Clara
I park the car in the driveway and sigh in relief as I see fewer cars in the driveway now. Uncle's family has finally left.
As soon as I shut the car door, I hear something break inside the house. Along with alot of yelling.
What was that?
I burst through the front door and towards the living room, where the noise is coming from, my eyes scanning the scene before me.
My mother stands at the center of the living room. Her eyes are wild, her features twisted in fury. In one hand, she clutches a broken green wine bottle, its jagged edges glittering in the amber light.
My gaze darts to Lily. She's on her knees, hands planted on the floor to steady herself. Blood drips down from a fresh gash on her forehead, trailing down her temple.
I take a step forward, my voice barely above a whisper. "What...what's going on?" The words feel inadequate, insufficient to convey the horror that's freezing my heart.
My Mom's head jerks toward me. Her eyes lock onto mine.
Without warning, she hurls the bottle at me.
I gasp and throw my arms up to shield my head, eyes squeezing shut—but the bottle slams into the wall beside me instead. It shatters into shards that rain to the ground with a crash.
Lily's eyes finally lift to mine. There's something there. A silent message. Desperation. A plea. But I can't read it. Can't make sense of anything.
Then mother's voice cuts through it all—sharp, venomous, each word dripping with rage.
"You—undisciplined," she growls, storming toward me. My feet won't move. "Ungrateful brat!" Her hand strikes me across the face. The world spins for a second, my cheek stinging as my head whips to the side.
"Running out of the house, without informing me where you are going. The nerve." She says as she grabs my arm.
"I'm... sorry. I did tell Auntie to inform you, and she said she would. I was just in a hurry at the time," I answer, trying to maintain my composure, even as the sting of her slap pulses across my cheek.
But in that moment, I realize I've made a grave miscalculation.
That my aunt hates me. For being born while she had to suffer a miscarriage. She's usually so reserved and avoids me that I always forget this simple fact.
"Liar!" Mom snaps as she runs a hand down her face. "She didn't say anything to me. Do you know what I had to listen to in front of everyone while she walked out of that entrance? She said she wanted to say goodbye to you—but you weren't in your room. That your car was missing, and the driver was still at home. That you must've snuck out."
Her teeth clench, her jaw twitching.
"That wench questioned my parenting skills!" she screams, and I flinch so hard my spine curls in on itself. All I want is to run again. Run far, far away.
"I went to meet Zach," I blurt out, reaching for anything—anything—that will change the course of her rage.
Her eyes narrow into daggers. "Why? Why now?"
"He wanted to talk about our assignment," I reply quickly. "He'd been calling for half an hour. I was in the shower and didn't realize... I'd kept him waiting, so I rushed over—"
I lie. I lie with every inch of strength I have left, trying to sound calm.
She stares at me like she can see the lie peeling away from my skin.
"Lily. Leave us." she says suddenly, not taking her eyes off me.
"Of course," she murmurs, nodding with a wince.
"Wait," I say, catching sight of the dried blood on his temple. "Please get that treated." She gives a subtle smile and walks away.
"I really don't like how you're behaving these days, Clara." Mom says as she glares at me. "You're losing all that progress you made. The effort to be the best. You're reverting back to square one."
Her eyes are filled with a deep-seated disgust. I know that look, that tone—it's the same one she's used on me countless times before, the same one that's left me feeling unworthy.
In other words, she regrets taking me in. The defective one that doesn't seem to fit in.
I stand, frozen in the glare of her disapproval. I feel like I'm shrinking, dwindling away to nothing. My confidence, my self-worth—everything good I felt tonight at the party and afterwards is being slowly drained away, leaving me a hollow, empty shell.
"Why do you make it so hard for me?" She insists. "Why can't you be like me? Like us?"
I don't answer. Just stare at the floor. Sometimes silence is safer.
A sharp tapping breaks through the tension. Tap. Tap. Tap. We both turn toward the window. Two crows are pecking at the glass, their heads jerking with every strike. Cawing loudly. Persistent. Urgent.
My eyes go round.
Lev?
But Mom doesn't care. She sighs, turning back to me. "And now you're forcing me to punish you like I did when you were a bad child. It's humiliating for both of us."
Before I can react, her hand twists into my hair and yanks. I cry out in shock as she drags me forward, my legs struggling to keep up. "Stop! Please—Mom! I said I'm sorry!"
She ignores me. The crows screech louder, tapping harder. I can hear the glass quivering with each strike.
She's dragging me upstairs to my room. I glance up to see my father watching us from the first floor. "Dad!" I call out, only for him to turn away, retreating back into the shadows. I'm not surprised, though. I should have known better than to expect help from him when he never did it before.
My mother's grip tightens on my scalp as she hauls me into my room. I barely have time to process what I'm seeing before she drags me toward the bed.
There's a chain.
A really thick chain attached to the bedpost. She pushes me down, and the mattress sinks beneath me. I feel the cold snap of the shackle locking around my ankle.
"I didn't want to do this," she says calmly, as if she's the victim. "But you forced me to."
Then the door shuts behind her. The lock clicks. And I'm alone.
Well...atleast this'll be better than tying my wrist to the bed. Comfortable. And would still prevent the sleepwalking.
I close my eyes. Let out a slow breath that trembles at the edges. My hand reaches blindly for the little music box on my nightstand—Alister's gift. Small, yet heavier than any treasure I own. The only fragment of comfort in this house of cold walls and colder hearts.
I don't know why it still hurts. Why it still surprises me—being treated like this.
Maybe some small, stupid part of me still believes in fairy tales. In the idea that parents are supposed to love their children. That if you try hard enough, they'll finally look at you and see you. But here, that ember of hope is drowned daily in ice. That is the truth.
I sigh and shake my head, urging myself to remember the thrill I felt today, at the party, with everyone, and focus on the tiny spinning ballerina as the sound of Swan Lake fills the air.
It's ridiculous—how much this trinket matters to me. How much he matters to me. I don't want it to, and yet the thought keeps pressing in, insistent as the music. He shouldn't be the one I lean towards in the dark. He shouldn't be the one I think of when everything else crumbles.
And yet… he is. My conversation with Zach confirmed what I suspected.
I glance at the rose-gold ring on my finger. One of the matching pairs. It didn't mean anything when I bought it for us. It was a joke, and I wanted to tease him. To watch him get flustered.
I wish I could still think of this as a joke. I can pretend it's nothing. But the truth is heavier, more dangerous. My chest tightens whenever he's near; my guard falters in ways I swore it never would.
I know what this is. I know where it's leading.
Tap.
My head jerks up. That sound again. The crows?
I turn slowly toward the window, expecting black feathers and glinting eyes. But what I see makes my breath catch in my throat.
A small object is hovering in the air, knocking gently on the glass. It's...a white paper crane. And it's moving.
Not drifting on the wind, not caught in some strange breeze—no, it flaps its wings, taps its pointed beak against the glass.
It looks almost sentient.
I slowly get up, but the chain snaps taut, yanking hard against my ankle. I grunt in frustration, my fingers curling into fists. Reaching up, I pull a bobby pin from my hair and work the pin into the lock. After a few minutes, the shackle falls open.
I tiptoe towards the window. The paper crane still waits, its wings fluttering gently, its beak tapping in rhythm—as though it knows I'm coming.
It wants in.
I hesitate, hand hovering over the latch. But my curiosity is louder.
As soon as I open the window, the crane rushes in with a sudden gust and darts straight toward me. I stumble back in surprise.
It hovers there, flapping gently in front of me, before it dips lower, settling softly into my outstretched palm.
I barely have time to marvel at it before the folds begin to shift. Right before my eyes, the paper crane begins to unfold itself, layer by layer, like a blooming flower in reverse.
An ability that can manipulate paper...
Someone sent this. Someone knows where I am.
When the last fold falls away, I'm left holding a crinkled sheet. I stare at the words scribbled across it. A list of street names. Each one familiar. And scribbled beneath the last line, just two words:
Avoid them.