Daybreak (Sorrowsong University, #2) — Chapter no 3

Chapter 3

OPHELIA

Stalk me once, shame on you. Stalk me twice, and clearly, I must be a

fucking idiot or something.

Or however the saying goes.

I don’t understand how I’ve managed to be stalked twice in one year.

I’m the kind of person who has to hype myself up in a mirror to tell the barista I got the wrong drink. I cry at kids’ movies. How is it me who ends up with the stalkers? Belladonna punched someone who looked at her funny at a party last week, and to my knowledge, she’s not being stalked.

Another crack of thunder reverberates through the castle, dragging me back to the present. Divya lets out a stomach-churning yodel, and the cocktail glasses on the gold bar cart chatter in time with the flickering lights. Colette shoves a sofa cushion over my head like she’s trying to finish me off. Her friend Magda lets out a tuneful hum.

Their attempts to distract me from the thunder are working, but probably not for the reasons they think they are; I’m genuinely fearing for my life, too scared to even think about helicopters as Colette mashes the velvet tighter against my ears.

“Are you feeling better yet?” she demands, her voice muffled.

“I can’t fucking breathe!” I screech.

“Oh, sorry.” She eases the pressure on the cushion, and I heave in a grateful breath. My laugh is buried in the stiff fabric.

The article about Alex’s family going live may have sent so much of my life into chaos, but it’s tied what few friendships I do have closer. Divya and I whittle away our evenings studying in the library in companionable

silence, and Colette’s best friend, Magda, has become one of my best friends, too.

After the bomb exploded between me and Alex and fractured the delicate thing we were building, I did what I’ve only ever been able to do.

Withdraw. Isolate myself. Deprive myself of human connection because how could loneliness ever be worse than the pain of losing someone you thought was here to stay?

I’m never one to miss a good opportunity to wallow, and man, did I wallow. Like, crying into my dry bowl of cereal and listening to sad music just to make myself cry harder. Scurrying across the floor like a greasy orange sewer rat to collect the snacks that Divya left outside my door but refusing to let her in. That sort of wallowing.

But my new friends are not so easily dissuaded, and when Colette’s thousand-dollar ankle boot snuck in the door before I could close it on the fourth day, I knew I was done for.

A nutritionally balanced meal and a tipsy pep talk later, I told my new friends everything. I told them about my parents, about Bancroft, about Cain Green. I told them why I could never get on a plane, why the sound of the helicopter terrifies me, and why thunder crashing in the valley makes me think of my parents’ death.

I told them I felt like Alex leaving was one thing too many, that it hurt me so much I didn’t think I could survive it.

By the end, all three of them were sobbing with me. And since then, by the time the first flash of lighting illuminates Sorrowsong’s crumbling walls and well-buried secrets, they’re already at my bedroom door, armed with snacks and blankets. Which, when you’re as well-acquainted with the Highlands’ storm warnings and howling winds as we are, is serious dedication. Every frantic run from the castle’s walls to the mansion feels

like a deadly trial.

And yet, they think I’m worth it.

For the first time, I find myself with fledgling friendships, delicate roots finding their place in my broken heart and filling up the smallest cracks.

I’m desperate not to damage them.

Alex’s absence gnaws a gaping hole in my chest every day, but there are people looking out for me. I’m getting to know the reflection in the mirror.

I’m learning what she likes, what she’s passionate about. I’m learning her

insecurities and her dreams and all the other things she put on pause for five years.

I see the next flash of lightning through the pillow, and when Colette finally removes it from my face, the power is out. The lush amber curtains and art deco wallpaper of the Cortinar halls are cloaked in dim candlelight.

“Fuck this weather,” I mumble, letting out a heavy exhale that has me sinking farther into the soft velvet of the sofa.

“Fuck this weather,” the three of them echo, in perfect unison.

“And fuck this group chat,” I add, phone open on one of the many group chats I was advised to join “because they’re a great way to network,” like having an oil tycoon’s son on speed dial is something that’ll come in handy for me.

With his good looks, online speculation of how badly his father treated him, various paparazzi images of him dropping his sisters off at school in his rugby shorts, and Green’s rallying economic performance, Alex has become somewhat of a national treasure. And people love to talk about it, which unfortunately means everyone hates me. More messages ping through in the Sorrowsong first years group.

Annabelle Young Apparently a guy in second year is missing

Lawrence Carlisle Someone check Ophelia Winters’s hard drive.

Rose Hanover Lol. Or under her bed.

Lawrence Carlisle He’s probably in the trunk of her car with Sofia Ivanov.

The inside of my cheek bleeds from how hard I have it clamped between my teeth. I want to march into lecture halls and scream at them, but that won’t help my case.

Tabby Jones You think she can afford a car?

Gabriel Bristol Careful, Lawrence, she’ll dig up your private affairs and sell them to the press.

Lawrence Carlisle Anything for a few dollars, right, @Ophelia Winters?

“Ophelia,” Colette scolds, snatching my phone away to close the app.

“You’re going to have to learn to ignore what they say to you.”

But I can’t. It feels like the rest of the students are creating a movie about how awful I am. How I was the one who killed my parents, how I ruined six girls’ lives, how I led Alex on for months. And I, servant to my own morbid curiosity and apparent need to see myself suffer, haven’t left any of the group chats, haven’t asked any of them to leave me alone.

“One of them said I was bland, Colette. Bland and meek.”

It’s not remotely the worst thing they’ve said, but it has stuck with me.

Meek.

“Well …” says Magda, tilting her head from side to side like that might be a fair assessment. “You haven’t exactly got a zest for life.”

Colette throws the pillow at her head. “Magda!”

“She’s right,” says Divya, through a mouthful of popcorn. “There’s never any whimsy with you. You stomp around.”

“So does Magda!” I protest, sweeping a hand in the direction of the heavy platform boots that sit over her fishnet tights. Magda’s fashion sense lies somewhere between a ghost bride and Wednesday Addams, and she’s always matching her eyeliner to her braids.

See: Magda has it together. I really don’t.

“It’s part of her charm.”

I don’t even attempt to argue that I have charm. Whatever the opposite of charm is, I’ve got it.

Alex thought I had charm. Alex made me feel like I had charm.

Until he left me without giving me a chance to explain myself, that is.

I shrug the thought away, rising to my feet in the dull gloom of the Cortinar common room. It’s Saturday, so students are strewn about the large space, slouched on sofas or studying at vintage desks. The gold coffee machine at the far end of the lounge coughs and splutters, kicking out the rich smell of warm espresso.

I’m still upset that I wasn’t put into Cortinar.

I stretch my arms above my head and grab my swimming bag, ignoring the spiteful looks I get around the room from students who want me dead

for betraying their rugby-thighed, messy-haired prince.

“Nice sweater,” sneers the guy studying by the exit, eyes sweeping up and down my father’s jumper with a poorly concealed look of revulsion on his face. He’s said far worse about me this week, but my anger bubbles up in my throat all the same.

I plaster a sweet smile across my lips. “You’re nineteen, Hugo. Worry about your receding hairline first.”

An orchestra could play on that forehead.

I turn back to Colette, cocking my head toward the door. “Let’s go.”

She clambers to her feet, all long Bambi limbs and honey-blond hair that falls in big, loose waves around her pretty face. Her glossy bottom lip juts out, telling me she’s no keener to go to swimming practice than I am. But with my first term’s performance in the pool—or lack thereof—it’s a miracle I’ve not been kicked off the team yet.

My relationship with swimming, like my relationship with most things since the events of the past few months, has grown more complicated.

Swimming was my mother’s hobby. Something we did together, from when I was floating in orange armbands to when fuzzy photos of me with cheap plastic medals made the local newspaper.

Then she died. Competitive swimming lost its charm. The two faces I’d always looked for at the side of the pool, warm and reassuring, just weren’t there anymore. Burger and movie night to celebrate a new personal best became a memory so distant that it was hard to imagine it was ever real.

The chopping boards grew dusty, the fridge shelves stayed empty, and my school swimming gear never made it out of the bag again.

But I never stopped swimming. I may have traded the pool for lakes and rivers, lost the stopwatch, lost the passion, but I never stopped. It was the only thing that made me feel close to them. The only thing that numbed the jagged wound their absence left.

Now I’m not sure if I want to feel close to my mother at all. Her affair with Bancroft feels like a ruthless betrayal of my father, which feels like a betrayal of me, of every Christmas and birthday and movie night we all shared together.

My life at the moment is an endless string of not sures. I’m not sure who my mother was, not sure if my father knew about her cheating, either. I’m not sure why Alex left without a word, not sure if he’ll come back. I’m not

even sure if I’m angry with him, or if I’m just heartbroken for a boy who has let his life become the bridge that others walk on.

And I’m really, really not sure why I didn’t tell him about my plan to out his father, or that my intentions at the beginning of our relationship were not genuine. I replay them now, all the opportunities I had to come clean, all the opportunities I had to delete the document.

I guess I just didn’t want to let my parents down, to give up on getting some sort of justice for them, to feel like I was trading them in for Alex.

Now I have none of them.

Colette snorts beside me, taupe fingernails tapping at her phone screen.

“Vincenzo is so funny,” she sighs, grinning at the string of blue and gray texts. I smile back but don’t reply. Vincenzo doesn’t speak to me anymore.

I’m embarrassed to admit I miss him, too.

We wind our way out of the labyrinth of tunnels in the eastern wing of the castle, a poorly lit archway spitting us out into the valley outside. It’s not long past midday, but Sorrowsong is laden with thick, heavy clouds that make it look like it’s early evening. The damp air is rich with the smell of rain, but the storm looks like it might finally be easing off. A few white wisps of sunlight trickle through the patches where the cloud cover thins.

Colette slides her phone into the pocket of her fluffy white coat, giving me a serious look. “My love, if I read and believed everything that’s said about me by people who hardly know me, I’d never get out of bed. I get it: It’s new and novel to you. It’s unthinkable. Abhorrent. But it’s just the way

it works. We ignore it.”

“Do you think I’m bland?”

“I think you’re wonderful.”

“But am I wonderful in a bland way? Like salted crisps, or white bread?”

Her grin widens as we trudge up the path to the large, ornate Victorian glasshouse that encloses the pool. “I think you’re wonderful like roses.

Beautiful and prickly.”

Christ. “Is this about my unshaven legs?”

Her laugh is bright, too cheery for a place like this. “Mine are prickly, too. I miss my wax lady.”

Even if you melted down the entire contents of Madame Tussauds, it wouldn’t be enough wax to fix the state of my legs.

“Hey,” she says, changing the subject. “Still no more anonymous texts?”

That sours my mood further. I still don’t know who sent that message to me in the airport. The person with the most motive is Cain, but would he really waste his time with me? I have zero power and influence. Vin and Belladonna? They aren’t my biggest fans these days, especially Belladonna.

But somehow, I can’t believe it of them. Shawn’s friends? I’m sure they don’t love me, either. I run away from Carmichael at every opportunity, but he probably has my face on a dartboard. And there are always a few students up to something in the woods at night. Anyone could’ve stumbled upon us.

My friends and I have been trying to figure out my anonymous texter for weeks. Last Monday, they all sat in the high turret windows while I walked round the courtyard for an hour like a fly that can’t find the door. We were hoping they’d catch someone taking a photo of me, but no luck.

And when we caught Lettice Hartwick following me down to the tarn a few days ago, we thought we had it figured out, but no, it wasn’t her. Which I was quite pleased about, because being stalked is bad enough, but being stalked by someone called Lettice would be a new low, even for me.

I’d have gone straight to the police, if the image attached wasn’t a picture of Alex and me burying a body.

We killed a man together. Buried him together. And now I’m trying to deal with the consequences of that alone. Maybe killing someone doesn’t seem so significant in Alex’s world of wealth and power, but in my world of multipack crisps and laddered tights, it’s enough to keep me up at night.

I hug my knees to my chest on the bathroom floor in the early hours of each morning and try as hard as I can to justify a man’s death, scrub my fingers raw like they’re still caked in damp earth from the forest, and beg the universe to erase the things I saw that night from my memories.

He killed my parents because of his unhealthy obsession with my mother, because she wouldn’t run away with him. He had Cain make them disappear as payment for upholding his family man image.

A video of Cain sleeping with Carmichael’s secretary. That was the price of my parents’ existence. And so, the helicopter crash became the price for Bancroft’s existence.

It’s that way of thinking, like all of this is just a set of equations to be balanced, that scares me. It feels like Sorrowsong is rubbing off on me,

lacing those first few threads of corruption through my conscience.

Everyone has a limit at which they abandon their own morality, Ophelia Winters, even you.

It was one of the first things Carmichael ever said to me, the two of us beneath Achlys’s haunting stare on my first day here. I guess I reached that limit sooner than I thought.

“No, no more texts,” I finally breathe out, realizing Colette has stopped walking in favor of watching me with great concern.

My new stalker had asked me to hand myself over, but if it’s Cain, I have no idea where he is, and if it’s not, I have no idea who this person is.

So, I decided to remain silent, surrounded by friends. Weeks later, it seems to be paying off. I haven’t heard from that number again. If Cain wants to find me, he’ll have to walk onto a busy university campus.

With Belladonna in it.

At the rusting entrance, I swap my fading leather boots for sliders and head to the pool, where the aforementioned Mafia heiress is gliding through the water at a pace that makes it clear why she’s the captain. One toned, tattooed arm hits the tiled edge and she surfaces, pulling off her cap and goggles and glaring at us. Even if I did manage to grow a backbone—even if I managed to grow nineteen backbones—I’d still be scared of her.

“Go and warm up,” she barks, more at Colette than me. She’s made it clear that she believes that what happened to Alex was my doing and wants nothing to do with me, either. For the most part, I can handle the online abuse, the stares and the venomous looks, and the snickers whenever I ask a question in a lecture, but when they come from someone I’d hoped might be my friend one day, it feels a whole lot worse.

SWIM PRACTICE IS grueling. I stay long after the others leave. Length after length with Belladonna shouting at me. Too slow, too sloppy, too tense, too relaxed. Steve, the actual swim coach, can’t get a word in edgewise. He’s a short, wiry man who wears a navy tracksuit that tells me he’s clinging onto his youth as hard as he is to the remaining strands of hair dotting the back of his head.

He might be the only person more scared of Belladonna than I am.

My final one hundred is fueled only by frustration and spite. A determined chant of don’t cry don’t cry don’t cry rattles around my brain.

Miraculously, it’s my fastest time of the day.

I haul myself out of the pool, thighs landing on the edge with a wet slap as my mantra of don’t cry turns to don’t vomit.

“Good job, Ophelia,” Steve says, like it has just occurred to him that he is a coach.

Belladonna crosses her arms. “Keep swimming like that, and there’s a slim chance you might not lose everything this season.”

From her, it’s high praise, and I take it as a win.

She’s the only one in the poorly lit changing room when I emerge from the showers, tugging a hoodie over my head. Industrial iron lockers line one wall, oak benches along the other. The stained plaster is peeling to reveal gray brick beneath. It looks postapocalyptic in here, like a war bunker.

Belladonna doesn’t glance in my direction, focusing instead on stuffing a folded towel into her bag. The atmosphere is awkward as I pull my duffel from my rusty locker, half expecting a knife to land in my back.

“How is he?”

It takes me a minute to realize it’s my mouth those words have slipped out of. Those words I’ve held on to so tightly, swallowed down at every opportunity, creeping out without my permission.

She looks like she can’t believe I’ve just said that. I can’t believe I’ve just said that.

“How do you think he is?” she snaps, picking up her bag with far more force than is required.

I don’t know why it makes my stomach sink; it’s not like it’s a surprise that Alex is suffering. I know how sick his mom is, how lost his sisters are, how heavy his father’s disappearance must weigh on him, how busy Green must keep him. I’ve seen videos on social media of Fleur lashing out in clothing stores, smoking outside bars she’s far too young to be at, arguing on the street with her new boyfriend.

Deliberately or not, I did that to them.

“He left, Belladonna,” I say, not convincing enough for either of us. “He left without a word.”

What happened between Alex and me was a mess, a complete injustice to what I felt for him, to what I’d dreamed of for our future. I let my

desperation for revenge take the reins on my life for four years. I let the grief I felt over my parents prevent me from doing the one thing they always wanted me to do: live.

But he believed them. The papers, the media. The lies and the deceit. I made a space for him in my heart, and he walked away.

Belladonna is facing me now, stalking over until she’s almost nose to nose with me. She’s taller, wider, stronger. The delicate vine tattoos that peek out from the neckline of her hoodie stretch as her jaw ticks. “He left because you put six girls into a relentless wheel of media attention. Didn’t you think his mom was sick enough already?”

“It. Wasn’t. Me.” I’ve said it so many times, I’m convinced the words are etched onto my tongue, bleached onto my soul.

Her nostrils flare, pale blue gaze icy. I’m sure she can smell my fear. I don’t doubt that Belladonna would kill—maybe even has killed—for those she loves. “Do us all a favor and stay out of his life, Winters. He doesn’t need any more mess.”

The final word comes out laden with so much malice, so much intention, that despite my desperate efforts to thicken my skin over the past few weeks, it slips inside like a hot knife through butter.

Mess. That’s what she thinks I am to Alex.

She stalks away before I can think of a clever reply, shouting over her shoulder as she leaves. “You’re kicking too wide on your breaststroke.

That’s why you suck.”

The door slamming rattles my bones, teeth chattering as wind slips through the cracked windows. I sink down to the bench, letting my head hang in despair.

A heavy silence settles in the locker room.

My fingers fumble with the laces on my boots, hurrying to zip up my bag. Like every time I’m alone here, my heart rate spikes where it thuds in my throat. Bancroft may be dead, but it doesn’t stop me feeling watched everywhere I go, hearing twigs snap behind me in the forest, sensing someone standing on the other side of every door.

I glance over my shoulder whenever I walk along the path to the Nightshade mansion. I double lock my room each night, slide the chair beneath the handle.

Someone took that photo of us in the forest. I’m 99 percent sure it must’ve been Shawn. Who else would be following me? No one on campus other than him has shown an interest in me at all.

And that 99 percent is enough for me, until the early hours of the morning, where sleep deprivation has made me paranoid, and that extra one percent shouts louder than the rest. I’ve buried one stalker. I just hope my silence is enough to stall the anger of whoever sent that photo.

I don’t feel safe here, and I don’t feel safe back at my parents’ house. It feels so ridiculous that despite the magnitude of the last few months— falling in love, learning to trust, almost being killed, taking down Cain Green—I don’t feel any safer than I did when I first arrived at Sorrowsong last autumn.

My phone buzzes in my bag as I head out of the changing rooms and leave the glass pool house. A dangerous bulb of hope illuminates at the back of my mind.

Could it be him? Do I even want it to be him? I hold my breath as I rifle around in my bag, thinking of what it is I’d say. I’m sorry? Why did you leave? I’m angry with you. How is your mom? I passed the exams I thought I’d fail, beat the freestyle personal best I never thought I would.

I think about you all the time.

A hundred and one things flit through my brain as my hand finally finds the device amongst the empty cereal bar wrappers and lip balms.

It isn’t him. It’s an unknown number.

A shadow moves in the corner of my vision, making me jump.

But nothing is there, just a bush rustling in the wind.

I pick up the call but don’t speak, waiting anxiously as I scan every single gap in the trees.

A gruff American accent breaks the silence. “Ms. Ophelia Winters?”

“Speaking.”

“My name is Mack; I lead a firm working for Mr. Corbeau-Green to investigate his father’s disappearance.”

“Oh.” Even his name hurts. “I see.”

“I wondered if you had time to answer a couple of questions?”

I glance over my shoulder at the sound of footsteps in the trees but see nothing. “Uhh … okay. How do I know you’re … real?”

“I can fly to Scotland tomorrow, if you’d prefer. Or have you flown to New York.”

“No!” I drag in a ragged inhale, trying to calm my tone. Even the idea of getting on a plane has my hands clammy. “No, thank you. I’m afraid of flying, and you don’t need to come here.”

“I can put you on the phone to Mr. Corbeau, to ease your worries?”

A long silence stretches out over the line. I imagine a brief phone call, sandwiched between meetings, curt and businesslike. I’m not ready for that.

“No, no. Bear with me.”

If I texted Belladonna now, she’d probably use her influence to make my phone explode in my hand, or something. I don’t know where I stand with Vincenzo these days, but I know he wouldn’t lie to me.

Ophelia Winters Do you know a guy called Mack?

Vincenzo Morello Alex’s investigator?

Ophelia Winters So he’s legit, then.

Vincenzo Morello One of the best.

“Okay, fine,” I breathe, suitably appeased. “What do you want to know?”

His voice is crackly from lack of signal. “Have you seen, heard, or received anything suspicious since Cain Green went missing?”

I open my mouth to tell him about the text I received at the airport but shut it just as quickly when I remember what was in that text message. A photo of Alex and me, both dirty and bloodied, standing over a dying man in the forest. If this guy is working with the police, that’s probably not the best idea.

I’d die burying that photo if it meant those girls didn’t lose another parental figure in their lives.

But hiding the truth from Alex is something I’m trying to leave behind.

“I … I think I need to speak to Alex first.”

“You’re free to say as you wish without judgement.”

Yeah, but is that I stole a cookie from a bakery when I was nine sort of no judgement, or I stabbed my lecturer and spat on his dead body sort of no judgement. “I got a text from someone.”

I snap my mouth shut before I say any more.

“And this was before or after Alex buried your stalker?”

Oh. Well, that clears that up. “I … you …”

“I’m not interested in putting you behind bars, Ms. Winters. I’m more interested in keeping Alex and his sisters safe.”

“It was after. It was the day the article went live. It had a … it had a

photo in it.”

“To your personal phone?”

“Yes, it’s my only phone.”

“Are you busy tomorrow? I’d like to have a look at your phone to see what I can gather from the text.”

I toe my boot in the wet mud beneath my feet, desperate to leave all of this behind. To leave Bancroft behind, Cain behind, Sorrowsong behind.

“I’m not busy.”

His tone is sharp and efficient, like I’m helping him get through his boring to-do list. “Great. I’ll fly in later tonight.”

The line drops before I can ask him anything else, leaving me stranded and shivering on the forested path back to the castle. A shudder up my spine sends a puff of white breath into the frigid air, and when I walk toward my lecture in the tallest spire, eyes weigh heavy on my back the whole time.

A STRONG GUST of wind sweeps through the valley, rattling the ancient window in its frame.

A thin strip of moonlight illuminates the dust on the cold tile of my bedroom. I can hear a few students laughing outside the mansion, despite it being past three in the morning.

I’m fighting sleep. This is how it goes every night: deluding myself into thinking I’m some new breed of human who just doesn’t need rest.

My friendships may be growing, my fitness improving, my grades recovering, but my nightmares couldn’t be any worse. It’s so bad, the guy across the hall has filed a noise complaint.

I was sleeping better when Alex … never mind.

Why did he leave without a word?

I should let this go, move on, think about something else, but I can’t. I understand why he left that day, I understand why he took the CEO position, I understand why he dropped out of university, I understand everything except one thing.

Why didn’t he wake me up and fight for us?

I can only imagine his mental state that morning. Alex was doing better in the months before he left, but I’d still seen him at his lowest. Those sporadic evenings when he’d ask me to leave, tell me he felt so low that he might never get out of bed again.

Depression can be a cruel illness. When I checked the news every ten seconds for the rest of that day, it wasn’t for news of his father’s demise, it was for his.

So like I always do at this hour, when the Nightshade mansion howls and groans under the biting wind, I allow myself to hunt for any scraps of Alex I can find.

He makes it all look easy. I’ve watched each press conference, each blurry paparazzi video. Christ, I even got a one-month subscription to the Financial Times to see an article about him.

When you find yourself reading your third hedge fund managers’ take on the upcoming quarter to get full value out of your news subscription, you know you’ve fallen a bit too hard for a man.

It can’t get lower than this.

Fleur’s Instagram story is a mirror selfie with her new boyfriend. If I wasn’t trying to be less skeptical and judgmental about the world, I’d say he

looks like an absolute wanker.

But I am, so I won’t.

Mia still lets me follow her private account with a hundred followers, but she, like the other five of her siblings, has been radio silent for the last month.

I’m worried about him. I hope he started those antidepressants, is keeping up his sessions with Harwood. I hope he’s not spreading himself too thin, but I know he is.

In the eerie darkness, I furiously brush away my tears before they have the chance to fall. I’m angry with myself, frustrated that no matter how many times I try to toughen up, feel less, move on, it doesn’t work.

I want to be more like Belladonna, but it sure is harder than she makes it look.

I shut off my phone, plunging the room into darkness. I squeeze my eyes shut before they can adjust, before I can see Sofia’s untouched bed, the cobwebs on the walls, the knife on the bedside table. With the bitter chill of an overnight snow seeping through the walls, I bury my head beneath the

blankets and try, try, try to relax.

Ping.

A text notification rings through, loud and clear in the silent room.

I can’t explain the bad feeling that washes over me, the way that ping sounds so much more menacing than the other identical ones today. The note is too high, too shrill, too out of tune. It echoes between the decaying beams above me and lands right in my stomach with a nauseating thud.

Through one squinted eye, as if that might make it any better, I risk a glance at the text.

I let my phone clatter back down to the side table, let my head fall back to the bed. It’s not dread, or horror, or fear that runs through me. It’s exasperation. A complete exhaustion, sapping the fight out of me.

I can’t do this again. I can’t take this anymore.

I turn over, burying my face in the blanket so I don’t have to see the blurry photo, sent from the anonymous number, of me walking out of the swimming pool greenhouse earlier today.