Evelyn didn't let me walk alone to my room, despite my protests that I could walk myself but I think it's my own fault. She signaled Kaito to escort me up the stairs while she followed closely behind, her eyes never leaving me and she never leaved my head.
Once inside my room, the room that felt like a beautifully decorated cell, feels now more like home again I guess. She dismissed Kaito with a silent nod and began to strip the damp, mud stained clothes from my body with a clinical, shivering efficiency. She didn't say a word but her touch was firm, not bruising and she were checking every inch of my skin to ensure Yoshikage hadn't left a single mark.
>>"He touched your wrist here..."<<
She whispered and her thumb pressing into the reddened skin where his grip had been.
>>"I can still see the shadow of his fingers."<<
She dressed me in a clean, silk nightgown that smelled so of her lavender as always. Then, she tucked me into bed and pulled the blanket up to my chin and smoothing it out with precision.
>>"You're safe now, Rin. The walls are thick, the locks are engaged and I am here. This time I don't let you leave again"<<
Instead of leaving, Evelyn sits down on a chair right to the edge of my bed. She sat down, her silhouette illuminated only by the faint glow of the moon through the curtains.
>>"Go to sleep a lot has happened and you need sleep."<<
She commanded softly and gentle, so I ones and closed my eyes but sleep was a distant country I couldn't reach. Every time I drifted, I saw the white phosphorus smoke and the red glow of Tokasan's eyes but more than that, I felt Evelyn. I could hear her breathing so slow, steady, and patient.
Hours passed, at some point I felt the mattress shift. Evelyn fell asleep with me and subconsciously laid her head on the bed, sleeping half sitting and I stroke her head gentle, I think she is not that bad. I think I misjudged and misunderstood her.
The morning light filtered through the heavy curtains, painting pale golden stripes across the carpet and I woke up to the feeling of a weight on my legs and Evelyn was still there. She hadn't moved back to her own room during the night, her head was resting on the edge of my mattress, her breathing shallow and quiet in sleep.
For a moment, in the soft dawn, the nightmare of the quarry felt like a blur and I looked down at her, her usual sharp, calculating expression was gone, replaced by a vulnerability that only sleep could bring. My hand moved on its own, my fingers lightly brushing a strand of hair from her face, I was awake before her and it seemed she herself haven't sleeped much.
She stirred and her eyes snapped open, not slowly but with the instant alertness of someone who is always on guard. When she realized it was my hand on her head, she didn't pull away and her stiffness eased, she leaned into my touch, a small, tired smile tugging at the corners of her lips. I began to have the feeling that she has many experienced too, this reflexes are not from anywhere, she is marked for her life like me.
>>"You're awake"<<
She whispered and her voice raspy from sleep, she reached up and took my hand.
>>"Why didn't you wake me up? Do you wanted to leave again?"<<
Her eyes narrowed and she seemed almost disappointed.
I looked away, I started to feel a strange guilt.
>>"I have nowhere else to go, Evelyn."<<
>>"And you never will have to"<<
She replied and her tone shifting back to that firm, absolute certainty, she stood slowly up, smoothing out her clothes and the vulnerable version of her vanished instantly.
>>"Kaito has prepared breakfast and after that, we have work to do. Yoshikage left something behind in the forest a message. Not for me but for you and since you know everything and you are fully involved I don't have to hold back anything from you."<<
My heart skipped a beat, the name Yoshikage still felt like a cold needle in my chest.
>>"A message?"<<
>>"He is arrogant, Rin. He thinks he is still your teacher and he thinks he can reach into my house and continue to shape your mind and he thinks wrong."<<
Evelyn walked to the window and pulled the curtains wide, the sudden light blinding me for a second and continued.
>>"And he's about to learn that I don't share my pupils. Especially not the ones I love."<<
She turned back to me and her eyes are glowing with that intense light from feelings.
>>"Go get dressed. I'll be waiting for you in the study. It's time you see what the world looks like when you stop being the prey and start being the one who holds the lens and don't even think about climbing outside my dear."<<
I watched her leave the room and her silhouette sharp against the morning light. She said: "Don't even think about climbing outside" she didn't need to lock the door or to worry, I never want to leave again. Not after what happens.
I dressed in the clothes she had laid out and I avoided looking at the window, I didn't want to see the trees or the sky and I didn't want to be reminded of the freedom that had almost killed me.
When I entered the study the air was cool and Evelyn was sitting behind a massive oak desk but she wasn't looking at paperwork, she was staring at a small clear plastic bag and Inside was a single, withered camellia flower with a small hand written note on parchment.
>>"He left it at the edge of the quarry"<<
Evelyn said and her voice dropping to a dangerous whisper.
>>"Kaito found it pinned to a tree with a thumbtack. He wanted you to find it, Rin. He knew my people would find it first, since I don't want to have secrets and I want to be honest with you, I show it to you."<<
She slid the bag across the desk toward me and my hands shook as I picked it up. The handwriting was elegant and perfect the script of a man who valued precision above all else.
"A masterpiece is never finished, only abandoned and i haven't abandoned you, Rin. I am simply waiting for the ink to dry and see you in the next lesson."
The words felt like ice water down my spine. He wasn't gone, he is watching, he is grading us.
>>"He's playing with us, with me"<<
I whispered and the withered flower looking like a dead heart inside the plastic.
>>"He's playing with us, with Kaito and Tokasa and me"<<
Evelyn corrected while standing up and walking around the desk, she placed her hands on my shoulders, her grip firm and possessive.
>>"He thinks he can use you to get to me but he also thinks your fear is a bridge he can walk across."<<
She turned me around to face the wall of monitors, the screens flickered, showing different rooms of the house and romms I didn't recognize.
The screens showed every hallway, every corner of the kitchen, the entrance to the basement and the stillness of the library. My own bedroom was there too, visible from an angle that made it look like a dollhouse. Evelyn cared the most about the house but about the world outside too. She mostly cared about what was within these walls and to her, the house was the world that mattered the most to because I was in it.
>>"Look at the perimeter feeds, Rin"<<
Evelyn whispered, pointing to the screens showing the internal side of the windows and doors.
>>"He thinks he can slip back in and thinks he knows the layout of my heart but he underestimate me."<<
She stepped closer to the console, her fingers dancing over the keys.
>>"Kaito and Tokasan stay in the shadows but they can't be everywhere at once. These cameras are my eyes when I am not with you and now, they will be yours."<<
I stared at the screen showing the long, dark hallway leading to my room and It looked so different on camera colder, more clinical.
>>"Yoshikage left that note at the quarry to prove he could get close"<<
Evelyn continued, her voice hardening.
>>"But he won't get past these doors, never. I want you to learn the rhythm of this house, every creak of the floorboards, every shadow that moves when the wind hits the trees outside. If anything...anything... looks different than it does right now, you tell me."<<
I realized then that she wasn't just protecting me from Yoshikage, she was training me to be as hyper vigilant as she was. She wanted us to be two mirrors reflecting each other.
>>Why only inside?"<<
I asked softly and my voice barely a whisper.
>>"Why don't you watch the street? The school?"<<
Evelyn turned to me and her eyes softening into that terrifyingly sweet gaze again. She reached out and tucked a stray hair behind my ear and her hand lingering on my neck.
>>"Because the outside world is chaotic and Kaito and Tokasan are my Eyes and ears outside, my sweet Rin. They are better than any Camera and when you are outside again, one of the two of them are now in your shadows to have you safe."<<
She sat me down in the oversized chair and feeled small and swallowed by the chair of the room, I realized how small I am.
As the blue light of the monitors reflected in my eyes, the small Rin who used to draw flowers felt further away than ever began to watch the black and white footage of myself, pacing my room, waiting for a man who had ultimately betrayed me.
The hunt had begun, but the prey was already inside the cage.
I watched myself on the screen, the girl in the grainy black and white footage looked so fragile and so desperate for the window to open. I saw the way I had checked the clock, the way I had touched the glass waiting for Yoshikage like he was a savior.
Seeing it from the outside made me feel a sudden, sharp spike of shame I looked like a puppet whose strings were visible to everyone but me, I feel so ashamed and Unwell.
>>"Look at your posture there"<<
Evelyn whispered and leaned over the back of the chair, her arms encircling me without quite touching me.
>>"See how you lean toward the darkness? He groomed you to seek the cold, Rin. He wanted you to feel lonely so that his wannabe lessons would be the only light you had."<<
I leaned back into the chair, feeling the heavy chair swallow me.
>>"I was a fool... Right...?"<<
>>"No"<<
Evelyn corrected and her voice dropping to a low, melodic hum.
>>"You were a masterpiece in progress, he just didn't have the right to finish the work."<<
She tapped a button and the screen froze on the moment I had climbed out the window.
>>"Kaito and Tokasan have already secured the grounds If a single blade of grass is stepped on tonight, we will know but I want you to look at the shadows in the hallway outside your room."<<
She pointed to a small monitor showing the corridor.
>>"Tokasan is there now, can you see her?"<<
I squinted, the hallway looked empty and the carpet was still and all the doors closed.
>>"No, there's no one there."<<
>>"Exactly, It should be so invisible that you won't see it."<<
Evelyn smiled and I could feel the pride in her voice.
>>"That is your next lesson, Safety isn't just about what you can see, it's about knowing what is hidden. Tonight, Tokasan will teach you the Rhythm of the Walls. You will learn to tell the difference between the house settling and a moment that doesn't belong."<<
She stood up and held out her hand.
>>"But first, breakfast. You need your strength, Rin. The girl who paced that room is gone, the girl who watches and learn is all that remains."<<
I took her hand and her skin was warm a sharp contrast to what I feel before, as we walked out of the study, I didn't look back at the screens I didn't need to. I knew they were watching me and for the first time, the thought didn't make me want to run.
It made me feel... chosen.