

My stomach twisted.

Eleanor dropped her cheerful facade the moment he was out of earshot.

Her smile vanished, replaced by a cold, appraising look.

"So, Amelia," she began, her voice low and dangerous. "Julian told me about your... little crush."

My blood ran cold.

How did she know?

Julian wouldn't have... would he?

"He was quite disgusted, you know," Eleanor continued, watching my reaction with a predatory gleam in her eyes. "He found your letter. Such inappropriate feelings for your guardian. Tsk, tsk."

I couldn't breathe.

My face burned with shame.

Speechless, I could only stare at her, trapped.

"Listen to me carefully, little girl," Eleanor said, her voice a venomous whisper.

"Julian is mine. This wedding, this life, it's all mine."

She leaned closer. "I want you gone. Permanently. Before the wedding. Or I will make your life a living hell, far worse than anything you experienced at that... school."

Her threat was clear, chilling.

"I'm leaving," I managed to choke out. "I'm planning to leave."

It was the truth.

But she wouldn't believe me.

She saw me as a rival, a threat.