When I had existed as a spirit, I had co across things that should have broken a bracelet strung with beads crafted from what remained of my body, a statue shaped from my own flesh and blood, a book bound in human skin. I had seen all of it from a distance, floating and untethered, unable to feel it the way a living person would. I had never seen the actual mont my body was taken apart.
The photo on my phone showed exactly that.
Seeing it hit in a completely different way than Randy’s severed head had. My entire body began to shake before my mind had even finished processing what I was looking at. My eyes went wide and my throat closed up entirely, like sothing invisible had reached in and taken hold of it. I couldn’t make a sound. I had always assud that extre fear ca with screaming but it didn’t. It ca with silence. Complete, suffocating silence, while the world continued moving around you.
Whitney noticed before I could say anything. "Elena what’s wrong?"
I managed one word. "Photo."
She took the phone, looked at it for less than two seconds, and turned her head. "Lewis!"
He was already moving by the ti she called his na, coming through the door with the particular alertness of soone who had been listening for exactly this kind of sound. Whitney passed him the phone without a word. "Soone sent this to Elena deliberately."
Lewis pulled into his arms imdiately, his voice low and steady against my hair. "It’s okay. You’re okay. I’ve got you."
My thoughts were already moving faster than I could organize them. "It’s Wisteria. She’s not dead."
No one else made sense. The Blackwells whoever might still be alive among them had no reason to send sothing like this. They didn’t hate that way, not anymore. Whitney had been there the night of the heart transplant, but Vito had made sure she was removed before the worst of it. She had never seen anything like what was in that photo. Yael had told once that he had co later, after the fact he hadn’t been present when those images were taken. And Amber, even consud as she was with Lewis, wouldn’t waste ti on sothing like this, especially not with Dominic beside her.
Only one person had both the motive and the capacity for sothing this specific, this personal, this designed to destroy rather than simply harm.
Wisteria. And Silas was gone, which ant there was no one left to temper whatever she had beco.
The phone buzzed again in Lewis’s hand.
He checked it without showing the screen first, which told whatever it was, he was deciding whether I could handle it. After a brief pause, he read it aloud in a flat, controlled voice.
I will always be watching you, Elena. If I can’t have happiness, neither can you.
The room went very quiet.
Whitney’s expression darkened completely. "It’s her," she said, almost to herself. "She survived."
Lewis was already moving copying the number, forwarding it to his own device, sending it to soone who could trace it. He did it all without urgency, in the calm, thodical way he handled things that required precision rather than speed. When it was done, he turned back to . "If she’s alive, then that’s a problem we can fix. Everything she’s done it’s in the past. Don’t be afraid."
"Okay," I said.
I focused on breathing. Slowly, the shaking began to ease, and the cold grip on my throat loosened enough for to think clearly again. I made myself co back to the room, to Lewis’s arms, to the present.
"Lewis," I said, once I trusted my voice. "Whitney ntioned yesterday that she felt soone following her on the way to school. You need to look into that. Whatever Wisteria is doing, it’s not random there’s a pattern here and I can’t see it yet."
The situation kept pointing at , but it kept circling Whitney. That connection was too consistent to be coincidence. Was Wisteria planning to go after everyone connected to the Morrigans? Or had she not found a clear path to yet, and was making suffer from a distance in the anti while she waited?
Sothing still didn’t fit. I could feel it that specific unease of a puzzle with a missing piece that changes the entire picture.
"I’ve already sent soone to trace the route," Lewis said. "The tracking puts her near the school, but there were too many people in that area at the ti to isolate a specific person. Until we know more, both of you stay inside. Don’t go out."
Whitney nodded. "Understood."
Lewis got to his feet. "I need to step out for a bit."
She looked up at him. "Any news yet? About the Blackwells?"
He shook his head. "Nothing yet. If anything cos through, I’ll tell you imdiately."
"Okay." The heaviness in her eyes said the rest.
Lewis paused at the door and looked back at . "Wisteria wants to take your happiness away from you. Don’t hand it to her. Try to eat sothing."
"Okay," I said again.
I knew the road ahead wasn’t going to be easy. My body had already developed a pattern of its own nausea hitting without warning, a few bites down, then everything coming back up. It happened again now. I forced myself through it, waited until my stomach settled, and tried again. The second attempt went a little better than the first. Slowly, my body was learning that food was not the enemy, even if it currently disagreed.
Whitney watched the whole thing with an expression that made my chest hurt. She reached out and placed her hand very gently over my stomach, her voice dropping to sothing soft and private. "Baby, please behave. Your mom is exhausted. She’s doing her best."
I wiped my mouth with a tissue and smiled at her despite everything. "The baby isn’t even fully ford yet. It can’t understand you."
Whitney’s whole expression shifted when the subject turned to the baby sothing lighter moved into her face, sothing that the grief and the fear hadn’t completely reached yet. "Do you think we’ll be able to hear the heartbeat in two weeks?"
I looked at her and felt, underneath all the weight of everything pressing down on us, a small and steady warmth.
"I hope so," I said. "I really hope so."
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