I can see you

Chapter 29

(ROSY'S POV)

The voice wasn't gone. It was just quieter and more still now. It felt like a storm that had gone still but not moved on. That was worse because silence, I was learning, doesn't mean safety. It just means something is waiting for you in the dark.

I stood at the sink brushing my teeth like everything was fine. I even hummed a little but the moment I glanced up, the reflection staring back wasn't mine. The expression was too composed. Eyes were too sharp and lips too still.

It was me but also not me. It was the version of me that watched instead of lived. And she blinked half a second late, like she was still learning how.

Then I turned around and she was sitting there. Perched on the edge of the tub like she'd never left. Wearing her ironed white blouse, collar too tight, lipstick smudged but perfect. Her ankles crossed. Her smile sharp and paper-thin.

My mother.

"What a lovely mess you've made," she said, tapping her nails against her wrist like counting heartbeats. I said nothing.
"You know what your problem is?" she asked. "You still think you're real."

I looked her in the eye. "I am."

She tilted her head. "No, sweetheart. You were just born to protect someone who didn't want to be protected anymore." She leaned forward, like she was telling me a secret. "You're not the original. You're the echo."

I blinked and she was gone but the smell of her perfume - fake roses and antiseptic - clung to the tile and to my skin.

Edward was in the kitchen, pouring coffee with his back to me. I knew from the way his shoulders moved that he hadn't slept either. I didn't waste time.

"I need to tell you something," I said, and the words already felt like they belonged to someone else.

He turned around, face unreadable, but I saw the way his hand tightened around the mug. I hesitated. The words were lined up in my throat, but I couldn't trust them. Not yet. Not even with him.

I'd spent weeks thinking I was the one holding secrets, the one orchestrating the game but now I wasn't even sure if I was the player or the pawn. I looked at Edward and wondered if he'd still look at me the same once I said Killian's name aloud.

What if I was wrong again? What if this was another trap, another manipulation?But silence, I was learning, doesn't protect you. It just delays the explosion.

"I met someone," I said. "A few months ago."

He was silent and waiting.

"A man. He had told me that he was from the same orphanage as me."

"He said I had a twin. Riya. He said he would help me find her. He had Said that I needed closer and maybe that's why I couldn't remember anything. He showed me photos, diaries and evidence of her existence."

I swallowed. "And I believed him."

Edward didn't move. I felt like I was confessing to a murder all over again.

"I told him about you and I believed him when he said you'd hurt me. That you needed to be controlled."

Now Edward's jaw tightened. I watched the muscles in his cheek twitch.

"He helped me plan the abduction. Helped me arrange that house." I didn't look away.
"He told me to take it all slow and make you realise that you love me. He said if I went slow... you'd fall in love with me. That the part of you that watched me from the shadows could be guided and softened."

I paused and took a deep breath then finally said it, "He said his name was Killian".

The second I said the name, something shifted in him. His fingers tightened around the mug so hard I thought it might crack. But his face, his face didn't move. Not even a flinch. And that scared me more than if he had because it meant he knew.