The intercom crackled again, a harsh, impatient sound that grated on Elara's already frayed nerves. She glanced at the security panel by the door, a sleek, modern contraption that felt utterly at odds with the raw, almost primitive energy thrumming in her studio. The screen showed a grainy, black-and-white image of two figures huddled together on her doorstep, their faces obscured by the angle and the poor lighting of the early morning.
Her brow furrowed. Delivery services knew her strict protocols: packages left with the building concierge, no direct contact. Her dealer, Julian, always called her private line, never just appeared. This was… unexpected. And unwelcome.
With a sigh of resignation, Elara pressed the talk button. "Yes?" Her voice was huskier than usual, rough from sleep and the lingering residue of the nightmare.
"Elara? Darling, is that you?"
The voice, thin and reedy, laced with an anxiety that vibrated even through the cheap speaker, was instantly recognizable. Her mother. Clarissa Vance.
Elara's hand tightened on the console, her knuckles white. A cold knot formed in her stomach, a sensation far more unpleasant than the phantom throb of her scar. It had been… how long? Six months since their last stilted phone call? A year since she'd physically laid eyes on them? Time tended to blur when one actively avoided its passage, or at least, the passage of certain people within it.
"Mother," she said, her tone flat, devoid of any discernible emotion. "What are you doing here? It's barely dawn."
"Oh, Elara, please," a second voice interjected, deeper, but equally strained. Richard Vance. Her father. His usual booming confidence was conspicuously absent, replaced by a note that sounded suspiciously like panic. "We have to talk to you. It's… it's desperately important."
Desperately important. The words hung in the air, heavy with unspoken implications. Her parents didn't do "desperately important" unless it directly threatened their carefully curated world of social standing and precarious finances. The last time something had been "desperately important," it had involved a distant aunt's inheritance and a rather unseemly squabble over antique silver.
Elara hesitated. Every instinct screamed at her to refuse, to tell them to go away, to preserve the sanctity of her solitude. This loft was her fortress, built brick by brick, shadow by shadow, to keep the outside world, and particularly their world, at bay. But the raw desperation in their voices, the sheer unlikelihood of them appearing on her industrial SoHo doorstep at such an hour, pricked at a deeply buried, almost forgotten filament of… something. Not concern, precisely. More like a morbid curiosity, the kind that makes one slow down to look at an accident on the motorway.
"The concierge has a key for emergencies," she said finally, her voice still cool. "Let yourselves in. I'll buzz you up to the floor." She wasn't about to go down there, to face them on the street. Let them come to her, into her space. On her terms. As much as possible, anyway.
She released the talk button before they could reply, then pressed the sequence of codes that would grant them access to the private elevator. The soft whir of the lift ascending was a countdown, each floor it passed a tick closer to an intrusion she already regretted.
Quickly, she moved through the studio, her eyes scanning the space. The bust, the raw embodiment of her nightmare, still stood on its pedestal, its sculpted eyes seeming to follow her. With a swift movement, she grabbed a heavy canvas drop cloth and draped it over the piece, obscuring it from view. Her parents wouldn't understand. They never understood her art, seeing it only in terms of its market value, its potential to enhance their reflected glory.
She retreated to the small, functional kitchen area, her back to the studio, and filled the electric kettle, her movements precise, almost robotic. A cup of tea. Something to hold. Something to do with her hands.
The elevator chimed its arrival, the doors sighing open. Footsteps followed, hesitant at first, then quickening as they crossed the polished concrete towards her. Elara didn't turn. She focused on the rising steam from the kettle, the click as it switched off.
"Elara."
Her mother's voice was closer now, right behind her. Elara could smell the faint, cloying scent of her signature Chanel No. 5, a fragrance that always seemed to be battling with the underlying aroma of anxiety and hairspray.
Slowly, she turned.
Clarissa and Richard Vance looked… diminished. That was the only word for it. Her mother, usually so impeccably coiffed and made up, even for a trip to the corner market, looked as though she hadn't slept in days. Her expensive silk blouse was rumpled, her eyes wide and bloodshot behind her designer glasses. Dark circles, like bruises, pooled beneath them. Her father, a man who typically exuded an air of robust, if somewhat blustery, self-importance, seemed to have shrunk. His shoulders were slumped, his usually ruddy complexion was pale, and his hand, Elara noticed, trembled slightly as he clutched a worn leather briefcase to his chest as if it were a life raft.
Their desperation, hinted at through the intercom, was now laid bare, a raw, palpable thing that filled the minimalist space of her kitchen. It was unsettling to see them like this, stripped of their usual artifice.
"Tea?" Elara offered, her voice surprisingly steady. It was a ridiculous question, given the circumstances, but it was all she could manage.
Clarissa just stared at her, her lower lip trembling. "Oh, Elara," she whispered, her gaze fixed on the left side of Elara's face, on the scar that was usually artfully concealed when she deigned to venture into their world. Today, Elara hadn't bothered with makeup. "My poor girl."
Elara stiffened. That pitying tone. It was the one she despised above all others.
"We need your help, Anya," Richard blurted out, using the name the world knew her by, the name that wasn't truly hers, but the one that represented success, and therefore, to him, a resource. His eyes darted around the loft, taking in the vastness, the obvious expense of it all. "It's… it's a matter of survival. For all of us."
Survival. The word, so stark, so final, echoed the earlier "desperately important." The knot in Elara's stomach tightened. This was far more than antique silver. This had the metallic taste of genuine fear.
The gilded summons had been delivered. And Elara had a sickening feeling that the carefully constructed peace of her phantom-pain-filled nights was about to be shattered far more thoroughly than by any nightmare.