Chapter Text
Light seeped through the heavy curtains lazily, as if hesitant to disturb the silence. The room was almost motionless: the dense warmth of the fireplace still lingered in the air, the blanket had slipped onto the floor. A silence not of the kind that pulls you backwards, but another one. With the tart aftertaste of peace.
Clarke opened her eyes slowly, without a jolt. She simply… came to herself. As if something inside had leveled out overnight. Not completely, but enough not to shy away from her own breathing.
The blanket was soft, the scent familiar: a mixture of tea, wood, Lexa. She turned her head on the pillow — the room was still here. She was still here.
She sat up in bed, slowly, without inner protest. Her hair was a mess, her T-shirt crumpled, but for the first time her body didn’t feel hostile. There was no tearing anxiety, no pain under her ribs. Only emptiness — but now not aggressive. More like a field where something could grow, if she wanted.
Her feet found the floor; the wood was warm.
Clarke walked to the mirror. In the reflection — there she was. With slightly swollen eyes, dry lips — and yet, her. Not the girl from photographs, not the one standing under someone else’s hands. A simple person. In a gray T-shirt, with a trace of fright in her pupils. And for the first time in a long while, with a living face.
She ran her fingers along her cheekbone. Then her lips. Then pushed her hair back the way she used to, automatically. For a second she imagined how it would look in a shot: sidelight, soft skin texture, a frame from a European art chronicle.
And for the first time, she didn’t flinch.
On the nightstand lay a book, it hadn’t been there yesterday. The Bell Jar — Sylvia Plath. Without bookmarks. Lexa, probably. Or a sign. Or just coincidence.
Something clinked quietly in the kitchen. Clarke tensed for a second, but the sound was… peaceful. A mug, most likely. Or a spoon. She stood. Without a plan. She simply stood and walked.
Lexa was at the stove in a loose black T-shirt and riding trousers, her hair tied back in a messy ponytail, one sock slightly slipped. On the table — oranges, an open jar of jam, two toasts, one of which she was absentmindedly chewing, staring out the window. She didn’t hear her at first.
“I made tea. I wasn’t sure you’d get up, but… just in case,” she said, turning around. “Good morning.”
Her voice was soft. The smile genuine, though cautious.
Clarke raised her brows slightly.
“I could’ve been a zombie.”
“Even then — you’d still criticize my tea serving.”
Lexa held out a mug to her.
“No sugar. But if you need, I can pretend to care. Add honey or lemon?”
Clarke took the cup, took a sip. Her lips quivered just a little.
“It works.”
“Thank you. I lived with Imogen in one flat — we had morning wars over the perfect strength of brew.”
Clarke tilted her head slightly, and a shadow of a smile flickered across her face.
“So you do know how to manage daily life.”
“Only if I have an incentive.”
And it didn’t sound accidental.
She turned back to the stove, toasted a second slice, dropped cheese on it. Without show. Just breakfast.
“I took Astrea to the arena this morning,” she said, lightly. “She’s doing fine. Still favors the left leg, but more likely because she missed the work.”
“She’s with you now?”
“For now, yes.” Lexa turned, leaned on the edge of the table, cup in hand. “August is still in Paris. He’s only being moved back next week.”
Clarke stayed silent.
“Don’t you miss the saddle?” Lexa asked after a pause. “Even just… the smell of the stables?”
“I do. But there’s too much past in there.”
“And still, it’s somewhere inside you. It hasn’t gone.”
“I know.” Clarke looked out the window. “I just… don’t know how to be again in the place where it all began.”
Lexa didn’t press. She only nodded. Set the cup down on the table and came closer, tilting her head slightly.
“I thought,” she said more quietly now, “we might go to the city today. There’s an exhibition in St James. A gallery of contemporary art and some older pieces that are, most likely, misinterpreted. Chaos with the labels, but beautiful.”
Clarke glanced up, almost skeptically.
“You’re trying to drag me into society?”
“I’m suggesting. If you don’t want to — we’ll stay here. I’ll even rewatch your dreadful teenage drama with you, if you insist.”
“I never watched any teenage drama.”
“Then it must’ve been me. We’ll fix that.”
Clarke sat on the edge of the table, cup between her hands. Her hair still tangled, sleeves of the T-shirt pushed up. But there was something different in her. Not the Clarke of before. And not the one whose eyes had lost the light. Something new.
“Do you think I can manage?”
Lexa let her gaze linger for a moment.
“I think you already are.”
“Then…” Clarke traced the rim of the cup with her finger. “Why not.”
It wasn’t agreement as a challenge. More a step into the air. The kind a person takes when tired of stillness.
Lexa nodded. Without a smile, but with that very softness that said: she heard. She didn’t rush, didn’t brighten, she simply accepted. As if she knew: in this why not there was already more than in any yes the night before.
They went to get ready slowly, without fuss. Lexa dressed first: black trousers, a high-neck sweater, hair gathered a bit more neatly than in the morning. There was something relaxed in her movements — not the usual calculated poise, but an everyday ease, as if on this day she allowed herself simply to be, without a plan, without a position.
Clarke came out of the bedroom later, in a gray coat, a simple cashmere sweater and dark jeans. Her hair brushed, tied in a low ponytail. Nothing on her lips. Only a faint flush on her face. She looked tired, but not lost. Above all — real.
“You can still change your mind,” Lexa reminded, holding the car keys in her hand.
“And I’ve already put on my coat,” Clarke shot back shortly.
She picked up her phone and after a pause opened her messages. Then stopped and pressed the call button.
“Im, hi… Yes, it’s me. Don’t panic. I’m fine. Well… almost. Listen, I’m here…” she hesitated, “with Lexa. We’re going to the gallery. Just to see, a new exhibition.”
Lexa smirked slightly, but stayed silent.
“I wanted to ask, maybe you’ll come with us? Just… it won’t feel as heavy if you’re there.”
A pause on the other end. Then something short, warm. Clarke smiled a little.
“I understand. Then I’ll tell you later, okay? No, really, it’s calm. Yes. I promise. Thank you.”
She hung up and for a while just stood there, still holding the phone in her hand. Then tucked it into her pocket and looked at Lexa.
“She has a family dinner. But she said I already sounded like a person.”
“Then it’s worth celebrating,” Lexa answered softly. “Shall we?”
The sun slowly carved its way through the clouds as they drove onto the highway. First fields, then the suburbs, then the familiar dense gray of London: traffic lights, glass, reflections. The radio played softly in the background, jazz — unobtrusive, with brief ripples of saxophone that filled the pauses without breaking the silence.
Clarke gazed out the window, chin resting on her hand, occasionally typing something into her notes. As if she were just catching thoughts, keeping contact with herself.
“When you’re ready, just say,” Lexa said quietly as they turned toward St James’s.
“I already am,” Clarke answered just as softly.
The car came to a stop at the curb. Lexa got out first, walked around the hood, and opened her door. It had already become a ritual: not compulsion, not gallantry — an act of acknowledgment. You can walk out on your own, but I am here.
The gallery was built in a classical style with a touch of modernity: glass façade, white marble, thin lettering across the front. Inside, a cool light, reflections off smooth surfaces, the smell of paint, metal, and old wood. Everything breathed art and, at the same time, sterility.
Clarke stopped in the vestibule. Not like a person stepping into the unknown, but as if testing: would her body breathe here. Would it tighten in panic, choke on memories.
It didn’t.
“I’m fine,” she whispered. “For now.”
Lexa didn’t ask, Are you sure? She simply handed her the brochure at the entrance and moved toward the first hall.
And they entered. Not as two heroines at daggers drawn, not as the shadows of yesterday’s memories. But as two figures still learning to move side by side.
The first hall met them quietly. Only the muffled hum of voices somewhere off to the side, the rare echo of steps across marble floors, the faint creak of frames if one listened closely. The space itself seemed to hold its breath, the gallery alive in its slow, cold architecture, full of white light and shadows cutting away the excess.
Clarke walked a little behind. Not falling back, just moving slower on the inside. As if still testing whether the old trigger would fire: exhibition, white walls, scattered images. But her body obeyed, her heart beat evenly, only a slight chill in her palms.
“This is a temporary exhibition,” Lexa said quietly. “European artists of the last decade. Mostly young. Ambitious at times, shamelessly raw at others.”
She betrayed no emotion, simply moved forward, leading. But in her gaze was something that hadn’t been there before: careful attention. She wasn’t just looking at the art — she was watching how Clarke looked.
“I like this one,” Clarke said suddenly, stopping before a large canvas: ink stains against a dull pink background, harsh strokes like cuts and, at the same time, like a dance.
Lexa turned.
“—Aggression, tamed by texture. Fits you.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“It’s the truth.”
They fell silent. Clarke stepped closer, reading the plaque. The name was blurred, not immediately legible. Yet in the strokes, like in a familiar handwriting, there was something…
They moved on. The light shifted from hall to hall: colder in some, warmer in others, as if by accident. In the third, there was an installation: shards of metal, sawed-through books, charred pages, and a single yellow lamp hanging straight from the ceiling. Clarke stopped, tilting her head.
“What do you think?” Lexa asked.
“I think it’s too contrived.”
“Or too honest.”
“Or too familiar.”
Lexa turned, but Clarke was no longer looking at the lamp.
The fifth hall. More paintings. Rough textures. Black, white, splashes of dark burgundy. And then — it.
Clarke froze. Not at the painting itself, but a step before. Her gaze caught not the subject, but the handwriting. The brushstroke. The way the paint lay on the canvas. As if every gesture were familiar. Not just recognizable — intimate.
Like skin you once knew by heart. Like a voice heard through walls. Her breath faltered. She stepped closer. Slowly. Reading the signature, already knowing what it would say.
“S. Cale.”
No pseudonym. No borrowed name. Her real one. Sophie.
“Are you alright?” Lexa’s voice was beside her. Not pressing, but sharp in its reality.
Clarke didn’t answer right away. She stared at the painting as if into a mirror that suddenly reflected not herself.
You’re already managing, came back to her. But now everything was different.
Something inside her buckled. As if her spine ceased to be an axis. As if everything she had been building in the past days had been fitted under a mask and now ripped away.
Her shoulders clenched. A pulse hammered at her temples. But panic didn’t crash like a wave; it rose instead, thick, warm, sticky, but it didn’t melt her from within.
Lexa’s hand was there. Clarke didn’t think — she simply grabbed it. Not for rescue, but for a point.
Lexa didn’t flinch, only pressed her fingers lightly in return.
“It’s her,” Clarke breathed. “It’s her work. I know it.”
“Who?”
“Sophie.”
Lexa tilted her head slightly. Her brows flickered faintly. No anger, no surprise. Only the taut line of her jaw.
“The one?”
Clarke nodded. She was still holding, but her voice sounded muffled, as if through layers of cotton.
“She’s here. I can feel it.”
And at that very moment — a voice. From behind. Cold, like a flash against the skin.
“I hoped you’d come.”
Clarke froze. Slowly turned.
Sophie stood in the arch between halls. The light fell on her too precisely. As if she were part of the exhibition.
“And I hoped you wouldn’t dare.”
Clarke’s voice didn’t tremble, but inside something was already splintering.
Sophie stepped forward, unhurried, with that smoothness that had always seemed theatrical to Clarke. Shoulders straight, lips curved in a flawless half-smile. She looked as if this were her gallery, her evening, her triumph.
“You haven’t changed,” she said. “Still making dramatic entrances into spaces uninvited.”
Clarke froze. Everything in her tensed like before a jump: muscles, breath, eyes. Only her fingers still clung to Lexa’s hand until she noticed herself. She tore them away with a sharp jerk, as if burned.
“Not now,” she muttered. “Lexa, don’t. Leave.”
But Lexa didn’t move. She stood beside her. Closer than permissible. Eyes on Sophie, calm as before a trigger is pulled.
“Charming,” Sophie drawled, tilting her head. “You’ve even found yourself a bodyguard. Or is this… redemption?”
Clarke swayed slightly, not from the words, but the tone. Too much of the past in it. The unspoken. The dirt under fingernails after a fall. Sophie knew where to press. And did so effortlessly.
“Enough,” Clarke whispered, uncertain. She didn’t know whether she was saying it to Sophie or to herself.
“You still love to suffer in public,” Sophie went on. “It was always your strength. Never just pain. Always… spectacle. You wouldn’t have come otherwise.”
“I didn’t know you were here,” Clarke snapped.
Sophie smirked.
“Really? And the paintings hung themselves?”
Clarke stepped back. The stabbing in her chest came again, like before a scream. But Lexa stepped forward, not touching, just blocking part of Sophie’s view with her body.
“I think you should step away,” she said coldly.
Sophie laughed lightly, melodiously. As if she’d heard not a threat but a compliment.
“And you must be the famous Lexa she raved about in her sleep when she was out of her mind. Forgive me, I was there, but I don’t mind. Everyone has their ghosts.”
Lexa didn’t react. Didn’t even blink.
“And yet you remain that ghost,” she said evenly. “Only now you haunt yourself.”
Sophie narrowed her eyes.
“You think you’ve saved her?” Her voice dropped, steel beneath. “You have no idea who she is now. I’ve seen it closer than you ever will.”
“You saw what you yourself broke,” Lexa answered. “But it’s no longer yours.”
“It was never yours,” Sophie cut back.
Clarke shut her eyes. It was too much. Blow after blow, no pause. The air seemed to thicken into tar. The gallery vanished — only these voices remained, their faces, everything she wanted to forget.
“Stop,” she breathed. “Both of you.”
They paused only a second. Sophie stepped closer.
“You came yourself, Clarke. Which means part of you is still here. Inside all this. Inside me.”
Clarke flinched, and Lexa felt it instantly. She wanted to reach out, rest her hand on her shoulder, steady her. But Clarke recoiled sharply.
“Don’t touch me. I… I can’t.”
She didn’t look at them. She just turned and walked. First slowly, then faster. Through the hall. Past the people. Faces blurred.
Sophie watched her go. The smirk stayed.
“She still knows how to leave beautifully.”
Lexa remained standing. Her fingers clenched, but she didn’t follow at once. First she looked at Sophie.
“If you come near her again — I’ll find a way to make you forget how to pronounce her name.”
Sophie tilted her head, half-surprised, half-amused.
“What a threat. Do you always speak like in a theatre? Or is that just the burden of British breeding?”
“No,” Lexa stepped closer. “It’s the burden of choice. I’ve grown used to protecting what matters.”
Sophie’s smile thinned, snake-like.
“And you think you know what matters to her? How sweet. You know her within the bounds of propriety, of law, of sober mornings. I knew her crawling on the floor, sobbing, clawing the wallpaper. I saw her as you could never bear.”
Lexa’s gaze didn’t waver.
“You didn’t see her. You saw what was left beside you. And that’s not the same.”
Sophie stilled. Her lips trembled faintly, almost imperceptibly. Then she exhaled.
“And do you know what’s funniest?” Her voice softened, more dangerous. “She always came back. No matter how far she ran, no matter how she tried to escape the past. Because it’s in her. I am in her.”
“Then you should fear what she’s moving toward now,” Lexa cut her off.
Sophie’s laughter was short. No joy left in her face.
“You know what I love about you righteous girls? You always think love is salvation. That being there is enough. Sometimes being there is worse than leaving. Because you look at her like something fragile. And she’s not. She’s poison. And she’ll spill again, sooner or later. Onto you. And I’m immune.”
Lexa inhaled slowly, stepped right up to her. Only inches between them.
“Maybe she is poison. But you forgot — some of us know how to drink it. And live.”
Sophie didn’t answer at once. She only looked. Long. Almost studying.
“Interesting,” she finally said. “Will you still say that when you learn how much of me she still carries.”
“If anything of you remains in her…” Lexa leaned in slightly, barely moving her lips, “…I’ll burn it out.”
She turned without waiting for a reply. Shoulders straight, her stride swift but not fleeing. She pushed through the crowd, eyes locked on only one goal — the open door. Clarke’s trail.
Sophie stayed in the middle of the hall. Still the same — a statue on the pedestal of her own certainty. Only in the depths of her gaze, for a single breath, flickered something she would never name aloud.
Clarke didn’t know where she was running. Only away. Only to the air.
Her heels struck the floor with hollow thuds — glossy, slippery, flooded with light. People moved aside as if they sensed the tension in her body, the sparks in her gaze. She veered sharply left, then again, passing a hall with marble sculpture and canvases in the vein of postmodernism. Faces on the paintings blurred into smudges. Voices melted into noise.
Somewhere a glass clinked. Someone laughed.
Inside, it seethed. The sound of her heartbeat, the scream tearing out from within.
She burst into a narrow passage leading to the cloakroom, empty at this hour, no staff. It smelled of dust and perfume. The chill from the glass wall cut at her skin. Clarke stopped, braced her hands on the mirror, and simply… breathed. Deep. Ragged. Through her teeth.
Pupils wide. Forehead damp. Throat tight. A cold pit in her stomach.
Sophie. It was Sophie. It was her.
As if the past had come for her at the very moment she first tried to break free. As if someone had decided: no, you don’t deserve an exit. Not that easily.
She unclenched her fingers, looked into the reflection — and at first didn’t recognize herself.
Then… Behind her, in the glass — movement.
A moment, distorted, elusive. A shadow. A profile. Hair pinned up. A smile. Cold, familiar to the bone. From the clubs. From the apartment. From a memory that had been fog for too long.
Evie.
She couldn’t be here. She shouldn’t be here. But the body reacted before thought. Clarke’s heart seized, her breath broke.
She turned — no one. Empty.
But the trace remained. In the mirror, in her memory, in her muscles already tight with tension.
This can’t be. A glitch. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t.
But…
What if it was?
She stepped back, her head spinning. Was she really here? Was she watching? Or just memory. A ghost. A neurosis. A projection of panic.
But the scent of perfume lingered. That one she could never forget. Bitter, heavy, like dark wine.
And then it all blurred together.
Sophie. Evie. The hands that held. The voices that carved words into flesh. The scenes now left in snapshots. Everything came back. All at once. And from inside rose only one wish: to disappear.
She tore out of the cloakroom, grabbing her coat. Through the corridor. Past people. Through the crowd. Someone called her name, she didn’t register. A hand reached, she twisted away.
Just to the air. The cold. The sky.
The gallery door flung open with a groan. Outside smelled of petrol, damp grass, and freedom. The evening was gray-blue, the wind harsher than she wanted. She stumbled on the step, caught the railing, and without stopping went on. Across the courtyard. Toward the car park. To hell, even to the river. Just farther.
Her shoulders shook, but no tears came. Not one.
Only emptiness — not the kind from the morning, soft, but the kind that offered nothing to hold on to. Like ice underfoot. And it was already cracking.
The cold lashed her face, burned her hands. The street pulsed around her like a foreign organism: cars, noise, people. Clarke moved on autopilot, not watching where she stepped. As if her body moved apart from her mind, apart from the pain.
Her legs carried her away. As if distance itself could slip her out of all this: the past, the panic, herself. But the street didn’t end. It only stretched. Longer. Wider.
She turned a corner, pressed her side against a stone wall. Counted to ten without breathing. Then inhaled sharply, choking on it. Her chin trembled, her teeth clenched so hard her jaw ached.
No one followed. No one called after her. And still she knew, she felt. Her skin itched with the gaze that wasn’t there. Her back burned. Anxiety pooled inside like poison, with nowhere to go.
Clarke shoved her hands into her coat pockets. And froze.
Her fingers touched something soft. Not hers. Not meant to be there. Impossible.
Slowly, she drew it out, heart pounding so violently it echoed in her chest.
A blue velvet box. That one.
She remembered Evie holding it on her palm in the club, that night when laughter was louder than fear. When it still felt like choice. When she laughed, not knowing it would be a chain.
The ring. Silver band with a dark stone. The words whispered into her ear: “I owned you. And you never even noticed.”
She hadn’t taken it. She didn’t even know where it had gone. And now it was here again. In her pocket.
She had been here. Not a mirage. Not a glitch. She had. She had come close. Closer than she should. Closer than permitted.
Clarke froze like prey catching a predator’s scent. Her fingers crushed the velvet. The air thickened like water, the city fading like a mute dream.
Thoughts scattered. The gallery. The paintings. Sophie. Evie. Lexa. Memories, fragments, pain, perfume, the ring, hands, breath, hands, breath.
Clarke suddenly wrenched the box from her hand and threw it. But it didn’t fly far — it landed near, clattering against stone, bouncing once. The lid flipped open. The ring in place.
Something inside her snapped off its chain.
She grabbed at her temples. Staggered. Inhaled. Again. Again. Not to fall. Not to curl up. Not to scream. Not to scream. If she screamed — everything would burst.
She touched me. While I wasn’t looking. While I… was open.
She tried to breathe through her nose, counting the way Thea had taught her in Valencia. She remembered her words clearly: come back into your body. But the body refused. Her fingers shook. Her legs gave way. She leaned on the wall, even stone seemed to waver.
And then she heard footsteps.
At first she thought she’d imagined them. But they were real. Steady, sure. Not loud, but insistent. Approaching. One after another. Pause. Then again. Her heart was already pounding in her throat, her vision darkening from strain.
She didn’t know who it was. She couldn’t turn.
If it’s Evie — I won’t survive.
If it’s Lexa — I still don’t know how to breathe.
She pressed herself to the wall like salvation. Her body shook, but her eyes locked. On the ring lying on the stone like a dare.
Only one choice left: pick it up or turn away.
The footsteps drew nearer.
And with each step, the question hammered harder:
Where does fear end and reality begin?
The steps grew sharper, closer. No longer just sound — weight in the air, rhythm in her chest. And before Clarke could choose — the ring or the flight — a figure stood before her.
Lexa.
She simply appeared like a shadow, like a wall, like breath against her face. And in the next moment, she wrapped her arms around her.
No words. No warning. Just held her. Arms locked tight, like a clasp. Chest to chest, chin in hair. Her breathing steady, calm, real, enveloping Clarke like an anchor. Clarke jerked, tried reflexively to pull away, but Lexa only tightened her hold, as if her very body meant to drown out the storm.
“I’m here,” she whispered. “That’s all. I’m here.”
Clarke writhed, but didn’t break free. Her hands stayed at her sides, fists clenched, strung tight as wires. Her lips trembled, her breath ragged.
“Go… don’t look…” she muttered through her teeth, weakly trying to twist away.
“Too late,” Lexa answered, barely audible. “I already am.”
Her voice wasn’t tender. It was sharp, firm, restrained. But it was exactly what held Clarke. Not sympathy. Not pity. Solidity.
She trembled all over, and suddenly the tears came, almost silent. They just ran, unending. From her eyes, from her throat, from her chest where everything had boiled.
“I can’t…” she gasped. “It’s all again. Again… them. I don’t know where I am. Lexa, I… I’m broken.”
She tried to twist out, to break free. Once. Twice.
“Don’t look. Don’t… see me like this.”
But Lexa didn’t let go. Not a millimeter.
“I don’t see you as ‘like this,’” she said firmly. “I’m just holding you.”
She could feel Clarke’s heart pounding in a vicious, predatory rhythm, like a bullet trapped in flesh. And she wanted to take it on herself. All those beats. Split them apart, scatter them. So Clarke could breathe again.
She didn’t know how. But she knew she must.
You can’t let her go again.
The thought hammered her temples. She hadn’t come then, when it all began. When Clarke had fallen, disappeared, drowned in someone else. When it had only just begun — in snapshots that shouldn’t exist. In words someone had lodged into her ears. In the ring now lying at their feet.
Lexa saw it.
The ring. In its velvet box, open, almost glowing under the streetlamp. The stone staring like an eye. Dark, glassy, calling.
It was her. She had touched her again. While you were here. While you suspected nothing.
Lexa felt rage burn under her skin, like a live wire. But not now. Not the time.
Her focus stayed only on Clarke. On her breath. On her trembling fingers. On her hair, tangled, her skin pale as glass.
“I… I need to leave,” Clarke muttered. “Home. Alone. I’ll… I’ll call a cab. I need…”
“No,” Lexa cut in. Quiet, but absolute. “I’ll take you.”
“Lexa, no… please, don’t. You don’t have to see this.”
“I already do. I have for a long time.”
Clarke sagged slightly, as if something in her gave way. Not broken, but no longer resisting.
“It was the ring…” she breathed. “It… she. She touched me. I didn’t even feel it.”
“I know,” Lexa said.
Clarke flinched.
“You couldn’t have known.”
“No,” Lexa pressed her closer. “But I feel it.”
They stood as if the whole city had vanished. Only two figures pressed to a gray wall, in an alley where no one heard but the wind.
The wind lifted Clarke’s hair and threw it across Lexa’s face.
You cannot let her go alone. Not tonight. Not tomorrow.
She leaned back half a step, looked into her eyes. Careful, slow, but firm.
“Come on. The car’s close. You’ll just sit. You don’t need to say anything.”
Clarke nodded, barely visible. Lexa took her hand — slowly, deliberately — and led her.
The apartment greeted her with silence. Nestled in corners, clinging to curtains, absorbed into the walls. Clarke stepped inside slowly. Every movement felt as though against resistance: taking off her coat, setting down her shoes, turning off the light in the hall.
Her shoulders were lowered, her body saturated with exhaustion, yet inside there was unrest — the street still vibrated there, Sophie’s voice, Evie’s shadow. The faint prickling under her skin lingered, like after a burn.
She walked into the kitchen. Poured water. Took a swallow. Tipped the glass into the sink.
Clarke switched on the light in the living room. The space at once felt foreign. The table. The books. The candle burned down from the night before. The pillow, crushed. All hers. And yet — as if no longer for her.
She lowered herself onto the couch like onto the edge of something unstable. Legs tucked beneath her, arms drawn into her sweater. Her jaw ached from tension. She clenched her fists and closed her eyes.
Just one night. One night to survive.
She tried not to think about the gallery. About the ring. About Sophie’s voice. About the face in the mirror that could not have been there. About the touch — or its illusion. About the velvet box she had thrown, but didn’t know if it still lay where it fell.
She rose. Went to the bathroom. Washed her face. It felt cold, foreign. The face of someone who was afraid again to open her eyes.
She came back. Checked the lock. Then checked it again.
Sat down on the floor, hugging her knees. Back against the couch, silence. Only the hum of the fridge in the distance.
Her phone buzzed. One short vibration. The screen lit up.
Clarke didn’t look right away, as if something inside already knew, but her fingers reached on their own.
+44 (unknown number)
A message.
[+44…] You left your gift. Have you really forgotten how you begged me to put it on you?
Her heart skipped a beat, then dropped. As if the ground had slid half a meter down beneath her.
She read the message again. And again.
“…begged me to put it on you.”
Every word — a scalpel. Smooth, precise. Right along the seam.
Clarke didn’t remember how she had taken the phone in both hands. The screen trembled. Or her fingers. Or everything.
It wasn’t flirtation. Not provocation. Not even malice. The message was power. Predatory — as if Evie had never left at all. As if she had only hidden in the dark, waiting for Clarke to turn her head. To remind her: you belong.
You begged me…
Clarke shut her eyes. Her fingers clenched. Pulse hammering in her temples. Fear not like panic — fear like a quiet poison. No noise. No words. Just her body ceasing to believe it was free.
She shot to her feet. Abrupt. Recoiled from the couch as if the apartment itself were infected. The phone slipped to the floor. Its screen still glowing. One line.
Clarke breathed fast. Inhale. Exhale. But the breath didn’t help; everything around her tightened into a shrinking circle.
She knows where I am. She was near.
And worst of all, part of her believed the words. As if yes, she had begged. As if she had allowed. And now — who was she at all?
Clarke squeezed her eyes shut. Her skin knew: fear would not pass. Not tonight.